Elizabeth Schollmeyer born 1840 Beberstedt

This is part of the christening entry for Elizabeth Schollmeyer born on 3/10 1840 (3 October 1840) in Beberstedt, Germany, to Andreas Schollmeyer and Brigette Schilling. I made the scan a few years ago at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Circumstantial evidence in the United States where Elizabeth settled indicated her father's name was Andrew/Andreas and this birth date was consistent with information on Elizabeth in the United States. The cross below Elizabeth's name indicated one of the infants christened died shortly after the christening. In reviewing the scan, my concern was that if referred to Elizabeth, which would have been a problem.

Fortunately I scanned the entire page (not shown here) and there was an entry clearly in the far right hand column indicating that the child christened after Elizabeth was the one who died as an infant, not Elizabeth. Just another reminder to scan the whole page. Now to analyze all the other entries I scanned for children of Andreas and Brigette.

Torn Manifest Article

Ancestry.com's blog ran my "torn manifest" article yesterday and it can be viewed in a printer friendly version on their site. It analyzes the manifest, discusses how I made my way around the "tear" as best I could and additional follow up that needs to be done.

Andreas Schulmeyer is my wife's 4th great-grandfather and he died after the 1870 census, likely in Scott County, Iowa. The line of descent is as follows:

1) Andreas Schulmeyer
2) Elizabeth Schulmeyer Freund Wachter (1840 Beberstedt, Germany-1899 Davenport, Scott County, Iowa)
3) George A. Freund (1858 Davenport, Iowa-1928 Davenport, Iowa)
4) Caroline Freund Mortier (1884 Davenport, Iowa-1981 Rock Island, Rock Island County, Illinois)
5) Grace Mortier Johnson (1913 Bowling Township, Rock Island County, Illinois-2000 Rock Island, Illinois)--my wife's paternal grandmother.

I'd be happy to hear from anyone researching the Schulmeyers in Scott County, Iowa.

That blob on the manifest makes all the difference

This is part of the manifest for the Ernst Moritz Arndt which landed in New Orleans on 13 June of 1853.

There is a reasonable chance that the 53 year old Andreas Schollmeyer is my wife's ancestor of the same name. There is only one problem: the tear in the manifest. The entry before Andreas Schollmeyer appears to be that of Frederich Schollmeyer and his family (including wife Catherine and children Nicodemus, Dorothe, and Elisabeth). The problem is that one transciber thinks that the Schollmeyers are from "Lohr" which is the village of residence which is partially shown in the upper right corner of the first image.

The second image contains a larger view of the "Lohr" above the Schollmeyer's town of origin and the column for the destination. I think that the blob is large enough that it easily could cover another location.

The column for destination (which contains "New Orleans") in the entry for the family before the Schollmeyers, clearly contains something other than "New Orleans" and does not contain ditto marks in the column for Frederick (the third line in the image shown). I think it might be "Iowa" for reasons we'll announce in a future entry.

Schulmeyers in Beberstedt, Germany

On last year's trip to Salt Lake, one of the things I finally located was the 1840 christening for Elizabeth Schulmeyer in Beberstedt, Germany.

We had known for some time that her father was Andreas as he was living with Elizabeth's family in Davenport, Scott County, Iowa in the 1860 and 1870 census. We did not have the name of Elizabeth's mother. Here in the christening entry (which was split into three parts) is the name of her mother Brigitte Schilling.

Scanning the microfilm was infinitely easier than other copying processes. Of course, scanning the "title" page of the record (also shown in this post) was an integral part of tracking where I obtained the information.



I also like to write down notes I take while making digital images of the microfilm. Those notes I then take to one of the book scanners in the library. That image goes in the same folder as my digital scans from the microfilm. I make notes about what image numbers are from what record, what year, etc. In many cases European church records have no page numbers and these notes help me keep track of what is actually on each image. My notes always contain the name of the film to prevent confusion as well and I try and scan them as soon after creating the images from microfilm as soon as possible.

I really enjoy using the scanners while I am at the Family History Library, but one has to stay organized or your files can become extremely unorganized.