What I Learned Wednesday: 22 June 2011

Lots more on the Koehls this week! This includes:

1. Finding the full name of the husband of Magdalena M. “Lena” Koehl - Frederick William Tönjes. This was the last of the sons-in-law of Julius and Josephine Koehl that I needed to find. There now remains only the maiden name of Katherine/Katie, wife of Louis Koehl, brother of Henry Julius “Harry” Koehl, my husband’s great-grandfather.

The route to finding Lena Koehl Tönjes’ husbands full name was very indirect. I did a search on the name of the only son, Ernst Tönjes. It brought up an obituary for his sister, Hermine A. Tönjes Booraem, which listed both her parents’ names, her husband’s name (Elmer H. Booraem), her sister Josephine Tönjes’ married name (Thomas), and the names of Hermine’s children and their spouses, among other information. It turns out that brother Ernest Tönjes also married a Booraem (Rowena). It doesn’t hurt that there are some relatively uncommon names involved here.

2. A review of some of my Fichtelmann and Scherer information revealed that I actually do know the name of the father of my husband’s great-great grandmother Katharina/Katy Scherer (a couple of weeks ago I mistakenly stated that I did not know his name) - it is Henry Scherer.

So finally my husband’s family tree is starting to fill out and I am more at home with New York and Brooklyn resources. Now I just need to get into New Jersey resources so that I can find out more about my husband’s maternal grandmother’s line, the D’Arcos and Rossis, who settled in Newark.