The first page in Friedrich August Gausmann’s Mexican War Pension file I ordered from the National Archives contains the image reproduced above.  For some reason, I’d not scrutinized the image very carefully before yesterday, well over a year after I’d received the file.  I suppose my eye was drawn to his service in the Mexican War.  But just below, in the row labelled “Additional Service,” the card clearly state, “168 Pa Vol (Civil War),” which means 168th Pennsylvania Volunteers–in the Civil War! Can this be right?

There is indeed a “Henry F. Miller” in the roster of Company B of the 168th Pennsylvania Volunteers, who mustered in on 16 Oct 1862 and mustered out on 24 July 1863.  But could he be our Friedrich August Gausmann, who, yes, had served under the alias “Henry Miller” in the Mexican War, but who since had moved with his wife to  Minnesota and had four children by October 1862, and who was to have a fourth child on 23 Feb 1864–just seven months after July 1863?

Was it some clerk in the War Department who erroneously concluded that Friedrich August Gausmann was the same person who served in the Pennsylvania Volunteers during the Civil War?  If so, how could anyone make such an error with such a common name?  In my brief search of the National Parks’ Civil War Database, there are dozens of Henry Millers.

Next, I have to ask why Friedrich August Gausmann would ever serve with a Pennsylvania regiment.  To my knowledge, Friedrich August Gausmann had no connection to Pennsylvania whatsoever.

So is this an error in the files of the National Archives?  Can anyone explain why an established resident of Minnesota would volunteer for a Pennsylvania regiment in the Civil War?

]]> http://gausmann.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/friedrich-august-gausmann-in-the-civil-war-and-as-a-pennsylvania-volunteer/feed/ 0 gausmann Record of Service of Friedrich August Gausmann http://gausmann.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/the-right-louisa-boedecker-the-problem-of-uncertainty-in-genealogical-research/ http://gausmann.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/the-right-louisa-boedecker-the-problem-of-uncertainty-in-genealogical-research/#comments Sun, 28 Mar 2010 12:57:06 +0000 Peter Gausmann http://gausmann.wordpress.com/?p=121 ]]> My introduction to Louisa Boedecker (1831-1907), wife of Friedrich August Gausmann (1826-1890), was as a name on Mary Justine Gausmann’s late 1930s family tree.  The chart listed her birth date as 10 June 1831, and her birth place as Lippe Detmold, Germany.  I also know that Louisa’s brother Henry farmed adjacent to the Gausmann farms in Pepperton Township, Stevens County, Minnesota.  But I didn’t know much more than that about Louisa Boedecker.

In my last weeks of research, I found a Louisa Boedecker (spelled variously as Bödecker, Bodicker, Bodekker, Bedicker) but I can’t be certain it is our Louisa Boedecker.  Here are the things that I’ve discovered that are consistent with our Louisa:

Ship Manifest

The passenger manifest for the ship “Element,” arriving at the port of New Orleans on 9 Jan 1846, lists 14 year-old Louisa Bödeker from Lippe Detmoldt.  She travels with parents Philip and Justine (40 and 41), grandmother Friderike (65), and siblings Hinrich (10), Anton (8), and Friederich (3).   Their destination:  St. Louis.

Louisa and Hinrich’s ages, as well as their place of origin, are consistent with what I know, but without more specific dates, I can’t be certain this is our Louisa.

German Emigration Records

On the German end, a 24 March 1846 law in the principality of Lippe required registration of all who were emigrating to America.  A website dedicated to emigration out of Lippe transcribes records of the Bödeker emigration.

This transcribed record lists Louisa’s birth date as 20 June 1831–a 10-day difference from the 10 June 1831 birth date that shows up consistently in documents from our Louisa.

German researchers have transcribed emigration records from the principality of Lippe. Here, we see much information about the Boedecker family, including full names and birth dates.

Birth Record

Hoping the the transcription was in error, I ordered microfilm of Louisa’s birth record through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It clearly shows her birth as 20 June 1831.

