Beyond the Names: September 2015

Sunday, 27 September 2015

Finding Ringens - Part Deux

John Ringen

You may recall that it was Hattie Belle Ringen who first got me excited about my most recent genealogy voyage. I had found relatives of Hattie’s going back to the mid-1800s in the US. It was pretty exciting to learn that her father, John Ringen (my great-great-grandfather), was mixed up in the Civil War, and started a stove company, which is now Magic Chef. I was always stumped, though, by the fact that I could never find ancestors for John Ringen. Recently, I reinvigorated my quest to find out more about where John Ringen came from. I started with what I knew based on other people’s ancestry.ca’s family trees: John’s father’s name was Unk – and he was born in Germany. I searched high and low for Unk Ringen. Nothing.

We believe this picture
to be Hattie Belle Ringen

After significant internet research, and based on some past luck with the magic of Google, I decided to simply type in “origin of the German name Unk.” Imagine the anticipation… and then the hilarious disappointment. Practically the first thing to come up was that “unk” is an abbreviation for “unknown” which is commonly used in genealogy. On the one hand, that clarified something: I definitely don’t know John’s father’s name. On the other hand, I was starting from scratch… again.

I started with what I know absolutely to be true: John’s naturalization and census records from America.

There are lots of immigration records and passenger manifests for Germans seeking a new life in America. Based on John’s naturalization papers, I know that John probably came to America around 1845. At that time, John would have been only 11 years old, so it’s possible his memory of his passage and the details could be sketchy. The year was, therefore, still a question in my mind.

I searched every ship manifest – pouring over passenger lists for a Ringen family with an eleven (or thereabouts) year-old son. Nothing. So back to basics and what I know, and there is a lot I do know about John. John married Louisa Heinzelman. The Heinzelmans likely came from Wurttemberg in Germany around 1837. This conjecture is based on an immigration record from Johann Adam Heinzelman, with the right birth date for Louisa’s father, JA Heinzelman. So perhaps our John Ringen came over with the Heinzelmans. No luck. The Heinzelman’s lived in Cincinnati before moving to St.Louis, which is where they met John Ringen and his buddy Henry Timken.

We definitely know the Heinzelmans, Timkens and Ringens were hanging out in Missouri. Henry Timken and John Ringen were best friends. In a previous blog I chronicled their joint adventures as entrepreneurs and Gold Rush enthusiasts. They also both married Heinzelmans (Fredericka to Henry and Louisa to John). We know they all lived in St. Louis and that there was a fairly significant German community there, including many who fought for the Union side (including John and Henry). Other than this, I wasn’t sure of family or other connections.

Louisa Ringen nee Heinzelman

And then – the wonder of the internet. Through the blog, a couple of Ringen descendants have been in touch, and this has brought me a few interesting tidbits.

Firstly, something I didn’t know was that John Ringen was related already to the Timkens through marriage of distant cousins: Gerhard Ringen and Adelheid Timken. This I learned because of research into John’s friend Henry Timken. Henry Timken, in turns out, was an even more successful entrepreneur than John. Henry Timken started with ball bearing production, and it has since grown into a successful publicly-traded company. Because of Henry’s fame, we can find out a little more about our John. For example, Henry Timken hails from Tarmstedt in Bremen, Germany. Henry is related to Jacob Timken, and Jacob Timken’s daughter, Adelheid, married Gerhard Ringen. Sources, including census, confirm that Jacob lived with Aldelheid and Gerhard until he died in 1866.

John Ringen's passport application 1880

Making connections between our John Ringen and the Timkens helps us get a little closer to John Ringen’s roots in Germany. In fact, further search turned up John Ringen’s 1880 passport application, in which he cites Breddorf, Germany as his birthplace, a stone’s throw from the Timken’s original farm in Tarmstedt.

Being clearer about John’s birthplace, I could search historical documents and see how people from that part of Germany travelled to America in the 1800s. John’s naturalization document shows the year of immigration at 1845. Germans who travelled to Missouri at that time typically moved through New Orleans. Since he would have been around eight years old, I was looking for Ringens or Timkens who travelled to New Orleans in the time period and who may have had a child with them. More disappointment.

Census record showing Timkens and Ringens

I painstakingly reviewed every passenger list for 10 years before and after John’s estimated year of arrival (1845). I simply can't find anything that proves when our John arrived and with whom. Before I started this research, however, I didn’t realize just how many Germans from Bremen came to the United States at that time. In fact, Germany played the greatest role in populating the United States during the 1800s. Between 1820 and 1910, five and a half million Germans settled in the US, primarily in the central farming states.

