I'm currently putting together binders on each of 7 families in the hopes of eventually writing family history books about them. I realize this is a huge project, but I wrote two family history books for my husband's family and loved every minute of it.
These are the 7 families:
Brennan - of Ireland and Ohio
Lippincott - of England and numerous states including Ohio
Frecker - of Germany and Ohio
Shaw - of Scotland or England and Ohio
Schulien - of Germany, Ohio and Illinois
Mueller - of Belgium and Ohio
Wrocklage - of Germany and Ohio
The biggest problem I have is deciding which book to do first. Brennan is the one that grabbed me first, and my trip to Ireland last year only made me more interested. The problem is that I have been unsuccessful in tracing the family back before my 2nd great grandparents, the original immigrants to this country, Ned Brennan and Mary Fahey. And I want to spend some time familiarizing myself with the long and sad history of Ireland before I begin writing. No one, I believe, can understand his or her Irish family without understanding that terrible history.
Each of the other families has its own mystique and each attracts me in its own way. The Lippincott family can be traced back to the 1100's and it is through intermarriages that the family can trace some ancestors back to the time of the Mayflower. The Shaws are interesting, but the original immigrant is, at this time, unknown. The Muellers of Belgium can be traced back quite far, but I know very little about them at this time. And I hope to enlist the aid of one or more cousins to help me learn more and write that book. The Wrocklages and Freckers are also interesting, and I have recently hired a researcher in Germany to trace the families back further than anyone else in the United States - at least to my knowledge - has ever traced them.
But it is the Schuliens who are currently grabbing my interest, and with the help of my cousin Tim, and a few other cousins, I hope to put together a comprehensive picture of two large families, connected by a common ancestral couple: Mathias Schulien (1790-1868) and Elizabeth Jung (1790-1857). With this family, there is already a family tree that dates back to the 1600s, written by a Schulien descendant who lives in Germany. All that remains is to continue the tree with those immigrants who came to America in the mid to late 1800s. But this is no small task.
My maternal grandmother was a Schulien by birth. Her grandparents, Mathias Schulien (1816-1870) and Maria Petry (1819-1885) came to America in mid century and settled in Ohio where their descendants were farmers and businessmen. Their youngest son, my great grandfather, Joseph Schulien, was an engineer for the waterworks plant in Delphos, Ohio, and then started a foundry that he managed with his son Rod.
The immigrant, Mathias Schlien, had a brother, Johann Schulien (1818-1896) who appears to have come to America but eventually returned to Germany. Several of Johann's children settled in America, and I know the most about Joseph, who settled in Chicago and, after driving a beer wagon for several years, decided to open a saloon/restaurant in about 1899.
Four generations of Schuliens kept that restaurant in business for the next 100 years and Schulien's became a landmark in Chicago, famous for its owners who were highly respected magicians as well as saloon keepers. During Prohibition, Schulien's transformed itself into a speakeasy, with liquor supplied by none other than Al Capone. Schulien's closed its doors in 1999, just one year after its last proprietor, Charlie Schulien (Joseph's grandson), died.
I'm hoping to learn more about both of these Schulien branches, and contact known cousins, as well as unknown more distant cousins to gather pictures and stories and fill in gaps in the family tree.
In addition, next year I will be visiting Losheim am See, the small ancestral town of the Schuliens, where a distant cousin lives. There I hope to see some ancestral homes, still standing, and learn more about this interesting immigrant family.
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