Church Record Sunday - Baptism of Anna Rohrer in Philadelphia, PA

The following image is from a Roman Catholic baptism register for my 2x great-grandmother, Anna Rohrer Niehaus.

It's hard to read, but shows that  Anna Barbara Theresia Rohrer was born on 13 Jul 1849 and baptized on 22 Jul 1849. Her parents were Albert Rohrer and Walburga (Fisher) Rohrer. She was baptized in the St. Peter the Apostle parish in Philadelphia, PA and the family was from Württemberg.

The birth year was a bit of a surprise since Anna's funeral card and other records placed her birth year at 1851. An 1850 census record for the family showed a daughter born in 1849 named Hannah Rohrer. I had thought maybe they had a daughter before Anna, but now think this was my Anna.

The Roman Catholic baptism registers are available on FindMyPast.com.

Mappy Monday - Geogen German Surname Mapping Tool

If you have German ancestors, you might want to give Geogen a try. The site produces maps of Germany showing the most common locations for a surname based on phone book entries. While  this represents fairly recent data, the concentrations might give some clues to help find the regions a family originated from.

I knew my Rohrer family was from Ellwangen, Germany, so I was curious to see where the current Rohrers were located. The map below shows the relative distribution for the Rohrer surname based on number of entries per million. The darker the color, the more Rohers are located in that area.

Ellwangen is in the district of Ostalbkreis, which I've circled on the image below. Interesting to see that my Rohers were from the same part of Germany where many of the present day Rohers are concentrated.

The site also has some other tools. A Name Graph shows similar surnames. This seems to be random since I get a different set of names each time I select it, but it does point out some different spellings to try. There is also an option for an absolute distribution map which is color coded based strictly on the number of entries for an area. The relative and absolute maps were fairly similar for the Rohrer families. A pie chart tool displays the surname distribution sorted by Federal States.

The Geogen site was developed by Christoph Stöpel and is free to use. Images may be posted as long as they are not commercial and the copyright notice is not removed. Thanks to Family Tree Magazine for mentioning Geogen on their Facebook page.

Mappy Monday is a GeneaBloggers prompt where you can post map images and how they relate to your research or discuss other aspects of land ownership and your ancestor. 

Sunday's Obituary - Anna Marie Rohrer Niehaus

MRS. NIEHAUS DIES FRIDAY

At Home of Daughter, Mrs. Charles Creeden

Mrs. Henry Niehaus passed away at 3:15 o'clock Friday afternoon at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Charles Creeden, North Walnut street, with whom she had been making her home for the winter.
She had been seriously ill for several days. Her death occurred at the age of 87 years.
Funeral announcements and further details will appear in Saturday's paper.

The obituary was published in the Celina Daily Standard on October 28, 1938.

Anna Rohrer was my 2x great-grandmother. She was born in Philadephia, PA on July 13, 1851.  She married Henry Niehaus on January 25, 1881 in Celina, Ohio. Their daughter Anna was my great-grandmother.

Fearless Females - Trading Card

March 29 — Create a free Fold3 Memorial Page or a Genealogy Trading Card at Big Huge Labs for a female ancestor. Tell us about who you've selected and why and then post a link to what you've created.

I created this card at Big Huge Labs for my great-great-grandmother, Anna Rohrer Niehaus. I chose Anna for the card partly since I had a nice portrait picture of her, but mainly since I had so much fun tracing her family with my Niehaus cousin Marj! We still have some mysteries to solve with our Rohrer family, but we have learned a lot.

Anna's parents Albert Rohrer and Walburga Fischer were from Ellwangen, Germany. They were listed in Reading, PA in the 1850 census with their first child, Albert and a baby daughter Hannah that was born in Pennsylvania. Anna was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1851. By 1860, Anna's mother had remarried to William Gisler and the family was living in Auglaize County, OH. We don't know what happened to Anna's father or her sister Hannah. Another mystery is that we're not sure what happened to Anna's brother after 1880.

In the 1880 census, Anna is living with her brother Albert in Mercer County, OH. Anna married Henry Niehaus in 1881 and they had six daughters in Celina, OH. Anna died in 1938 in Celina. Her daughter Anna was my great-grandmother.

Once again, in honor of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.

Fearless Females - Marriage Records

March 4 — Do you have marriage records for your grandparents or great-grandparents? Write a post about where they were married and when. Any family stories about the wedding day? Post a photo too if you have one. 

St. Vitus Basilica, Ellwangen, Germany

Several generations of my Rohrer ancestors were married at the St. Vitus Basilica in Ellwangen, Germany. The records I have go all the way back to my 5x great-grandparents in the 1700s, starting with Catharina and Johannes Rohrer.

The record below is for the marriage of Albert Rohrer and Walburger Fischer on October 19, 1846 in the St. Vitus Basilica. Their son Albert was born in Germany in 1847 and their daughter Anna was born in 1851 in Philadelphia, PA. Anna is my 2x great-grandmother and she and her brother Albert lived in Ohio by 1860.

Translation: Groom Albert Rohrer, shoemaker in Ellwangen, Catholic, parents Albert Rohrer, ? Rohrer, maiden name ?, widower. Bride Waldburg Fischer from Ellwangen, Catholic, parents Heinrich Fisher, Theres Dilger, unmarried. Groom born 22 Sept 1809 in Ellwangen, bride born 2 Oct 1818 in Ellwangen, no permission needed, proclamation read on 4, 11, 18 October, actual marriage 19 October [1846].

