Sorry, it’s taken me awhile to write a new post, I’ve been caught up in our Konzen search.  So some more news about the Konzen search.

Michelle, Paula, and I have been hard at work attempting to unravel the mystery of the Konzens.  Sometimes we start thinking that it shouldn’t be this hard to find them and when we are far past frustrated we – well, maybe it’s just me – start throwing around crazy theories to explain why our Konzens are so hard to find.  Some of my favorite theories are that the Konzens must have been running from the law, they were trying to thwart the efforts of their future descendants, or that they never stayed in one place for more than one generation.

In the microfilms of Kruchten’s parish records, we found out that Mathias (we’d thought he must have been one of their kids since he arrived on the same ship as Peter, Theresa, and Theodore’s family) was a child of Peter and Theresa Konzen.  We also found three more children of Peter and Theresa – Marie, Anton, and Margaretha.  At first, we’d believed that Marie was Catherine because their birthdates were so close, but then we couldn’t also find a record for Angela Susanna.  So Michelle wrote to the Catholic Church in Kruchten and they sent her some family group sheets.

According to the family group sheets (which were compiled from parish records), Peter and Theresa only had six kids – Johann Mathias, Theodore, Joannes, Margaretha, Marie, and Anton – and Marie and Anton died in Kruchten.  So Catherine and Angela Susanna are not children of Peter and Theresa, as Michelle, Paula, and I – along with many other people – had thought.

This family group sheet page shows Peter and Theresa’s children and their son Theodore’s family.

 We’d heard before that Angela Susanna may have been born in Ralingen or Forhen, Germany.  I searched through the Ralingen microfilm of parish records (years 1712-1900) and found some Konz/Konns/Kuns/Konzens named Angela, Susanna, and Catherine that could possibly be our Angela Susanna and Catherine, but we don’t think those baptism records are enough proof to make us believe that those Konzens are Angela Susanna and Catherine.  But we might eventually find more proof for those people.

Michelle searched through a film of a Fohren family book, but she didn’t find Angela or Catherine either.  I’ll let you know about some more developments soon!

Here are some more pages from the Kruchten family book:

Pictures of the Kruchten catholic church.

The Kauth/Kout Family – Margaretha Konzen’s husband Mathias’s family.

Margaretha Konzen & Mathias Kauth/Kout and their children.

The first page of Theresa Wolff Konzen’s family – her parents are Karl Wolff & Margaretha Muller/Schmitz.

The second page of Theresa’s family. It says that Theresa’s sister Maria Theresa was also married to Peter Konzen, but that’s a mistake and it doesn’t show it on the Konzen page.