Louisa Bödecker's birth record from the church record book in the village of Alverdissen, Lippe.

Conclusion Uncertain

Are you persuaded that this Louisa Boedecker is the Louisa Boedecker who married Friedrich August Gausmann in 1852 in St. Louis?   So much about what I’ve found out about this Louisa (and her brother Henry) is consistent, but the ten-day difference in birth dates gives me pause.  Would there be a reason why Louisa might say her birthday was 10 June, when it was actually 20 June?

Indirect Evidence

• I do know that Henry A. Boedecker is Louisa’s brother.  According to the 1880 U.S. Federal census, he was born about 1835.  This corresponds to the “Hinrich” Boedecker on the 1846 ship manifest (see above), who was then 10.   The “A” in his middle name is possibly “Anton.”
• The Louisa on the manifest had a brother that went by the name “Anton”:  Heinrich Anton Christoph Conrad (born 1837).  Her other two brothers also had “Anton,” in their names (Heinrich Philipp Anton, born 1835, and Friedrich Anton, born 1842).   Louisa’s son William (b. 1857) named his fourth son “Sidney Anton.”  Was this to honor uncle Anton, or was it just a name that had been in the Boedecker family?

What do you think?

Family history researchers need to make judgements about family connections based on evidence that is sometimes incomplete or inconsistent.  This is a case that perfectly illustrates the dilemmas that genealogists sometimes face.

Please leave a comment telling me what you think about the evidence I’ve presented.  Are the Louisa Boedeckers I’ve described the same person? I’d love to hear from you.

1)  Was the lawsuit against F. A. Gausmann that I discovered a week ago over the runaway horses (see previous blog entry) against Friedrich August Gausmann (1826-1890) or against his son, Frederick August Gausmann (1866-1928).

2)  If the former, then how did the stress of the horse collision itself and the subsequent lawsuit shape the last year of Friedrich August Gausmann’s life?  The accident occurred in October, 1889, the lawsuit in November, and his death the following April.

I’m happy to say that I answered the first question.  Comparing Friedrich August’s known signature with a signature in the district court papers, the suit is against Friedrich August Gausmann.  Here are the signatures:

Friedrich Gausmann's signature on an 1888 affidavit concerning his Mexican War disability pension.

F. A. Gausmann's signature in the 1889 lawsuit. See the whole document on page 16 of the PDF (link below).

So this resolves the identify of the defendant in the lawsuit, and it lets me continue to wonder about the events’ impact on Friedrich August Gausmann’s last half year of life.

I must say that reading the plaintiff’s complaint and Friedrich August’s response to the complaint makes me wonder about his character.  In his response, he alleges that Mr. Nunan negligently stopped his team and wagon across the Third street thoroughfare, and that Mr. Nunan suffered very little in the ensuing collision.  If he left his team unhitched, to which he admitted, how can he blame Mr. Nunan for the collision?  Losing a horse must have been a financial blow to F. A. Gausmann, but to blame another for causing the collision when it was his team that ran away after he’d left it untied raises some questions.

The settlement of the lawsuit wasn’t in the district court file, so I don’t know how the case was resolved.  I’ll try to discover the outcome of the lawsuit in my next visit to the archives.

Nunan – Gausmann Suit 1889 (21 MB.  Download recommended only if you have a high speed internet connection).

News item from the St. Paul Daily Globe. (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, November 26, 1889, Image 2. Archived at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90059522/1889-11-26/ed-1/seq-2/

Published in the 26 Nov 1889 St. Paul Daily Globe , this news item describes a runaway  horse belonging to F. A. Gausmann hitting two teams of horses and resulting in the driver of one,   a mister Charles W. Nunan, to be thrown to the ground.  Owners of both teams sued Mr. Gausmann in district court.

F. A. Gausmann could be either Friedrich August Gausmann Sr. (1826-1890) or Friedrich August Gausmann Jr. (1866-1928).  If it is the former, the event would have occurred within about a half  year before his death.  I’ll attempt to identify if the owner of the horse was the elder or the younger on my next trip to the Minnesota Historical Society.