The record above is for the marriage of Albert Rohrer and Ursala Wailbl on Sept. 23, 1801 at St. Vitus. They were my 4x great-grandparents. There were also family and christening records at St. Vitus for their children Johann, born in 1805 and Albert, born in 1809.

Translation: 23rd of September
Matrimonially joined together are by Reverend Frid. Bechdolf the honest young man [bachelor]
Albert Röhrer from Ellwangen Johannes Röhrer and Barbara, married couple, legitimate son,
To the wise virgin [maiden] Ursula Waibl [in is a female ending] from Ellwangen, Johann Michael Waib, Deceased and Catharina his wife legitimate daughter: witnesses were Michael
Zieglbaur and Johannes Röhrer from Ellwangen.

The picture of St. Vitus is from Wikipedia. Thanks to Marj for sending copies of the records and for getting assistance with the translations! Thanks to Heather of Leaves for Trees for her tip on using Excel for ancestor graphics.

Once again, in honor of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.

Wordless Wednesday - Two great-great-grandmothers!

Anna Rohrer Niehaus and Mary Ann Matson Creeden, 1919

Pictured are two of my great-great-grandmothers in Celina, Ohio in 1919. I sure would love to know what they'd been talking about!

Wordless Wednesday is a daily blogging prompt used by many genealogy bloggers to help them post content on their sites.

Rohrer - Surname Saturday

Anna Rohrer Niehaus in 1899

My Rohrer family comes from Ellwangen, Germany and eventually settled in Mercer County, Ohio. It has been one of the more difficult lines to research due to the many variations on spellings of the names.

In 2004, I ordered the Social Security application for my great-grandmother Anna Niehaus Creeden. Her mother's maiden name was listed as Rohrer which was the first I'd heard of this surname in my family. I attempted to do some online searches, but didn't turn up too much. The picture to the left was in my father's collection and was labeled Grandma Niehaus, 1899. Anna Rohrer married Henry Niehaus on January 25, 1881 and they were married until his death in 1923.

In 2005, a Niehaus cousin Marj B. found a funeral card for Anna Rohrer. The card states that she was born in Philadelphia, PA on July 13, 1851 and died in Celina, Ohio on Oct. 28, 1938 at the age of 87 years, 3 months and 15 days. I ordered Anna's death certificate which confirmed these dates and added her parents names: Walburger Fisher and John Rohrer, both from Germany. Anna's death certificate had been listed under Anna Niehans, so yet another name variation.

Even using various spelling variations, I wasn't having any luck locating the Rohrers in the census records, so tried searching for Walburger or Wallburger with no last name.  Finally, some success, but again, different names!

1860 census, Saint Marys, Auglaize, Ohio

Name                Age
William Gisler     62
Walburga Gisler  42
Albert Gisler       13
William Gisler       9
Anna Gisler        10
Henry Gisler        8
John Gisler          4

Walburga's birthplace is shown as Wuerttemberg, Germany. All of the children have that with dittos, except for the youngest (John) which says Ohio. The last names were all just written as dittos too. Walburga had remarried to William Gisler and possibly had more children.

1870 census, Saint Marys, Auglaize, Ohio
Name                 Age
Wallburger Rees 53
Albert Rees        22
Anna Rees         19
William Rees      18
Henry Rees        17
John Gisler         14

This time, it shows Wallburger and Albert's birthplace as Prussia, Anna's as Pennsylvania and the others as Ohio. The last names are just dittos again except for John Gisler. William Gisler died in the 1860's, so it looks like Walburga is using the Rohrer name again.

Marj located birth records for the children of Anna and Henry Niehaus that spelled Anna's maiden name as Rear. With that clue, I was able to find Anna and Albert in the 1880 census, but the name was listed in the index as Bear! The 1880 census for Jefferson Township of Mercer County, Ohio lists Anna Rear, age 24 living with her brother Albert. Anna is listed as being born in PA and her parents were born in Baden, Germany. By now, we were pretty sure that we had the correct Anna and that she had a brother Albert. We wanted to know more about Albert's origins in Germany.

Family Search's IGI records has this listing for an Albert Roehrer:

Birth: 02 DEC 1847      
Christening: 05 DEC 1847 Sankt Vitus Katholisch, Ellwangen, Jagstkreis, Wuerttemberg

His parents were listed as Albert Roehrer and Waldburg Fischer. The next question was whether or not this Albert Roehrer was the same one we saw in other records as John Rohrer. Everything else here seemed to fit and if it was the right Albert, this gave us a church and birthplace. There is also a marriage record listed for Waldburg Fischer and Albert Roehner on 19 OCT 1846  at Sankt Vitus Katholisch, Ellwangen, Jagstkreis, Wuerttemberg.

Another possible record is from a passenger list:
Ship: "Zurich"
Date: Arrived New York 3 May 1849
On board: Albert Roher aged 39 born about 1810
Wallburga Roher aged 20 born abt 1829
Albert Roher (9 months old) born abt 1848

Marj made a trip to Germany and stopped in Ellwangen to research records at the St. Vitus Church. She was able to confirm that Albert John was the correct Rohrer and the father of Anna's brother Albert. This has really been a joint research effort and required both online and on site resources. Thanks to Marj for all the information she has provided!

Funeral Card Friday - Anna Rohrer Niehaus

Anna Rohrer Niehaus was my great-great-grandmother. She was born in Philadelphia, PA on July 13, 1851 and her parents were John Rohrer and Walburga Fischer both from Germany. She lived in Celina, OH and was married to Henry Niehaus. She died in Celina at the age of 87 years on October 28, 1938. Much thanks to Marj B. for sending me the funeral card!