During this period, most Germans left from Bremen or Cuxhaven. The port at Bremen (Bremerhaven) was the likely port of departure for John, since he was born not far from there in Breddorf. Unfortunately, most of the passenger lists from Bremen have been destroyed. We are pretty certain that the Ringens were a farming family, and cousin Gerhard had his own farm. As industrialization took over in Germany, land prices increased and farming income became unsustainable. Conscription affected many of the poorer farming families who were losing their male children to wars. For our Ringens, it is possible that the crop failure in the 1830s and 40s encouraged their departure. A growing German community in the United States meant that while emigrants were leaving Germany they felt they had somewhere safe to go to, where cheap land meant a more stable future.

Here is what I still don’t know: with whom did John travel to the United States? Who were his parents and did they come along? Do we have any relatives left in Germany? On this last one, there may be clues.

Two sources that I turned up: a surname distribution map for Germany, and the Breddorf phone book. Something else I now know. Most Germans with the surname Ringen are from the area around Breddorf, and there are still a number of Ringens living in and around the Breddorf area. Perhaps some cold calls to see if any of them have missing ancestors named Johan in their family trees? The search continues.

Afterword:

Just before I finished this blog, I attended a workshop sponsored by the Victoria Genealogical Society in which Gerry taught us some tips and tricks around searching on ancestry.ca. Most of his tips I knew, but a couple were golden and well worth the time and money for the workshop. One was use of the wildcard in the search. Just when I had completely given up, I tried a wildcard search and found a possible match. Right age, right location, but the name was messed up (J??? Rinke), and it was a few years off in terms of arrival. A website describing passenger lists from that ship, the Corsaire, note a number of errors and inconsistencies in names making matches extremely difficult. Could this be our John? If so, he was travelling with two women, one presumably his mother, a 54 year-old named (possibly) Catherine, and another female, presumably his 17 year-old sister named Maria. Another record shows a John Rincke travelling on his own at the age of 14, arriving in New York on the ship Nestor in 1845. This one has the right first name, the right year, but the wrong age and surname spelling for young John. It is hard to say whether either of these is our John Ringen. Perhaps there is a record I have yet to uncover… The search for the Ringens in Germany continues.

Sources:

Various census, naturalization and travel documents

https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Germany_Emigration_and_Immigration

http://www.genealoger.com/german/ger_emigration_records.htm

http://home.comcast.net/~owen.rutz/rutz_genealogy/German_Immigration.htm

http://gen.plagge.org/search.php

Timken: From Missouri to Mars--a Century of Leadership in Manufacturing

By Bettye Hobbs Pruitt

http://www.die-maus-bremen.de/

http://www.die-maus-bremen.de/Datenbanken/auswanderer/passagierli/index.php/index.php?id=find

http://www.germanroots.com/emigration.html

http://www.timken.com/en-us/Pages/Home.aspx

http://geogen.stoepel.net/

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9855

Monday, 7 September 2015

The Mystery of Alexander Peden: International Brewer

I admittedly enjoy a good pint. What I didn’t know, before digging into the family tree, is that beer is in my blood.

Early 19th century brewing

Two of my ancestors, both on my father’s side, were involved in the brewing industry: Alexander Peden, who ultimately became a brewer after a difficult youth, and William Henry Bond, who was a clerk for a rather famous brewing establishment: William Younger. Alexander and William were a generation apart. The former Peden, my second-great-grandfather, was born in 1847 in Edindurgh, Scotland. The latter Bond was born 1875 in Bermondsey, England. Thirty years may not seem much, but growing up in the middle of the Victorian era on a farm in Scotland would have been a much different life than being raised in the latter part of the 19^th century in the bustling city of London.

You may remember Alexander Peden from an earlier blog. Alexander didn’t have much of a childhood (as we would imagine it) and worked for his uncle at the Peebleshire farm. In his teenage years he worked in his father’s grocery. In 1871, Alexander left his home, married Mary Anne Emily Holtum and began to have a family. Ten years and six children later, Alexander was a brewer in Castle Gresley.

A number of breweries operated in Burton on Trent

Castle Gresley is in Burton on Trent, which was famous for its brewing history in the 19^th century. The brewery there took advantage of natural spring waters, which were rich in sulphates. This added a distinctly hoppy flavour and smell to the brew. At the time, the brewing of India Pale Ale was gaining some prominence in Britain and being shipped to its colonies around the globe. Samuel Alssop was the father of Burton on Trent, having discovered the delicious mysteries of the springs and then perfecting the sulphate-infused brewing technique (now known as Burtonisation). By 1888 there were 31 breweries in the town of Burton on Trent, and it was known as the beer capital of the world. The brewers essentially ran the town politically, socially and economically.