Regardless of the identity, the story brings the past to life.  This would have been a time when there were no automobiles and where leaving a horse untied ran “contrary to law.”

Louisa Gausmann's 1893 address: 365 Maria Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota

When I found Louisa Gausmann’s (Friedrich August Gausmann’s wife, and my great-great-great-grandmother) address on a document dated 1893, I assumed that the house, like most buildings of its era, had succumbed to the wrecking ball of progress.  On a whim, I entered the address in Google Maps (maps.google.com), which placed the address in the Dayton’s Bluff area of St. Paul, just two blocks away from the old Swede Hollow.

365 Maria Ave St. Paul Minnesota from Google Maps Street View. While Louisa Gausmann lived on this site in 1893, the current structure was built in 1900.

I clicked on the address link, then clicked on “street view” and up came a picture of an old house.  At first, I was excited thinking that this house was where great-great-great Grandma lived 117 years ago.  I checked the Ramsey County Property Tax lookups page and discovered that the current structure was built in 1900.  Several of the surrounding structures, though, were there when Louisa Gausmann lived there.

By June 1900, Louisa, now 69 years old, moved to New Canada (now Little Canada) and lived with children F. August (34) and Mary (28).  Her occupation is listed as “farmer,” while August’s is shows up as “farm laborer;” Mary’s is blank.

Though I don’t know what Louisa looked like, using Google Maps to see the neighborhood where she lived brings her a small step closer to the present.

Signature on 1888 affidavit claiming that Friedrich H. Gausmann enlisted in the Mounted Riflemen as "Henry Miller."

One of the documents in the Widow’s Pension File from the National Archives is an affidavit which reads as follows:

General Affidavit

State of Minnesota, County of Ramsey, ss:

In the matter of Pension Claim No. 15657 Henry Miller, Private Co K U. S. Mounted Riflemen, ON THIS 26^th day of May A.D. 1888, personally appeared before me, a Notary Public in and for the aforesaid County duly authorized to administer oaths, Fredrick H. Gausman aged 62 years, a resident of St. Paul in the County of Ramsey and the State of Minnesota, well known to me to be reputable and entitled to credit, and who being duly sworn, declared in relation to aforesaid case as follows: that he is the identical Fredrick Henry Gausman who enlisted under the name of Henry Miller as Private in Co. K United States Mtd Riflemen, Mexican War.  I ask that my name be changed on the Pension Rolls as above.  I herewith enclose my pension cert [sic] certificate.

Signed by the Notary Public (A Chilgrens) and Friedrich H. Gausmann

Here’s a link to a PDF of the document: Frederick August Gausmann Mexican War_split_1

What surprises me isn’t the fact that Friedrich enlisted under the name “Henry Miller;” It wasn’t uncommon for new German immigrants to assume an anglo name for military service.  What does surprise (bother) me is that he describes himself and signs his name as Friedrich H. Gausmann.   I’ve only known this German ancestor as Friedrich August Gausmann.  Even the record of his birth in the Blasheim parish register records the name Friedrich August.

So where does the “H” come from?  19th century naming customs usually gave a spiritual name, and then a “call” name (the name by which the individual was called).  So, for example, Friedrich August Gausmann would be known as “August.”  It follows, then, that Friedrich H. Gausmann would likely go by the name “Henry.”  If this is the case, I can infer that this is where the “Henry” in “Henry Miller” comes from.

But to a genealogist, the “H.” troubles me.  There must be an explanation.  Maybe Friedrich August had more than two given names, like Friedrich August Heinrich Gausmann?

Washington County Assessment, Woodbury Township, 1874. Who is the "John Gausman" on line 4? Source: Washington County Assessments 1856-1951. 1874. SAM 363, Roll 7, Frame 58. Retrieved from the Minnesota Historical Society.

