Gene Notes

Some random and some not-so-random thoughts on family history.

Monday, November 29, 2010

A Pleasant Unlooked-For (Almost) Surprise

I love browsing new/updated databases. Last week, I chronicled the finding of a burial place for Joseph Pfeiffer when I found an update on Pennsylvania Veteran burials on ancestry.com.

Last Saturday, while browsing updated databases at Family Search, I found a real surprise - the marriage record of Michel Meyer, son of Jean Meyer & (Marie) Catherine Zimmeth (Zimmet) in Pfastatt, Haut-Rhin, France to Crescentia Schlienger. Michel was born in Roeschwoog, Bas-Rhin, France in 1843. His mother, Marie Catherine Zimmeth, is my first cousin, 3 times removed. Or she is a first cousin to my great-grandfather, August Zimmeth. August was the son of Josef Zimmeth and Catherine Boegler; Marie Catherine was the daughter of Josef's brother Sebastien. Sebastien's family seems to disappear from records and the only two children I don't have death records for are Marie Catherine and her brother Louis. Now, I knew that Marie Catherine had married Jean Meyer in Roeschwoog, but I had nothing more on their seven children other than birth dates and death dates of the three children that died young. So finding a marriage record for even one of them makes me quite happy. That made me feel brave and so I ventured into the birth records and found two children - Achille, a son, born in 1869; and a daughter, Emilie, born in 1870.  Ancestry also yielded a citizenship declaration in 1872 for Achille, Emilie, and Crescentia (Michel's wife) Meyer.

Oddly enough this is Meyer Family number two in my database. The other Meyer family is from Germany and is also related to the Zimmeth family. Kind of scary, but I'll take the record!

Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes

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