Amelia, his wife

In the never ending battle for paper organization of my genealogy "stuff," I ran across a death certificate that I received last summer from Topkea, Kansas. I was so thrilled when I got it, but had trouble reading it at first. I put it on my table and it sank into the paperwork and got lost. Until the other day.

I've blogged a few times about my great-great-great grandfather on my mom's maternal line, Karl Kline. This is about his wife, Amelia. What I can gather about her life from what little family lore I have, the sparse census records, as well as some reading on life for women as Kansas pioneers, she had a tough life. I'm not ready to blog about some of those details, as I'm still working on some of the research.

Amelia survived her husband by about 17 years, passing away on July 28, 1923. They are buried together at Highland Cemetery in Marion, Kansas. I put the death certificate up on my Facebook page and solicited some help in reading the document from my friends.

One of my new Facebook friends is also a descendant of Karl and Amelia. I had seen her posts on family history bulletin boards and websites, but didn't know who she was. I did a little digging and realized we were related...her mother was my great-grandmother's little sister. So my new friend and I are first cousins, 2 times removed. She still lives in the area that Karl and Amelia lived in. I'm hoping we can collaborate more in the future on our mutual family lines. She gave me some interesting insight into Amelia as part of the death certificate deciphering.

Some of what was reported on the death certificate confirms information I had before. Here is what I learned about Amelia from her death certificate, with much thanks to my friends and family on Facebook for some additional insight:

• She was born in Germany. Some earlier census records report it as "Prussia," which by 1923 had become part of Germany.
• At the time of her death, Amelia lived with her youngest daughter, Daisy, and her husband George Powell. In fact, George is the informant for the death certificate.
• Her maiden name was Windel. It asks for her father's name it says "Don't know, Windel" I've seen the name spelled elsewhere as Wendel, as well. Where it asks for the mother's maiden name, it also says "Don't know." My new-found cousin tells me that Amelia did not speak much English, so it was difficult to get information from her on her ancestry. (Did Daisy not speak German?) Perhaps this wasn't considered important by them at the time. I know many people who don't seem to think their stories are important. (How wrong they are!)
• She died a week after her 81st birthday.
• Her cause of death was central stenosis, a heart valve disorder that involves a narrowing or blockage of the opening of the mitral valve, which separates the upper and lower chambers of the left side of the heart. She suffered from this disease for 2 years, 3 months and 10 days.

Karl and Amelia have captured my interest for some reason. I have a lot more to share about them, but its too soon yet. I am still in the process of learning and gathering information. I was thrilled to connect with my new cousin who also is a granddaughter of the Kline's. Are there any more of you out there?

Here's the actual death certificate:

Karl Kline...the mystery continues

I blogged earlier this month about my 3rd great grandfather on my mom's side, Karl Gottlieb Kline. Specifically, I am on a hunt to track down his military record.

If readers recall, Karl had a G.A.R. emblem next to his headstone. This would indicate Karl's membership in the "Grand Army of the Republic," a fraternal organization of union veterans of the Civil War.

I learned of a book that could help me in my quest: "Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska Civil War Veterans: Compilation of the Death Rolls of the Departments of Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, Grand Army of the Republic, 1883-1948" by Dennis Northcott. I looked for it in vain to be available in full text online. With a 2007 publication date, I shouldn't have been suprised not to find it. I also checked the library catalog of the Carlsbad library, but they did not have the book. According to World Cat, the closest library that held the book was in Los Angeles.

That led me to my first attempt at an interlibrary loan. I've never done this before, but the reference librarian at my local San Diego County branch library was very helpful. I went through the steps to make the request, but it came back in the negative. Apparently, the book is in the reference collection and not loaned out. Was I going to have to drive up to Los Angeles??

My genealogy angel friend, (I'll call her my geneangel from now on, because she is!), googled it for me and found that the Southern Orange County Genealogical Society had the book in their collection, held at the Mission Viejo library. Last Sunday, I convinced my hubby to hang out with the kids for the afternoon and I was off! This was my first trip to a library for family history research. Up until now, I've been able to do it all online. I'm not against library research, quite the contrary. It's just hard for me to get to a library with a 14 month old who thinks he is the center of the universe.

I found the book and copied the "Kline" page. Here is what I found.

Drumroll please.....

