John Adam and Sophia Ziegler
Submitted by Marji Wright 21 Mar 2013
Setting the Record Straight – John Adam Ziegler 1798
Wm “Rus” Stevens' work in his family genealogy is recorded in “Northern Kentucky Family Archives”, available at the Library of Congress, the Allen County Public Library, Ft Wayne, Indiana, the Kentucky Historical Society and through film (#1697362) at the LDS Library. I know of no other publicly available copies, and I have not verified the accuracy of his complete work.
When Rus was researching he attempted to prove that his wife's father was related to my grandfather who lived next door to them. From his book, it seems obvious that he was never able to establish a relationship between “his” John Adam Ziegler (1798- ) and “my” John Adam Ziegler (1808-1888). My John Adam seems to have used his middle name “Adam” most frequently, and let it be noted that our history books tell us that during the Middle Ages, one third of men in Europe were named some variant of “John”, and it was quite common in German tradition, contributing to the confusion.
Stevens' book leaves the facts of John Adam Ziegler (1798) open ended, with no well documented date of death, and few hard facts about his marriages. So far, I haven't found an official church or cemetery record of the death of John Adam (1798), except for what appears to be a family record of his death 29 December 1867. I cannot identify him accurately in any Census records. It appears he was the bondsman in Ulrich's marriage in 1856, according to Campbell County Marriage Records. A large chunk of Campbell County Death Records is missing in this time period, which adds to the problem.
In researching my own John Adam Ziegler (1808), I cannot find a strong connection between these two families as of March 21, 2013. The lack of intermarriage, with a few exceptions, between some 653 members of John Adam (1798) and 1300 members of my John Adam Ziegler (1808) families all living in the same vicinity is rather remarkable. (These numbers are for those families I have found on Ancestry and other sources.) But I did find some interesting facts to help get things straightened out. I have some of Rus' notes, and would like to fill in some blanks and correct some of the statements.
John Adam's (1798) descendant Linda Ziegler did establish, with a signed mortgage document, that my great, great grandfather John Adam (1808) bought land on John's Hill from John Adam's (1798) son Balthasar in 1866. I'm proud to say he didn't default on the mortgage, and later distributed this land to his five children through his will And the sons in both families signed up for service in an area militia to protect Cincinnati in the Civil War, according to the Campbell County website . The group failed to organize officially, but they knew each other. We have a family story that Union soldiers walked through our family's land on their long way home. I understand it is now the site of the University of Northern Kentucky.
Rus surmised in his notes that Sophiena Ziegler, buried in Wilder, was John Adam Ziegler's (1798) second wife. That is not accurate. Sophia (1812) was the only wife of my John Adam Ziegler (1808), married fifty years, married in 1838. Sophia's year of birth sometimes shows as 1811 or 1813, I suspect because of a quirky German practice of dating one's age, or maybe math skills. To make things more misleading, the cemetery record of Sophiena Ziegler, with a headstone carved in old German Script, has the same data as that for a Josephine Ziegler, according to Campbell County website cemetery records. I do not know the source of the entry referencing “Josephine”.
Anthony Ziegler of Johns Hill did have a daughter named Josephine, according to Census records, and apparently he knew my John Adam (1808) through their church, but Josephine married Leonard Hein 14 June 1892 at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, (Campbell County website) so it is likely that the Josephine Ziegler listed as buried in Wilder with Sophiena's records is a wild guess at reading Sophiena's name on her tombstone.
Some spooky things happened while I was researching my John Adam (1808). I questioned the mathematical accuracy of his date of birth and age, and changed it one year. But when a quiet little member of the LDS church in Kalispell, Montana, explained that Germans considered your day of birth to start the first year of your life, I went back and accepted the original dates. The day I did that in 2012, I realized was my great, great grandfather's birthday. . In addition, I read a story in the local newspaper about a man who died the day after his 50th wedding anniversary. While working on my John Adam's records that same day, I realized that he apparently had died the day after his 50th wedding anniversary. I only noticed these by seeming accident, but it was spooky nonetheless.
