I’ve been having a lot of new correspondence with distant cousins ever since this year’s RootsTech conference, because I made sure to make good use of the Family Connect feature.
Week 20: Cousin Bait
My 2nd great grandfather, Christian Eggenberger, was born 29 April 1838 in Switzerland, but the first written record I have recording his existence is the 1860 U.S. federal census, when he was already 22 years old and living in Chippewa, Wayne County, Ohio.
1860 United States Federal Census, population schedule, Chippewa, Wayne, Ohio, Christian Eckenberger household, p. 386, line 3, online database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 May 2021), Provo, UT, USA; NARA microfilm publication M653, 1,438 rolls.
1860 United States Federal Census, index, population schedule, Chippewa, Wayne, Ohio, Christian Eckenberger household, p. 386, line 3, online database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 May 2021), Provo, UT, USA.
This census is not only badly faded and difficult to decipher, but unfortunately also records Christian with a handful of Eggenberger/Eckenberger family members whose relationships are not explicitly stated. The census also pre-dates his marriage to my 2nd great grandmother, Ester Sauvain, who was also Swiss-born.
Ohio, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1774-1993, Echenberger-Zova, 1861, online database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 May 2021), Lehi, UT, USA; various Ohio County Courthouses.
Note the huge disparities in the spellings of both Eggenberger and Sauvain on these records. While these variants of their surnames have not made their genealogies impossible to research, it certainly has added a complexity. The reason being is other descendants of this couple’s cousins have seemingly adopted the various spellings. Connecting everyone back to that earlier generation has been a task.
During RootsTech this year, I made a concentrated effort to track down any Eggenberger or Sauvain cousins who may still have ties to Switzerland (or even actually still reside there). The FamilySearch.org tool made this possible because I could filter by location to see which hypothesized cousins lived in the Switzerland region and how they were reportedly connected to me in the FamilySearch universal tree. I sent introductory messages to multiple individuals and not long after the conference had ended, I began receiving responses!
While not all of my conversations have been fruitful, there have been a few that have yielded some great interactions, and I’m quite grateful for the new relationships!
Around this same time, a woman reached out to me about Christian Eggenberger on behalf of her grandson who was descended from John Eckenberger. John was a 2 year old that was included on the 1860 census with Christian and his family. The 2 year old had always raised eyebrows for me, as the census made it seem like Christian may have been the father to this 2 year old, John. And yet, we know Christian marries my 2nd great grandmother just a year later, and both John and his presumed mother on the census, Anne/Anna, are nowhere to be found after then.
So did something tragic happen to Anne and toddler John between 1860 and 1861, forcing Christian to remarry? Or did Christian abandon his wife and child, and take a new bride in the U.S.? Or were they related to Christian in some other capacity, such as cousins, or a sibling and nephew, rather than wife and child?
I had recently discovered records of what I believed to be John later on in life, but the records only brought up more questions. One of them being whether I had found the correct John in general, because he went by the Eckenberger surname rather than Eggenberger surname that Christian had adopted.
With this new connection’s help, we established that John was indeed Christian’s nephew! John’s mother, Anne, was Christian’s older sister. And after further investigation, I was able to discover that the mother to 2 other boys whom Christian later fosters were also the sons of another sister of his, Elizabeth, who had also taken the Eckenberger spelling.
Although I had studied all of these relationships multiple times in the past, I really was unable to make all the necessary connections until I talked through the family dynamics with this new contact I had made.
1870 United States Federal Census, population schedule, Baughman, Wayne, Ohio, Christian Eggenberger household, p. 3A, line 30, online database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 May 2021), Provo, UT, USA; NARA microfilm publication M593, 1,761 rolls.
I like to think of all of my ancestors as cousin bait, but in the case of Christian Eggenberger, I feel like I actually threw out a line and made a great catch! I’m still on the hunt for discovering details on Christian’s early years in Switzerland and his emigration to the States (as well as his death!), but my hopes are reinvigorated each time a connection reveals new information. You never know which cousin will have the key to unlock your mystery, and tools such as Family Connect, really help make correspondence so much easier.
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