Alexander and his family moved into this town just as it was incorporated in 1878. A long list of brewers in Burton, however, does not include Alexander, suggesting he likely worked for another brewer rather than being one of many owners in the town. The nearest brewery was the short lived Gresley Brewery operated by the Beard Brothers from 1887 to 1895.

Alexander Peden didn’t stay long in Burton, and by 1891 found himself living with a nurse and his children in Edinburgh, working for the Usher brewing company. In my earlier blog I conjectured that Alexander died in the period between 1891 and 1901, because he no longer appeared in the census documents. Researching this article on beer, however, led me to a whole different conclusion based on newfound evidence.

A newspaper advertisement from a law firm acting on behalf of Pedens was published in June 26, 1906 in the New Zealand Herald. The advertisement says that the courts will declare Alexander Peden dead unless anyone presents evidence to the contrary prior to October 15, 1906. Later that year, in August, another newspaper advertisement was posted upon the death of Thomas Peden (Alexander’s father) in a bid to settle his estate of £600, once again looking for Alexander and clarifying that it was thought he was headed to New Zealand in 1898.

SS City of Rome which brought Alexander
from Glasgow to New York in 1896

A search of travel records shows an Alexander Peden, brewer, heading to New York in 1896, on his own, with one piece of luggage. An Alexander Peden shows up in New Zealand voting records in 1900 in Wanganui. The Wanganui brewery was owned and operated by Hopeful Gibbons, a rather famous businessman and bicycle and motorcycle manufacturer originally from Tasmania and eventual Mayor of Wanganui. When Alexander was living in Wanganui, the brewery was a going concern in New Zealand and a brewer with experience in Burton on Trent and Edinburgh would no doubt be welcomed to that company.

Alexander Peden, the Wanganui resident, appears to have married a Jane Anne. In 1900, 1905 and 1906 they are identified as married on the voter registration, and Alexander is still listed as a brewer. There are no marriage records confirming the relationship. There is no way of knowing with certainty that this is the same Alexander, however a review of records in New Zealand fails to come up with any other explanation.

Alexander Peden was buried on October 11, 1919 in Aramoho cemetery in Wanganui. This Alexander is absolutely our Alexander Peden. For reasons I will have to discover through further research, Mary Anne Emily, the wife he left behind, is listed as having been buried there in 1940 (many years after her death in Kent in 1923). Even more mysteriously, the headstone for Alexander Peden reads: In loving memory of ALEXANDER PEDEN beloved husband of Mary Anne Emily Peden, born at Peebles, Scotland 3^rd May 1846 died at Carterton Wairarapa 8^th October 1919. ‘Thy will be done.’

So we know absolutely that Alexander brought his brewing expertise from Burton on Trent to Edinburgh and then to New Zealand. We know that he abandoned his family in Scotland in 1896. We know he made his way to New Zealand via New York. We know that he died in New Zealand and his grave bears the name of the wife he left behind. What we don’t know is whether he did, indeed, marry again in New Zealand. Perhaps his new wife, Jane Anne, stumbled upon the newspaper advertisements and discovered that her Alexander was actually married and had a family in Scotland. Alexander couldn’t escape his past if he wanted to access any of the £600 from his father’s estate. What we do know is that his wife Mary Anne Emily is named on his headstone, and he is still, in stone anyway, “beloved”. Some time after 1906 Alexander appears to have been acknowledged by his family in Scotland and possibly reunited with his wife Mary Anne Emily in death.

I am finding myself oddly thirsty – further research on the Pedens will have to wait.

Postscript: I was going to write this blog about both my brewing ancestors, however Alexander’s story was more exciting than I expected. As a result, I will write about William Henry Bond, brewer and my great-grand-father in another blog.

Afterword (February 2016): During a recent free weekend at findmypast.com, I looked through some newspaper articles and found one that explained some of what happened. Apparently Alexander has his wife Mary Anne Emily (Molly) committed. He did, in fact, have an affair with his nurse, and he was intoxicated through most of his very unhappy marriage. This may explain why his sons never married and chose lives of adventure instead. From the Dundee Advertiser February 7, 1898, just before Alexander abandoned his family and responsibilities and ended up in New Zealand: