Fearless Female Blog Post...A Little Late (Surprising Fact!)

Julia K. Sommer & Maria Elisabetha Rusch Sommer

ca. 1880

photo owned by M. Devers

Within the last year and a half, I have discovered a number of my German ancestors and have written about them in several posts. Through a distant cousin I have even acquired a few photographs as well. One fearless woman I have continued to research is my Great Great Great Grandmother Maria Elisabetha Rusch Sommer. According to her daughter Catharina's death certificate (my GG grandmother) Catharina was born in Neckargemund, Germany. Wow, with that little tid bit of information, I started my "Mission Possible". Here is what I have discovered through church and village records about Maria Elisabeth Rusch Sommer.

Maria used the name Elisabetha throughout her life, she dropped the Maria. She married Johann Gottlieb Sommer March 30, 1841. They had at least ten children...

1) Johann Daniel Sommer, 1841

2) Friedericka Jacobina Johanna Sommer, 1843

3) Martin Sommer, ca. 1844

4) Jacob, 1844

5) Fredericka, 1846

6) Catharina Julia, 1849 (my GG grandmother)

7) Julia Catharina, 1851

8) Georg, 1852

9) Johann Gottlieb, ca. 1858

10) Johann Michael, ca. 1859

Unfortunately, quite a number of these children died in infancy or before the age of five. I believe Gottlieb died in 1863, I recently discovered his death record and need to send it in for translation. That left a widowed Elisabeth with at least several children to care for. I have a major blank in the history at this point in time, until she immigrated to the United States in September of 1881. She arrived with her daughter Julia, her cousin Phillipina and her granddaughter Julia K. Sommer (Daniel's daughter). At this time I do not know why her grand daughter was permitted to come with her. She lived out her last fourteen years here in Chicago, Illinois. She is buried in Oakwoods Cemetery with the simple inscription on the headstone that reads "Grandmother".

I had believed that Elisabeth was born in 1816. That is the age that corresponds to her death certificate, however, I recently had her birth and baptismal records translated and they indicate she was actually born on July 30th, 1814 at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE....ding, ding, ding....wasn't that date the SAME date that Gottlieb was born???

Yes it was! According to church records, Gottlieb was born on July 30th, 1814 at 8 o'clock in the morning. What are the chances of these two people born on the same date, in the same town of Neckargemund, marrying each other? Hmmmm, was this an arranged marriage? I have no idea at this point in time. I can't wait to continue my research on this wonderful and fearless woman!

Using the library!

Elisabeth Rusch Sommer &

her granddaughter Julia K. Sommer

ca. 1880's

Elisabeth Rusch Sommer is my GG Great Grandmother. She was born in 1816 in Germany and died here in Chicago on December 30, 1899. Last year, through an internet connection, I was blessed in discovering a distant cousin who provided me with the above picture.

Well, it's a New Year, so it's about time I wrote about my continuing research on my Sommer/Rusch ancestors. I devoted almost all of 2009 to researching just these two families. I am happy to say I found quite a number of great connections and of course, with those connections come even more questions.

Amy Coffin from the We Tree blog came up with weekly blog ideas for all 52 weeks of 2010! Thank you Amy. Week one suggests using the library for your research. Great suggestion, for I work at both an Academic library and a Public library. Both of which can provide great resources for searching your family history.

I live in a pretty small community on the very south side of Chicago. My public library is small and unfortunately you wouldn't find too much information on genealogy on the shelves. However, thanks to an Inter-library Loan program I can request almost any book from any library in the United States. I request a lot of books too. I love using WorldCat and finding many many books on not only specific locations, topics, but also surnames! One of the books I am currently reading is the fourth edition of "In Search of Your German Ancestors" by Angus Baxter. I like this book so much I most likely will order it from Amazon.com. Many public libraries will have the library edition of Ancestry.com on their public computers. Who wouldn't love using Ancestry.com for their research? Although my public library doesn't subscribe to Ancestry.com, there are a number of larger libraries in the area that do subscribe to this great database. I can use their electronic databases when I visit their library.

At Governors State University library you will find the Chicago Tribune on microfilm going back to 1885! What a great resource for death notices and obituaries!

Another great resource I use at least once a month is the Chicago Heights Family History Center. I have requested many reels of microfilm from their library for my German family research. Thanks to those many reels of microfilm and many more hours reading them, I have discovered a lot of information on my Rusch and Sommer ancestors from Neckargemund, Germany. I am slowly connecting the dots, crossing the t's and dotting the i's!

