Sometimes when you are researching your family history you feel like your ancestors are talking to you. Last weekend my great great grandmother was talking loud and clear.
My last blog was about Conrad Boehler and his coming through Lincoln, Ill. Conrad married Amelia Spoettle (Spitly) and today's blog is about her family. The history of the Spitly family had been passed down but we had no information about Amelia's mother, Theresa. When I was in Lincoln, Ill last spring going through the church records I discovered that her maiden name was Herberger ( many different spellings of this are found). So now that I knew her maiden name researching her family should be easy...yeah, not so much.
I started by looking for other Herberger families in the area and I found another gentleman, John, researching the Herberger family too. We found a Goerge and Josephine Herberger in Lincoln but have no records connecting them to Theresa. Nothing I have mentions Theresa's family.
Anyway, John had contacted me recently and wanted to look at this again. We had spent the week exchanging emails and ideas of where to look next but still had no idea if Theresa had any family in Lincoln or where she came from.
So last Saturday we were exchanging a couple more ideas and going back over what little information we had when I see an email come in from Ancestry. It said that I had some new DNA matches. I click on it and I had a new third cousin match. That was exciting in itself but when I clicked on it the person that was my third cousin match had her tree attached to her profile and she is a direct descendent of George Herberger of Lincoln, IL!!!!! I had goosebumps. This had to be more than a freaky coincidence….my great great grandmother, Theresa Herberger Spitly was pointing me to her family. She wants to be remembered.
*Side note…John's link to the Herberger family is a Carolina Herberger who married Ambrose Wachter. Ambrose and Carolina were neighbors to Joseph and Theresa Spitly. They were found together in the church records as sponsors for the baptisms of each other's children. This make me believe that Carolina is also related to Theresa but Theresa and George are both listed as coming from Bavaria in several places and John has a complete story on Carolina and her mother coming from Germany so we are not sure if there is a true relationship there or not.
After more research was done by John's connection in Germany we confirmed that Carolina is a sister to Theresa and George all of whom were born in Bavaria. We also found another brother, Frank, in Kendallville, Indiana.
ReplyDeleteSome of George's family moved to Red Cloud, Ne and are buried there. They are just one county over from my family.