Recently, Michelle, Paula, and I decided to further our Konzen search by ordering some German microfilms of parish records through the LDS Family Search center.  We ordered films for Kruchten, Konzen, Ralingen, and Fohren, Germany.  So far, I’ve gone through the Kruchten film searching for more records of Theresa, Peter, and their families.  I’ve found a number of records for Kouts and Wolffs and a baptism record for Johan Mathias Konzen.  According to the record, Johan Mathias is the son of Peter & Theresa and his birth date matches up with the information we have on the Mathias Konzen we’ve suspected of being another of Peter & Theresa’s kids. 

The baptism record for Johan Mathias Konzen

Unfortunately, we still haven’t found any records for Angela Susanna (sometimes known as Margarthe) Konzen being a child of Peter & Theresa.  But, we haven’t given up the search.  And now that we have documentation showing that Mathias is the son of Peter & Theresa, it seems even more likely that Angela is also their child.  If Peter & Theresa would name one of their children Johan Mathias and another one Joannes (my great great grandfather) – so they basically named two of their sons John – then it seems very likely that they could have one daughter named Margaretha and one named Angela Margarethe or Margarethe Angela. 

Michelle, Paula, and I probably won’t ever stop trying to prove that Angela is Peter & Theresa’s daughter even if some DNA testing – or even body exhumation – ends up being involved : )

While scouring the Kruchten records for Angela, I came across two baptism records for children of Mathias Konzen and Catherine (or Anna Catherine) Schaetz.  Mathias & Catherine are not Peter’s parents since since (according to his marriage record) his parents are Theodore Konzen and Catherine Schuler.  Mathias’s last name is not obviously Konzen from looking at those baptism records, but in Peter & Theresa’s son Johan Mathias’s baptism record, one of his sponsors is Catherine Schaetz-Konzen which confirms that Catherine Schaetz’s husband Mathias’s last name is Konzen.  So Mathias Konzen might be Peter’s uncle and his children Peter (1781) and Catherine (1791) would be Peter’s cousins.

The baptism record for Peter Konzen son of Mathias Konzen and Anna Catherine Schaetz

The baptism record for Catherine Konzen daughter of Mathias Konzen and Catherine Schaetz

We’ve also discovered that Theresa’s sister Anne Marie Wolff married Cornelius Sondag in Kruchten on Feb 22, 1810.  Anne Marie and Cornelius had seven children (that we know of): Anne Marie (born 1821), Franciscus (born 1823), Matthias (born 1825), Marie (born 1826), Carolus Matt (born 1829), Wilhelmus (born 1832), and Peter (born 1835).

Anne Marie Wolff and Cornelius Sondag's marriage record

Anne Marie and Theresa are both children of Charles Wolff and M.Catherine Muller.

I also noticed while going through the Kruchten records that some of the Kouts were from Mettendorf where John Konzen’s wife Catherine Pitz was from.  It seems that the Konzens are all even more related than we thought.  I’m currently trying to make mini family trees for the Kouts and Wolffs from the records so we can figure out how all the Kout and Wolff families in Kruchten are related to each other.

I haven’t finished going through the Kruchten records and we haven’t started on the Konzen, Ralingen, Fohren, or Oberbettingen microfilms yet so you never know what we’ll come up with!  I better get back to organizing the Kruchten records, but I’ll make sure to keep in touch about our progress with the Konzens.