Genealogy Is An Adventure

Tag: Schönwiese

  • What The Census Suggests

    Adolph Scholz was my husband’s Great Grandfather. He appeared in the 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 census. His birth country was always given as Austria. Adolph is always in the top row.

    1900 Census

    1910 Census

    1920 Census

    1930 Census

    I have even have Adolph’s arrival record in New York. It also said Austria. He had travelled with his friend Hermann Klinke.

    His death certificate also said that he was born in Austria

    You would think by now that he was born in that country. I believed it for a very long time, until one day it occurred to me that he was born in Schlesien (Silesia) which has nothing to do with Austria at all. We always knew his birth town, which was Schönwiese Kreis Leobschütz.

    There are lots of villages called Schönwiese in Germany as well as Austria, may be even Switzerland. Europe was always unstable, many wars with lots of border changes, so I thought, may be Schönwiese was in Germany and then became part of Austria or the other way around. The answer has always been no.

    Schönwiese is in the famous Meyers Gazetteer which tried to list every town and village in the German Empire (1871-1918). Meyers Gazetteer was published in 1912. The link for Schönwiese is here. There are twenty different Schönwiese listed in the Gazetteer.

    I also have a copy of a postcard from Schönwiese which should have given me a clue a long time ago.

    The description says Schönwiese Kreis Leobschütz, Oberschlesien which stands for Upper Silesia. Upper Silesia used to be in Germany.

    Adolph’s wife came from the town of Hof in Moravia, Austria. The census was always correct.

    Let’s look at a current map of where Schönwiese, which is now called Krasne Pole, is located.

    Krasne Pole on the right located in Poland, which back in the day was Prussia, and on the left side is Cesko or Czech Republic which used to be Austria. Schönwiese was literally just a couple of miles away from the Austrian border.

    Adolph’s future wife Rosina Mücke grew up only about a 45 minute drive from him in Hof, Moravia, Austria now called Dvorce u Bruntalv.

    My husband and I are planning on visiting both villages eventually.

    So what is the moral of the story. Don’t trust census records? Not really! Instead gather all your facts and locations you have for an ancestor. Try to figure out where they came from. Geography is a very important part and history as well. The problem can be a language barrier, however these days google and other translators can help with that.

    The only question I have, why did Adolph lie? May be he was afraid that the German Empire would come after him, so he decided to just say that he was from Austria.

    Adolph’s naturalization and passport application are not online. Those can be very helpful in researching the birth locations. He went back to Europe to visit his family in Schönwiese in 1910.

    Adolph with his Mother, Franziska, and some of his siblings.

    Do you trust the census? Have you found a discrepancy in your research?

    Please leave a comment below!

  • Johann Georgi Selzer 1740-?

    Johann Georgi Seltzer was my husband’s 5th paternal Great Grandfather. He was born 12 June 1740 in Raden, Kreis Leobschütz, Silesia, Germany. Since the end of WW2, Raden has belonged to Poland and is now called Radynia. After the war had ended, all the German people of that region were expelled by the new Polish government. It was a terrible time for them. They could barely take anything with them and many people lost their lives. Raden (Radynia) is a tiny village close to the Czech border.

    Johann’s parents were Anton Selzer and Johanna Englisch. He married my husband’s 5th Great Grandmother, Elisabetha Grimm, 17 October 1769 in Schönwiese, now called Krasne Pole. This village is about 7 miles away from Radynia.

    An old postcard of Schönwiese (Krasne Pole) from the 1920’s.

    Johann and Elisabetha Selzer had 10 children, all born in Raden (Radynia).

    • 1. Anton Valentin born 1771
    • 2. Joseph Urban born 1772 and died 1789 in Raden
    • 3. Carl Johann born 1774
    • 4. Johann Georg born 1775 and died 1846 in Raden. He was married to Elisabeth Krischker. They had 12 children.
    • 5. Maria Elisabetha Theresia was born 1779. She married Franz Schindler. They had 4 children.
    • 6. Johann Martin born 1780
    • 7. Johanna Selzer, my husband’s 4th Great Grandmother, was born 1782 and died 1822 in Raden. She was married to my husband’s 4th Great Grandfather, Anton Wiedemann. They had 9 children, one of them was husband’s 3rd Great Grandmother, Karolina Wiedemann who married Fridolin Scholz, my husband’s 3rd Great Grandfather.
    • 8. Carolus Joannes, no dates available, he supposedly had at least 3 children
    • 9. Clara Victoria died 1785 in Raden
    • 10. Bernard Paulus no dates available

    Johann and his wife had 10 children, 29 grandchildren, 22 great grandchildren, 58 2x great grandchildren and 57 3x great grandchildren. These are the ones I have found, there are probably a lot more. Many of Johann’s descendants live in Germany, Austria and the United States.