When I saw the name "Carl Kline" my heart leapt. This Carl was with a Wisconsin regiment, but his death date was listed as 1891. That couldn't be MY Carl, because we believe he died in 1907. Plus, I have a photo of the Kline family and the youngest daughter, Daisy, appears to be at least five. Daisy was born in 1887. When In looked in the death date column, there was a Kline who died on July 9, 1907. The headstone photo I have says my Karl died on July 7, 1907. That's pretty close. But the name of this Kline is PETER KLINE. He served with Company E, 40th Iowa. Peter Kline's death was reported in the Journal of the 34th Encampment of the Department of Iowa, published in 1908.

Could this be my Kline?

First the name issue. I've seen records with him listed as Gottlob, Gottolob, and Karl. But Peter is a new one. I'm not an expert in German, but I don't think "Peter" translates into Karl/Carl or Gottlieb. Any German experts out there, please feel free to educate me on this point.

Secondly is location. Iowa is not a state I would associate my Karl with. If it had said Pennsylvania, Ohio or Kansas, I would feel better about it. But I have no records, evidence or even family lore that would put Karl in Iowa. But who knows? I definitely have had trouble tracking down any records for this family. I do know Karl lived at least since 1880 in Kansas, and is buried in Marion County. Family lore says the family lived in Wellsville, Ohio prior to that. So Iowa is out of the blue.

I'll keep this nugget in my Kline file. But I don't think this Kline is my ancestor. So, for now, the search goes on.

A soldier's story that has yet to be told

Sometimes I'm able to share an ancestor's story on my blog. Other times, I want to post about questions I have been unable to find the answers for....yet. This is one of those posts.

His name was Karl Gottlieb Kline. He was born in Prussia and emigrated to the United States at some point. He married another German immigrant, Amelia Wendel. They were pioneers in Kansas during the 1880's. I first find them in Douglas County, then Marion County, where they are buried. They are my great-great-great grandparents on my mother's side.

The star shaped emblem to the left of their headstone has the initials "G.A.R. 1861-1865" The Grand Army of the Republic. This was a fraternal organization for Union veterans of the Civil War. It would seem then, that Karl was another civil war veteran in my family tree. Excellent!

Ever since 8th grade, I have been a Civil War buff. I'm not sure what initially captivated me. Our 8th grade social studies teachers showed us a lot of historical movies. We saw the entire series of "Roots," for example. We also saw a movie adaptation of the classic book, "The Red Badge of Courage." It starred Richard Thomas of "The Waltons" fame. For me, that movie put me in the shoes of that young soldier who was so ready to go fight...until he heard the sounds of cannon and gunfire ahead. Perhaps that was what did it. Anyway, I did a lot of reading and learning on my own since then about the Civil War. So I'm very interested in the details of any Civil War service I run across.

Try as I might, I have been unable to track down exactly where Karl's service was. I've gone through all the military databases on Ancestry.com. I've been to the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System. I've even had a difficult time tracking down census records of this family. At one point, I wondered if they really even existed!

Through the kindness of a genealogist friend, (you know who you are...) I have found some census records, the earliest being 1880 in Eudora Township, Douglas County, Kansas. I found a great book online on Kansas Memory: Roster of the Members and Posts: Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Kansas, dated 1894. That would fit my time frame, since Karl died in 1907. I manually went through each of the 259 pages and scanned for any mention of a Karl Kline, Karl Klein, Gottlieb Klein, and all permutations of the three names and spellings as I could. NONE. I guess I could have missed it.....if anyone has some time on their hands and wants to try, I would welcome another set of eyes!

I have found records of another German immigrant who fought for the Union by the name of Gottlob Klien, but he was killed during the war. So he's not my Karl. I'll admit in the haze of frustration, I pondered the possibility that my Karl assumed this poor soldier's identity after he died!

The closest I've gotten to some evidence of Civil War military service is a hazy image on a Kansas census record, but I can't really make it out. The 1895 Kansas census includes information on military record (condition of discharge, state of enlistment, letter or name of company or command, number of regiment or other organization to which attached, arm of service.) It kind of looks like Ohio 122. I've looked into that unit, and can't find any names that are even close. I'll put the record at the bottom of this post for anyone who would like to take a stab at it for me. I'd be happy to email it to anyone who wants the file to enlarge to examine it.

So there you have it. One of the reasons I started this blog in the first place was so that others researching the same family lines as I could connect with me and we could collaborate on information. I'm crossing my fingers and saying a prayer to the genealogy fairies on this one.