I know a lot of my genealogy. A
lot. I can take a few branches back to Charlemagne, which I’m grateful for,
whether or not there were errors made along the way, which happens. But when
you have that many names, lines stretching back centuries, it humbles you with
the vast number of people who were all integral to your standing where you are
and breathing in the oxygen of this world.
That may be the truest reason why I
do what I do.
I have spent my time in recovery on
Ancestry, trying to push all the lines I have to their immigrant ancestor. I am
hoping to, once I have a list I feel confident about, buy the International
tier for a month and try to discover where in their countries these ancestors
originated. But until then…
If you read my blog you know that
my Grandma Pat passed away this year. I have been spending a lot of time on her
family, maybe as a means of processing through our complicated relationship,
but also as a means of deepening my connection to our shared ancestors. Her own
mother died when she was eight and she didn’t know a lot about her family past
her grandparents, the Arts, who worked as groundskeeper and housekeeper of the
wealthiest family in my hometown, the Kenans.
A few
years ago I wrote down all of the Arts living in Pendleton who came from
Germany, based on the family story I had been told. It was like putting a
jigsaw puzzle together but eventually I figured out the relations between the
separate families and then hit the jackpot when I discovered through an early
census that they lived on three separate plots, all next to each other. It
validated my theory that they were relations who had likely come over and settled
together.
Then my
mom told me, after speaking to her mother, that my Grandma always believed she
was related to the Pendleton Arts. We didn’t have this conversation until after
my Grandma passed. I wish I could have told her that they were all her cousins.
But her story was more verification for my theory.
The
earliest census I found them on was 1855 where Adam Art is married to Catherine
(uncertain) and is the Head of his own household, on a plot beside Wilhemina
Wernersbach, living with her other two children Jacob Art and George Art. As
Adam was only four years older than the boys in her house, I assumed that he
was Wilhemina’s older son.
I also
found an arrival note from 1853 stating that Wilhemina Wernersbach came to
America from Germany. But not with her children. Was the card incomplete?
And
where was her husband? Did he not come with them to America?
Ahhh?! Oh to go back in time and
act as my own census taker. “Please, who were your mum and dad and what was her
family name?”
And then… a few weeks ago I
discovered a new hint on Ancestry that led to a second new hint that answered
some of my questions. A hand-written card from 1836, stating a departure from
Antwerp, Belgium. “Georg Arth, 35 and
Wilhelmina Wernersbach, 37 and Adam, 7 and Jacob 3, and Georg, 3 mo.”
The family emigrated to America
together. Proof!
That hint gave me a census for 1850
which lists Wilhemina Wernersbach and her children Adam, Jacob, and George,
living in the household of Jacob and Martha Vandnspoch. Based on age, I am
guessing he is her brother. Maybe a cousin, but she did name a child of hers,
born in Germany, after him (feels like a safe assumption). So I say brother.
And if you say both last names out loud, they are variants of the same name. In
America, census takers often spelled them out phonetically.
The
census of 1850 does not list whether she is widowed or not. Not all census’
asked the pertinent questions that genealogists want to know. But perhaps
Wilhemina’s return visit to Germany was related to the loss of her husband
George. Or a parental loss. But it was one she undertook alone.
It's a little thing, but I feel a step closer to her, to Wilhemina, and to the clan of Arths from Hesse-Darmstadt Germany.
