I thought I had done it tonight. I was so sure the mystery of the EBERT family was about to be revealed. Not just once; I had two chances to learn the name of the town they came from in Germany. Neither source panned out, though.
My first crack at their hometown came while reading a small booklet about Osage County, Missouri history. In the front of the book was a description of a monument that named many of the immigrants who settled in Osage County. That was followed by a list of the names, their year of immigration and, in many cases, their hometown. So, I'm thinking, "This is great! Just another page or two to see what it says for the EBERTs..." All that was listed, though, was "Conrad EBERT and Rosalie KNIDDEL" (sic?). It doesn't appear that their year of arrival in America was even known -- it was actually 1841 -- since that detail was omitted. And the EBERTs were among the minority of names without a specified German hometown.
Next, while looking at a book of transcriptions of Osage County cemeteries, I headed to the back of the book to look at the index. I noticed, though, that a section in the back of the book was devoted to church burial records -- from the church the EBERTs attended. It's been my experience that local Catholic burial records don't provide many clues, but I was floored to see so many German town names listed. Unfortunately, this detailed practice began years after Conrad and Rosalie had passed.
I did find the names of EBERT descendants who helped sponsor the monument, so hopefully I can make contact with those folks and see if they know where our ancestors came from.
[genealogy, Ebert]
No comments:
Post a Comment