Black Forest Nussbergers

My German immigrant ancestors are Casper Nussberger and his father, Johann Nussberger.  Johann Nussberger came to the United States with two of his sons - Casper and Conrad - aboard the Belgique on 27 October 1856.  He brought no wife with him and married, by 1870, Cecilia Ebener.  In the 1860 U.S. Federal Census for Bear Creek, Wisconsin, Johann Nussberger heads a household with four boys - no female lives in the household.  The boys are 14 year old Casper, 9 year old Conrad, 3 year old Hans, and an unnamed 1 month old male, indicating Johann Nussberger may have remarried sometime after arriving in the United States and before he married Cecilia Ebener.  (Or he had two children out of wedlock before marrying Cecilia Ebener.)  In any case, we have two possible mystery mothers.  By 1860, Johann had dropped the an in his name and started calling himself "John."  Clearly, the mother of Hans and the 1 month old male of the 1860 census are not the same person as the mother of Pauline, Mary, and John Jr., who are born in the years 1861-1865.  We have three wives here - the first one lived and died in Germany before October 1856, the second who died before June 1860, and Cecilia Ebener, the third wife, who had her first child with John/Johann Nussberger in 1861.  Judging by the age of the baby boy in the 1860 census (one month), the mother of that child - if legitimate - likely died in early to mid June of 1860, given the census date of 29 June 1860.  The baby is likely Benedict Nussberger and, if that's the case, the 1900 census with a birth date in March of 1858 may be incorrect.

However, Benedict Nussberger is not the individual I am interested in at the moment.  My concern is with the identity of the woman who bore my direct ancestor, Casper Nussberger, the first wife, who died in Germany.  For a long time, I could find nothing on her.  Let's face it, I didn't even know where to look or where to begin.  My first thought was Ancestry, but there was nothing there.  They have only recently begun to put German records on the site and I don't have the World Deluxe Membership that would grant me access to those records.  There was nothing on the LDS site, Family Search, at the time.  The German sites I knew of were not much help either.  I found Johann Nussberger's immigration records on Auswanderer, but nothing of course on his wife.  Not having a knowledge of German does not help me, but my thought was that I initially had no knowledge of Norwegian when I began researching my Norwegian ancestors on Norwegian sites - I learned to read a little Norwegian.  I learned to read Gothic handwriting.  I could learn a little German, too.  Why not?

Then, this last week, I visited Family Search Labs, an experimental LDS website.  Family Search Labs has a record search project that you can enter and type in names of ancestors and find records.  You can even view actual images of some of these records online and if you haven't tried this site, I highly recommend you do.  I typed "Johan Nussberger" in the name fields and by the end of the night had my German ancestors back to the 18th century.

Best of all, I had found the mother of Casper Nussberger -- Magdalena Spiegelhalter/Spiegelhalder, daughter of Andreas Spiegelhalter and Maria Siebler, born 31 August 1819 in Holzschlag, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany.  I found the marriage record of Johan Nussberger and Magdalena Spiegelhalter after finding the baptism records of their children and the marriage record had the birth dates, christening dates, marriage date, and parents of both spouses.  Johan Nussberger and Magdalena Spiegelhalter had more than two children, some of whom died in childhood or married before Johan left for the United States.  So Nussbergers of Wheeler, Dunn and Durand, Pepin, Wisconsin, you have relatives who were left behind in Germany!

The caveat is the German records online are merely indexes, so must be checked against the original records for accuracy.  I sense a major project coming on...

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Getting to Joseph Bartlett of Newton

I thought it would be helpful to publish a five generation pedigree chart leading to Joseph Bartlett of Newton, then a suburb of Boston, in Massachusetts:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6213013/Am-as-a-Harrington-Pedigree

Am as a Harrington Pedigree - Upload a Document to Scribd

The line leading to Joseph Bartlett of Newton is highlighted.

Casting Bricks

There are two separate Parker lines in my maternal heritage - one that straddles the 18th-20th centuries and another straddling the 16th and 17th centuries.  What if these two lines were intertwined, interconnected, one eventually leading into the other?  This is a game I play with myself.  I almost wish it were true, that I could find evidence that it were true.  I can play this game because I have a brick wall in my Parker research that has stymied genealogists for generations.

The latter day Parkers moved about quite a bit, moving from Pennsylvania to Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and, eventually, Wisconsin, where they settled.  My direct Parker ancestor is Mary Ann Belle Parker (1824-1907), who married William C.D. Harrington (1814-1890) at the age of 15, with full permission from her father, Wilson Parker Sr.  I know she had full permission from her father, because I have a photocopy of the original document, written in Wilson Parker's own penmanship, giving her over to W.C.D. Harrington as a bride.  Mary Ann Belle Parker and William C.D. Harrington settled in Dunn County, Wisconsin sometime between 1858 and 1860 and spent much of the remainder of their lives in Menomonie and Tainter Townships.

