William Holtermann

"New" Cousin Dan pointed this out:

   "To help the poor, the Vincentian Superior John Timon challenged the laymen of St. Louis in 1846 to begin the first unit of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in America. It was the initial Catholic organization in St. Louis that went beyond parish and nationality. Of the eighty-nine men who took an active part in the society in its first six years, the president, Dr. Moses Linton, a convert, and none others were Anglo-Americans, mostly from Kentucky and Maryland, spiritual director Father Ambrose Heima and ten others were German, five were French-American, and one was Slavic. The other officers and all of the other members were Irish or Irish-American.
   "Among the early German speaking members were John Amend, Charles F. Blattau, Kaspar Brinkmann, Joseph Broeken, John C. Degenhart, John Everhart, John Everhart, Jr., Dr. L. B. Ganahl, William Holtermann, Philip Karst, Augustin Laufkotter, Christopher Pieper, Francis Saler, and H. J. Spaunhorst."

From The St. Louis German Catholics by William Barnaby Faherty, S.J.

[genealogy, Holtermann]

The Families of the Werther and Halle Stadt Parishes

A little progress has been made on the KINDERMANN-SCHIERBAUM line -- "little" being the operative word. I found Margaretha Ilsabein KINDERMANN's baptism record, as well as the baptism records of her siblings. I'm still not sure exactly what their father's full name was -- all I can conclude is that it was likely some combination of Friedrich, Wilhelm and Heinrich. Wow. Who would have guessed?

I am no closer to figuring out where Frau KINDERMANN, née SCHIERBAUM, came from, though. These early Halle Stadt (1760s) marriage records are about as devoid of details as it gets: names and the date are all you'll find in most of the entries; no ages or names of parents.

The VOSSIEK family is coming together nicely, though it will likely be several more months before I finish up their Werther church records. Again here, though, I'm having trouble locating the baptism records of what I'll call the "first generation." I know that I'm nearing the beginning of the available records, but it seems like some of these folks just showed up in the area as adults when they were married. I may have to study up on Westphalian history to see if there was an influx of immigrants in the early 18th century.

I'm not sure what to do with the DEPPERMANN family. A marriage record luckily specified Anna Katharina (Margaretha) Ilsabein DEPPERMANN's date of birth and father's name, but one or the other looks to be wrong. There was a girl similarly named born on 6 Sep 1809, but the father's name does not match her marriage record. Not even close. Am I to assume those present at the wedding, including the bride, could recall her exact date of birth, but not her father's name?

Finally, the good news is that I've added two generations to the HOLZ line. Heading into looking for Ferdinand Friedrich HOLZ I was worried that he was not listed in the IGI while hundreds of other children from Werther were indexed. But it turns out that some sections of those records were not indexed and it was easy to find Ferdinand. Now, if I could only find out what happened to him in my own backyard after immigration, that'd be great.

[genealogy, Deppermann, Holz, Kindermann, Schierbaum, Vossick, Vossieck, Vossiek]

Random items

• Although I haven't been posting as much as I used to, I still try to keep current with the feeds I subscribe to.


• It's great to see Lee Anders back blogging.


• If you've never used a microfilm scanner to make digital copies of records, stop what you're doing and immediately find the nearest one.


• The last few talks I've attended have either not quite been what I expected or, frankly, duds. Sorry, but when I'm either falling asleep or thinking about how many records I could be finding while a speaker bores me, there's a problem. I'm not a public speaker and it may not be fair to criticize, but the problem seems obvious: Don't go on and on about your families if you have no way of offering practical advice that others can use. And if the talk is billed as a couple of hours for teaching others how to do something, you'd better do just that. Anyway, a week from Saturday I'll be going to another talk that, on the surface, promises to be unique and interesting. This is the Show Me State, so we'll see.

[genealogy]

Holtermann, Lodenkamper

Another distant cousin has found my website; he's the second or third contact I now have on the HOLTERMANN-LODENKAMPER line. The great thing is that he seems very interested in research, something I can appreciate. Unfortunately, he's probably just as frustrated as I am that the origin of these families is still unknown. On the other hand, it's a relief to know that his conclusions about the families are in line with my findings and beliefs, namely that the LODENKAMPER name is just too uncommon for there not to be some connection between our Dorothea and the family of Bernhard LODENKAMPER. Additionally, it's likely that Wilhelm HOLTERMANN and Bernhard HOLTERMANN of St. Louis and Ferdinand HOLTERMANN of Osage County, Missouri, may have been related or at least from the same region of Prussia.

[genealogy, Holtermann, Lodenkamper, Lodenkemper]