The story of John Adam Ziegler (1798) coming to America on the ship Prince de Poinville in 1851 with two sons, Ulrich and Christopher, following a son Balthasar who had come earlier, is known to the founders of the St Johns German Protestant Church, as well as to their Ziegler family. I haven't found Balthasar's immigration records, he is supposed to have come on a cattle boat..
In examining the ship's passenger registry, the names Peter A, (1801) Theresa, Catherine, Johan, Clara M, and Barbara Ziegler, as well as Theresa's sister, Marguerite Volk appear in the same listing with John Adam (1798), Ulrich and Christof. I later found a missing daughter, Anna Maria Ziegler, who married Heinrich Loehrlein in Cincinnati. A letter from the church archives in Wurzburg confirm that this Peter Adam (1801) and John Adam (1798) were brothers. Further research indicates that “my” John Adam (1808) and John Adam (1798) were almost certainly not brothers, nor were they related otherwise. It was not unusual to have more than one son with their father's name, since it insured that there would be at least one surviving son with that name, and my John Adam (1808) followed that practice, calling two sons John Adam, one known as “John” and the other, “Adam”. Their families lived close to each other on Johns Hill, and descendants lived next door to each other in Southgate.
According to the Wurzburg Archdiocese, John Adam's (1798) first wife was Anna Kirchgessner (born 1804), mother of Balthasar and Ulrich. His second wife was Gertraud Morhard, (died 1838), mother of Christof (1836). Rus Stevens' record shows the place Anna was born was Kirchgessner, when that was actually her last name.
John Adam's (1798) brother Peter Adam lived in Cincinnati but appears to have died before the 1860 Census. I can find no record of his death or burial, but he was alive in April of 1857, having served as a witness at a baptism. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati had no record of burial.
- Peter Adam's wife Theresa died August 12, 1866, of cholera. Buried at St John the Baptist, Green and Republic Streets, Cincinnati. Archdiocese records. Cincinnati Enquirer.
- Daughter Catherine born 1833, died unmarried 24 March 1889 in Cincinnati. Cincinnati Freie Presse
- Son John was a shoemaker, born 1834, wife Mary (1838). Census records.
- Daughter Clara M, Census records.
- Daughter Barbara born January 1850, married Joseph Bath (or Path) in 1870 and died in 1940.
- Her children were Theresa, b-1874, Joseph, b-1879; Albert, b-1881; Lillian, b-1883; Hilde, b-1886, Edward, b-1891; and Ottillia, b-1893 Census records
- Daughter Anna Maria born 24 April 1838 in Germany, died at the age of 80 years, 6 months and 15 days, November 8, 1918, and is buried at St Mary's Cemetery, Cincinnati. She married Heinrich Loehrlein in 1860 and he died about 1900. Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953 Records.
- Her only son John apparently died unmarried in the 1890's in Cincinnati.
- Theresa's sister Marguerite Volk – I have found only the ship's record as of April 25, 2012. The Cincinnati Archdiocese does not have a record.
Many of these families are documented in their family trees on Ancestry, some of which I created. Peter Adam's and John Adam's (1798) father and mother were John Adam Ziegler and Anna Maria Morhard of Grossostheim. Theresa's family were “Schusters” or shoemakers, Andreas Volk and wife Margaretha Bickard of Grossostheim, according to Wurzburg Archdiocese records.
Based on cemetery records, the Peter Adam Ziegler family appears to have stayed loyal to the Catholic Church, while his brother John Adam Ziegler's (1798) family broke away to the Protestant Church after arriving in America. My John Adam Ziegler's (1808) family stayed rather religiously undecided, while John Adam (1808) and Sophiena stayed Catholic and some of their descendants became Protestant, many of them members of St Johns United Church in Newport. Given the practices of the time, these religious differences may account for the lack of intermarriage between the two families.
Somehow I cannot limit myself to one line of a family. I require the context of regional and wide family history to understand what their life was like.
My research is almost totally
by computer, except for Rus' notes, since I don't live anywhere near Campbell
County. I hope this article is useful information to those searching for the
elusive relatives, and debunks some of the erroneous ideas about these
families. As always, this information may change when more documents come to
light.