 

In 1849 they can be found in Marine Mills, Washington County, Minnesota, living next door to Wilson Parker Sr.  By 1852, they are in Lyon's Township, Clinton, Iowa, according to the Iowa Census.  Then, in 1860, they are in Dunn, Wisconsin.  We know they had moved to Tainter, Dunn, Wisconsin by 1858 because their son, James, was born in Tainter in 1858.  Another of their sons, Andrew, was born in Iowa in 1852.  In between James and Andrew, another son was born - Alva.  Many researchers list Alva's birthplace as Minnesota.  Then again, many researchers also list Andrew's birthplace as Minnesota, whereas multiple census records indicate he was born in Iowa.  I have yet to find a state census showing where this family was living in 1856.  I am fairly certain they were in one of three places:  Minnesota, Iowa, or Wisconsin.  I strongly suspect they were not in Minnesota, but until I have facts, I cannot rule Minnesota out.

We find this family in the 1850 federal census as well, still living in Marine Mills, Washington, Minnesota.  Wilson Parker Sr. is no longer a head of household at that location.  He disappears and I have been unable to locate him in the 1850 census.  A Wilson Parker appears in the 1854 Iowa state census for Jackson in Lee County living next door to John Terrell, brother of Rebecca Terrell, the latter of whom married Wilson Parker Jr.  However, this is more likely to be Wilson Parker Jr. than his father, Wilson Parker Sr.

Basically, we do not know what happened to Wilson Parker Sr. or where he wound up. It is possible he was missed by the 1850 census if he was in the process of moving across country again.  However, it is also possible that he died in 1849 in Minnesota.  Wilson Parker Sr.'s death is a mystery.  We do not know when or where he died.

Similarly, Wilson Parker Sr.'s birth is an enigma.  We know he was born in 1792, but we have not found any records indicating his birth.  In the 1880 census, we find that Mary Ann Belle (Parker) Harrington's father was born in Pennsylvania and her mother in Kentucky.  But how reliable is this information?  Considering William C.D.'s parents are both listed as having been born in England, I would take this information with a grain of salt.  William C.D. Harrington's parents were born in New York (mother, Thankful Dean) and Massachusetts (father, Amasa Harrington).  It is possible that W.C.D. replied "New England" when asked by the enumerator where his parents were born, thinking the enumerator had asked him where his father was born.  The enumerator may then have written down that W.C.D.'s parents were born in England, not having heard correctly.  Then again, one of his children or one of the neighbors could have given the information about this family, in which case, the information it contains is inaccurate.  In any case, the birth information for Mary Ann Belle's parents may still be correct.  Perhaps the enumerator merely got the states mixed up.  In other words, how do we know that Wilson Parker Sr. wasn't born in Kentucky and his wife, Patience Watson,  in Pennsylvania?

In general, we are casting bricks at a brick wall.  This may not help in the short run (and looks a little foolish), but if we cast enough bricks at this brick wall, either the bricks will eventually come tumbling down or the wall will rise larger in height.

Technorati Tags: genealogy,Parker,Wisconsin,Tainter,Dunn,Menomonie,"brick wall",bricks "Mary Ann Belle Parker","William C.D. Harrington","Wilson Parker"

Welcome!

Welcome to Tiffany Creek, a new blog about ancestors from Dunn and Pepin counties in Wisconsin. I will be posting information about my Wisconsin ancestors here, as well as information about other individuals who lived in the area. With any luck, I will help others researching ancestors from this region. I welcome your comments and suggestions. I am still in the process of tweaking the settings and layouts of this blog, so you can expect changes. I intend to make Tiffany Creek more attractive than it is now, but that will take some time. In the meantime, enjoy my posts and sign my guestbook, please!

A short list of surnames I am researching in this region:
Butterfield
Harrington
Parker
Nussberger

Note that this list is not all-inclusive and there are other surnames I have information about and am researching. The Nussbergers came to America in 1847 and settled in Bear Creek, Pepin, Wisconsin, which was later renamed Durand. The Parkers and Harringtons arrived from Minnesota in about 1860 - they had also lived in Iowa and Illinois, with the patriarch of the Parker family having been born in Pennsylvania and the matriarch - a Watson - having been born in Kentucky. The Harringtons and Butterfields have ancestry that dates back to early colonial times in the U.S., these families having lived in various parts of New England, especially the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Harringtons intermarried with the Deans of New York and Canada as well. So you will see a lot of east coast genealogy as well, not to mention some posts about the witch trials and certain Quaker incidents that my family was involved in.

Last, but not least, do expect sources. These will be listed, whenever possible, at the bottom of posts as footnotes with links, where appropriate.