This morning I was scanning documents in my files and I noticed something that I hadn’t seen on the 1874 Washington County Assessment.  The name on line 4 is Gausman, John.  I’m not familiar with property descriptions, but I think it ways W 1/2 NE 1/4 Sec 8, Township 28, Range 21.  His land amounts to 80 acres.

Who is John Gausman?  What is his relationship to Friedrich Gausmann?  The 1939 family tree states that Friedrich came to America with two brothers.  Is this one?  What happened to him?  Did he have family?

As appealing as it sounds, I’ve decided not to plunge into FamilyLink for six reasons:

1)  Users report that FamilyLink sends them too much e-mail asking them to add relatives.
2) There is no way to cancel your FamilyLink account.
3) The family tree interface is too cumbersome to navigate and does not allow imports of GEDCOM files (which means, essentially, that you have to re-do your family tree manually).
4) Though the Privacy Policy says that you can change your notification and privacy settings, there doesn’t appear to be any way to change settings
5) Once a person is in the family tree, it is impossible to delete them if you have added that person’s parents or children.  So, if you have a change of heart and don’t want your information posted, tough.
6) Too many ads. FamilyLink generates its revenue from ads, but ads take up too much real estate on each web page (large banner, wide right-column ad, large footer).

I really wanted FamilyLink to work.  It’s currently in a beta stage, so maybe they’ll figure out how to generate revenue while providing a service that users can praise without significant reservations.

So what does this have to do with genealogy?

I’m considering plunging into the FamilyLink feature on Facebook to connect with family members.

When I send letters to family members through the USPS, I get about a 50% result in a response.  Most people I write to are interested in the family history project, but for various reasons don’t send me information I request.

I know that dozens of family members are on Facebook,  and it would be easy to connect with them via FamilyLink on Facebook.  But knowing that nothing is free, what is the cost? 

If you have an experience with FamilyLink, positive or negative, I’d love to hear from you.  Leave a comment below.

The number of photographs of my children is at least ten times the number of images of me throughout my childhood.  But now let’s go back a generation or two.  Taking snapshots, processing the film, labeling the pictures and mounting them in an album was quite a process.  To those who took the pictures, maybe all the faces in the family reunion pictures were known and familiar, but to the family historian, looking at those pictures after living memory is gone presents quite a challenge.

If the pictures aren’t labeled, identifying faces requires a bit of detective work.  Fortunately, photo programs that are free or inexpensive are making the process easier.  I recently undertook the task of organizing my family history photographs using Google’s Picasa, available for free at http://picasa.google.com/.  Once you tell the program where your image files are, it looks for faces (even in group shots) and then groups similar faces together.  Once you start labeling face you know, it will ask you if similar faces belong to the same person.  The process is particularly helpful when dealing with photos of the same person at different times in his or her life.  For example, I have this photo:

In the second row (circled) of a portrait of the children (with spouses) of F. A. and Louisa Gausmann sat a woman that had been identified as “Hulda Gausman” (my great-great grandmother) by an earlier family historian.  I know this wasn’t Hulda (Hulda has much sharper features than the woman pictured) so I had to figure out who in the picture didn’t have a spouse.  By process of elimination, I determined that the woman in the picture was Christina (Rentz) Gausman, wife of Charles August Gausman, who is seated to her left in the picture.

As I was scrolling through unidentified faces in Picasa (over 1000 of them) one caught my eye:

The face looked familiar—especially the shape of the nose and mouth. I went back to the group portrait and compared the faces:

I had a match:  Christina (Rentz) Gausmann’s wedding picture (Feb 1888)! And not only do I have Christina, but also an earlier picture of Charles August Gausmann.

With this picture identified, I hope that I’ll be able to identify more photos, like this one:

Based on the nose, ear, facial hair, hair part, and dates that the Schlattman Brothers operated in Minnesota (1883-1889), my best guess (hard to say for sure, given this is a profile shot) is that this picture is Charles August Gausmann.

My next step will be to write to his descendents to see if any can verify my guess.  Until then,  the best I can label the picture is “unknown man, ca. 1883-1889.”