Week 13 – 2020: Nearly Forgotten #52Ancestors
My second great-aunt, Philippina Glaeschen, was one of those ancestors I had trouble tracking down in her adult life. You would think with a name like “Philippina” I would have had more success, but she eluded me for years and I kinda forgot about her.
As with all genealogy searches, you start with what you know – or think you know.
I was initially able to only find my Glacy-side back to the 1850 census. My second great-grandparents, their two German-born children and two U.S.-born children were living in Penn Township, Pennsylvania. That was where I first “met” nine-year-old Philippina. But I couldn’t go any further back with them: I couldn’t find when they immigrated or where in Germany they originated.
The break-through came via a “random act of genealogical kindness,” when a fellow researcher clued me into the actual spelling of my family name and to the ships’ manifest showing when the family immigrated to the U.S. I remember sitting in the Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence, Missouri, when I first saw that manifest. The lynchpin that convinced me this was the correct family was my second great-aunt’s name: “Phillipina.” Finding her name and the original German name for the family [Glaeschen], opened many doors for me.
After that, I still had trouble finding Miss Philippina. My genealogical-sleuthing skills were inadequate at the time to figure out where she went, although I knew that she likely married or died. Married women are notoriously hard to find – once they change their name upon marriage, they disappear in the records. Since this family flitted back and forth between New York and Pennsylvania for about twenty-five years, I didn’t know where she might have been married or where she might have died. Frustrated, I put her aside and went on with other research.
Sometimes patience or simple neglect pays off.
In late 2018, Findmypast.com, published the marriage registers from over 200 parishes in the Archdiocese of New York. Again, another shiny object was dangled in front of me and I dropped what I was doing at the time to see what I could see.
And there she was.
Philippina and her sister, Catherine, were married at Most Holy Redeemer Church in Manhattan, New York, on 25 April 1865.[1] In addition to the names of the brides and grooms, the church register included the bride and groom’s places of birth (both married German-born men) and parents’ and witness names. The church was busy that Tuesday as four couples were married that same day![2]
Knowing her husband’s name helped me find her with husband, Joseph Messner, and three children in the 1870 U.S. census, but then not a darn thing after that. Crud.
Once again, Findmypast.com came to the rescue with the publication of the Archdiocese of New York baptismal records. While the images of these registers are not yet online, I was able to find birth information for some of their children. Yay!
The baptismal information for the children and Ancestry’s collection of U.S. City Directories, shows that from 1865 to about 1889 the family lived in lower east side of Manhattan, including East 6th Street, East 2nd Street, Fifth Avenue, and Avenue C. This predominantly German neighborhood was called “Kleindeutschland,” or “Little Germany.”[3]
The 1892 New York Census shows Philippina and Joseph living in Brooklyn, but separately. She was living with daughter Mary and son-in-law Joseph Weigl. Joseph and their fourteen-year-old daughter Catherine were living with daughter Annie’s family. Their youngest daughter, Matilada was with Philippina’s sister Catherine’s family nearby. Without more it is impossible to speculate why the family was so split up. I suppose it is encouraging to see that they all were living in Brooklyn, relatively near each other.
For some reason, Philippina’s last name was spelled “Moeshner” in the 1892 census. I’ve seen before that an umlaut over an “o” (such as in Mössner), could be “translated” to an “oe” but Philippina was the only one in the family to do this. [Obviously she was.] I swear that girl was out to get me.
Nevertheless, armed with the Moeshner name, I was (finally) able to find her death certificate. Of course, not only was her last name spelled differently, but so was her first name – now shown as “Mina.”[4] Because the certificate provided her parents’ names, I was confident it was her. Sadly, she died in 1889 at fifty-eight years-old from cancer of the uterus.[5] By that time, all of her living children had married, with the exception of her sixteen-year-old daughter, Tillie.
I am glad that I didn’t forget Philippina as my research into her life taught me a great deal:
Be patient
Be open-minded in your searches
Be creative
And, most importantly, cite everything.
Thanks Mina!
[1] Most Holy Redeemer Parish (New York, NY), Parish Register, p. 118, Mössner-Gläsgen and Rebholz-Gläsgen marriages (25 April 1865); image, Findmypast, "New York Roman Catholic Parish Marriages," (http://www.findmypast.com : accessed 6 Dec 2018)
[2] “Weekday Calculator: What Day Is It?,” Timeanddate.com (https://www.timeanddate.com: accessed 28 March 2020).
[3] Stanley Nadel, Little Germany: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in New York City, 1845-80 (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org : accessed 31 March 2020). MUCH more on Little Germany later.
[4] Can’t blame her.
[5] City of New York, certificate and record of death no. 20451 (1899), Mina Moeshner [Philippina Messner]; digital image received from NYC Municipal Archives, New York, New York (2020).
Most Holy Redeemer Parish in the lower east side of New York, New York. Photograph by Steven Hyatt, 1 January 2015 (https://photos.thechurchesoftheworld.com/New-York-City-NY-Churches/Most-Holy-Redeemer-Church/ : accessed 31 March 2020).
Nadel, Little Germany, 15.