Tag Archives: Hansen

Konzen Family Books

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Hi everyone!  I’ve been working on some Konzen family books.  One book is on the Angela Susanna Konzen & Peter Hansen family and one book is Peter Konzen & Theresa Wolff’s descendants – Theodore, Mathias, John, and Margaretha.  I am looking for more information, stories, and photographs for the books.  If you have anything you’d like to submit for the books, you can email them to me at konzengenealogy at hotmail.com.

Living people will be included in the books, but their birth dates and places will not be included.  I’ll post more information on the books throughout the process.  If you are interested in one of these books please let me know (and tell me which one) by commenting on this post or emailing me.  This will help give me an idea of how I’ll need to have the books printed and bound.  Please pass the word to relatives about the books and let them know to contact me with family information and any stories or photographs they would like included in the books.

I’m excited about this and I hope everyone else is, too!

Also, please let me know if you see any errors in the family trees on this blog and I will make the changes to them and carry those changes forward to the books.

 

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The Pitz Family Continued

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The next time I went to the local Family History Center, I found the record of Catherine Rouller Pitz’s (my 3rd great grandmother) birth on August 7,1793, in an Alsdorf, Germany film.  Alsdorf and Mettendorf are about 13 miles apart.  Her parents were Peter Rouller and Susanna Hansen and I found baptism records for three of Catherine’s siblings.  Her sister Margaretha Rouller was born in 1782, her sister Maria Catherine Rouller was born in 1786, and her brother Joannes Rouller was born in 1789.

In the Mettendorf films, I found George/Gregory Pitz’s birth (Catherine Pitz Konzen’s father) and his marriage to Catherine Rouller in 1819.  After Catherine Rouller died in 1833, I found a record of his marriage to Catherine Markes in 1834.  George/Gregory Pitz – I usually call him George – was the son of Anna Maria Fandel and Theodore Pitz.

I haven’t come across Theodore’s birth or death records yet, but I did find their marriage on January 9, 1782 in Mettendorf.  I came across records for the births of their following children: Maria Pitz (born in 1782), Catherine Pitz (born in 1784), Margaretha Pitz (born in 1788 ), and Mathias Pitz (born in 1790).  Anna Maria Fandel died in 1831 and was buried on February 3, 1831.  I also discovered from Anna Maria Fandel’s death record that she was born in Bettingen, Germany.

In 1841, I found confirmation records of Catherine Pitz Konzen and her brothers Peter and Michael Pitz.  There are many more Pitzes in the films to connect to our Pitz family and more records to still search through.  I’m not done looking through the Mettendorf and Alsdorf films, all the films are long and full of possible relatives and handwriting that is difficult to read.

The Mystery of Angela Susanna Konzen

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Peter Hansen & Angela Susanna Konzen’s Marriage Application – Angela is listed as Susanna Konzen on her marriage application, but, as far as we know, that’s the only time she didn’t go by Angela.

According to Vernon Auderer’s book on the Konzens, Angela Susanna was born in Rollingen, Germany (this is actually Ralingen, Germany) and her husband Peter Hansen was born in Oberbettingen, Germany.  Since Vernon wrote that all of the Konzens (Theodore, John, Catherine, and Angela Susanna) were probably from Rollingen, I’m guessing that Vernon came to this conclusion because Catherine’s gravestone says that she was born in Rollingen, so he must have assumed that they were all from there.  That was a great assumption at the time, but now we’ve proved that Theodore, John, Mathias, and Margaretha were from Kruchten, Germany.

I ordered a microfilm of Ralingen parish records and in it I found a lot of Kons/Konz/Konzens.  There was a Nicolas Konzen who had daughters named Susanna (born Jan. 27, 1819), Angela (Feb. 1, 1825), and Catherine (Feb. 6, 1830).  Nicolas and his wife Anne Marie Dockendorf also had five sons, Wilhelm (Jan. 29, 1821), Theodore (Nov. 13, 1822), Nicolas (Oct. 1, 1827), Christopher (Aug. 9, 1832), and Henry (Feb. 8, 1835).

Our Angela Susanna was born, according to Vernon, in February of 1822 (various census records state that she was born in 1820, 1824, 1823, and February of 1822).  However, at this time giving accurate dates of birth (or really an information) to census takers wasn’t as important as it is today.  Also, Angela Susanna and her family probably had a thick German accent which probably made it hard to understand any information they gave the census taker.  So it’s hard to tell if Angela Susanna would be Angela or Susanna of Ralingen, but my guess is that she was Angela since she was born on Feb. 1, 1825.

This is based on the fact that there is a census record stating she was born in February and none of the censuses I’ve found her in state that she was born before 1820.  I’d expect to see that if Angela had been born in 1819.  We’re not sure why she would’ve gone by Susanna (especially if that was her sister’s name) on her marriage record, but maybe she started using Susanna as her middle name after her sister Susanna died (if she did die young or before Angela).  Maybe we’ll know someday.

Angela Konzen’s birth

I’ve also written a letter to Ralingen asking for a copy of their family book, hopefully we’ll hear back from them soon.  It also seems very likely that the Ralingen family of Konzens are related to our Kruchten/Lellig Konzens because the names Theodore and Wilhelm are also names of some people in our family during that time period.  And because what are the chances of two (or more) different Konzen families arriving in the same county in Iowa at around the same time?  It really seems that they have to be related somehow…

*Note – after more research we realized that we are 99.9% certain that Angela Susanna Konzen is not the daughter of Nicolas Konzen & Anne Maria Dockendorf of Ralingen.  We don’t know if Angela Susanna is or is not a Konzen (yes, there’s been a little debate about that), but we have been unable – so far – to find a family for her.