Thank you Amy for suggesting people use their public libraries! They may also want to look at the local universities and Family History Centers too for discovering more information on their family history!

My Ancestors from: Neckargemund, Germany

Neckargemund, Germany

Home of my Sommer/Rusch ancestors

I have recently been working with a wonderful woman, Nancy Grossman, who I learned about from the Newberry Library here in Chicago. Nancy does genealogy and history research and she specializes in German genealogy both here and abroad. LUCKY ME!!

I contacted Nancy and via email sent her four of my many, many, many German documents. These four I believed were birth and death Church records of my Sommer relatives from Neckargemund, Germany. Being that I am always on a budget regarding my genealogy quests I was thrilled that Nancy's fee for translating all four documents was minimal. Better yet, I had the translations in less than two days!

So, I thought I would share two of those documents. This translation is my GG grandmother Katharina Juliana Sommer's birth certificate. It reads as follows:

1849

In the year of 1849 on the 18th of January at two o'clock in the morning, a girl was born. She was baptised on the 24th of January and named Katharina Juliana. The parents are: Gottlieb SOMMER, local citizen and flour dealer and his wife Elisabetha nee RUSCH. Witnesses and Godparents are: 1) Friederich RUSCH, baker from here and brother (of Elisabetha), 2) Jacob KNORR, local citizen and baker.

***Notes: from Nancy Grossman

Flour dealers go hand in hand with the baking industry! (Thank you for this note Nancy!)

Now, Katharina immigrated here to the Chicago area in the early 1880's with her widowed mother Elisabetha and her sister Juliana. Here is Juliana's birth certificate translation.

It reads as follows:

1851

In the year 1851, here in Neckargemund on the 8th of January at eight o'clock in the morning, a baby girl was born. She was baptised on the 3rd of February at two o'clock in the afternoon, and named Katharina Juliana. The parents are: Gottlieb SOMMER, local citizen and flour dealer and his wife Elisabetha nee RUSCH. The witnesses and Godparents are: 1) Jacob KNORR, local citizen and master baker 2) his wife Katharina, 3) Friederich RUSCH, the unmarried brother of the mother of the child, a baker from here (Neckargemund).

Neckargemund, the 3rd of February, 1851

***Notes: from Nancy Grossman

Another relative...Friederich RUSCH, Elisabetha's brother! Jacob KNORR may have been a relative as well, possibly an in-law on the mother of the father's side.

***Additional Notes: from Nancy Grossman

I wouldn't say it was common for siblings to have the same name, but it was not unusual. The sisters had the same Godparents too. This may have something to do with it. For example, both were probably namesakes of their Godparent Katharina KNORR, Jacob's wife. Re. the name Juliana, I can't say yet. The sisters may have been named after the same person, or two different people with the same name.

When I find siblings with the same name, it is customary like in your family, for each sibling to take a different part of the name as their dominant one;i.e. one became Katharina and the other, as Julia.

Again, much thanks to Nancy.

So, did I learn anything NEW?? Yes, I did! I now have the names of Godparents, the exact dates of birth, father's occupation, and yet another family connection with Friederich! I could not be happier!

I also can't wait to scan more documents to Nancy for translation! YIPPEE!!

Blogging=Family Connections

Yesterday was a terrific day! I met with a new cousin-Marian, who had posted a comment on my blog a little while ago. Marian found my blog by searching the internet. I had mentioned in a post that my ggg grandmother Elizabeth's hometown was Neckargemund, Germany. That little post on my blog connected me to new found family! Both of us have been looking for Sommer relatives for sometime now, although I freely admit that Marian has been working on the Sommer line longer than I and looking for relatives much longer than I. We share a great grandmother-Elizabeth Rusch Sommer, actually Elizabeth is my GGG grandmother and Marian's GG grandmother.
We both brought our Sommer binders filled with family trees, vital records, obituaries, and more. It was so exciting to find someone who shares my obsession with my family history. Plus, we each confirmed the other's information! We gabbed and gabbed for 2 1/2 hours in the warmth and comfort of the local Panera restaurant, talking about our relatives, stories past down to us, and new discoveries that we have made. It was the perfect way to start off a Sunday...plus, we plan on meeting together again in about one month....next time I'll remember the photographs!