    Johann’s relationship to my husband, his 5x Great Grandchild:

    Do you know how many sets of 5th great grandparents you have? 128! Every generation doubles in numbers. Let’s see if this correct.

    • Generation 1: Child
    • Generation 2: 2 parents
    • Generation 3: 4 Grandparents
    • Generation 4: 8 Great Grandparents
    • Generation 5: 16 2x Great Grandparents
    • Generation 6: 32 3x Great Grandparents
    • Generation 7: 64 4x Great Grandparents
    • Generation 8: 128 5x Great Grandparents
    • Generation 9: 256 6x Great Grandparents
    • Generation 10: 512 7x Great Grandparents
    • Generation 11: 1024 8x Great Grandparents
    • Generation 12: 2048 9x Great Grandparents
    • Generation 13: 4096 10x Great Grandparent
    • Generation 14: 8192 11x Great Grandparents
    • Generation 15: 1638 12x Great Grandparents
    • Generation 16: 32768 13x Great Grandparents

    So you have 128 sets of 5x Great Grandparent, that means you have 64 5x Great Grandfathers. How many have you found in your research?

    In order for me to find the Polish name for Raden, I used Kartenmeister.

    This is the best website to find the current names of former German cities. There were a couple of other towns with the name Raden, however I knew which Kreis (sort of like a county) it belonged to. Raden, Kreis Leobschütz which now is called Radynia.

    I did find an image for Raden on a Polish website. You can see the image here. On the top half it shows a guest house and the owner has the same last name, Selzer. He might very well be related to my husband’s 5th Great Grandfather.

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  • Theresia Kunze Kieslich 1814-1887

    Theresia Kunze was my husband’s paternal 3rd Great Grandmother. She was born 24 April 1814 in Peterwitz Kreis Leobschütz, Silesia, Germany nowadays called Pietrowice in Poland. Kartenmeister is a great resource of finding information about former and current names of villages. An example for Peterwitz below.

    Theresia’s parents were the farmer Joseph Kunz and his wife Magdalena Schenk. She married my husband’s 3rd Great Grandfather, Johann Kieslich, 2 September 1834. They had eight children, all born in Schönwiese, Silesia, Germany nowadays called Krasne Pole, Poland.

    • 1. The oldest, Franziska Kieslich, my husband’s 2nd Great Grandmother, born 1838 and died 1914 in Schönwiese. She was married to Franz Scholz, my husband’s 2nd Great Grandfather. They had 11 children, one of them was Adolph Scholz, my husband’s Great Grandfather who immigrated to Tennessee. A picture showing Franziska Kieslich Scholz with some of her grown children, including Adolph, circa 1911.
    • 2. Franz Kieslich born 1839, died 1909.
    • 3. Josefa Kieslich born 1841, died 1919. She was married to Johann Hanke. They had 3 children.
    • 4. Josef Kieslich born 1843, died 1918. He was married to Josepha Lichtblau. They had 3 children. Josef was also married to Karolina Kleiber and Anna Schokala.
    • 5. Johann Kieslich born 1845, died 1918. He was married to Marie Kunze. They had 4 children.
    • 6. Johanna Kieslich born 1846, died 1922. She was married to Josef Ludwig. They had 2 children.
    • 7. Robert Kieslich born 1847 in Schönwiese, died 1910 in Burlington, Vermont, United States. He was married to Josepha Hofrichter. They had 9 children.
    • 8. Anna Kieslich born 1852, died 1922. She was married to Joseph Kastner. They had 5 children.

    Theresia died 11 September 1887 in Schönwiese.

    Peterwitz (Pietrovice) to Schönwiese (Krasne Pole) is only 5.6 km or 3.4 miles.

    Sources I have used for this article:

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  • Adolph Albert Scholz 1865-1939

    Adolph was my husband’s Great Grandfather. He was born 8 January 1865

    in Schönwiese, Kreis Leobschütz, Austria and died 10 April 1939 in Colfax,

    Washington.

    Adolph arrived 13 February 1884 in New York with his friend Herman

    Klinke.

    Image Provided by Ancestry https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7488/images/NYM237_473-0528?pId=9886928

    Their ship, Neckar, travelled from Bremen, Germany, via Southampton, England to New York.

    https://www.ggarchives.com/OceanTravel/ImmigrantShips/Neckar.html

    Adolph settled in Oliver Springs, Tennessee, where he married my husband’s

    Great Grandmother, Rosina Muecke, 20 May 1888. Adolph and Rosina had

    10 children together. Nine of them were born in Tennessee and the last one,

    my husband’s Grandfather, was born in Washington State.