My first encounter with Joseph Peter Heimbach was a letter from a distant cousin saying Helena Heimbach Ellsworth's death certificate identified her father as Peter Heimbach. Armed with that information, I found him on the 1870 census. This was before digital records were online in the late 1980s. I loved scrolling though the films.
No one in the family had any inkling about the family other than they lived in Chicago during the Chicago Fire of 1871 and that Helena married Edward Ellworth in Chicago about 1890. No clue as to how they met.
From the 1870 census, I learned they were from Prussia. Their oldest child Nicholas, was born in Prussia too.
Then I found an index done by someone on Rootsweb of St Michael's Catholic Church in Chicago. There was Joseph and Anna and the third daughter Margarurite. The blessing was, the priest had them write their birth place also. I spent some time searching but to no avail. It would be 8 years later, I met a man in the Family History Center I worked in that had the family genealogy book from Losheim, Germany where they were from. He loaded me the book and it had both families back to 1800.
I will begin the journey of this story with Joseph Peter, his birth and the events around his birth.
I love this family; they are so interesting.
My internet is so incredibly slow tonight I can not upload anything. More later.
No one in the family had any inkling about the family other than they lived in Chicago during the Chicago Fire of 1871 and that Helena married Edward Ellworth in Chicago about 1890. No clue as to how they met.
From the 1870 census, I learned they were from Prussia. Their oldest child Nicholas, was born in Prussia too.
Then I found an index done by someone on Rootsweb of St Michael's Catholic Church in Chicago. There was Joseph and Anna and the third daughter Margarurite. The blessing was, the priest had them write their birth place also. I spent some time searching but to no avail. It would be 8 years later, I met a man in the Family History Center I worked in that had the family genealogy book from Losheim, Germany where they were from. He loaded me the book and it had both families back to 1800.
I will begin the journey of this story with Joseph Peter, his birth and the events around his birth.
I love this family; they are so interesting.
My internet is so incredibly slow tonight I can not upload anything. More later.
