GENEALOGY IN EUROPE: PART II

Two days after our visit the bridge at Flavigny, my husband and I drove over the border to Germany.  There we spent the day in Losheim Am See, the small town where many of my mother's ancestors once lived.  In effect, we transferred our attention from my Brennan relatives, on my father's side, to my Schulien relatives on my mother's side. 

We had set a meeting time of 10:30 at what the Schuliens call the "Little Castle,"  a building that two Schulien brothers built in the 1890s. 

There we met Janine, who is a distant cousin of mine, as well as her mother, Birgit, and her aunt, Claudia.  Her 5 year old daughter was there as well.   Janine led us through a tour of the little castle, which as recently as the 1980s was home to some Schulien descendants.  She also pointed out that the building next door, which is now a simple storefront, was once another home built by the Schuliens, and had a glamorous façade.

We then had lunch at a very nice brewery (picture below) next to the hotel where we would be staying that night, and then returned to Birgit's house where we had tea and cookies, met Janine's sister in law, Sarah, and examined photographs and genealogy books. 

After meeting with Janine and her relatives, I had a much better understanding of the Schulien family, as regards genealogy.  For instance, I learned that we are all descended from Mathias Schulien (1790 - 1868) and Elizabeth Jung.  This couple had ten children, five boys and five girls.  Three of the sons (Michael, Johann Adam and Mathias) came to the United States.  Two stayed in America (Michael and Mathias)  but Johann Adam returned to Germany.  However, most of the children of the three sons remained in the United States and raised families there.  I also learned that there are at least three spellings of the surname:  Schulien, Schuligen, and Schulgen.  These may exist because of the way the priest spelled the surname in the baptismal registry, at a time when most of his parishioners could not read or write. 

Michael (1813-1883), the eldest son of Mathias and Elizabeth, used the spelling Schulgen, married Anna Reinert and had 8 children.  This family settled in Illinois, near or in Chicago.

Johann Adam (1818-1896) Schulien married Susanna Klesser or Glasser and had 5 children.  His sons emigrated before he did and settled in Chicago.  His son Peter married and had a daughter, Susan, but he died in an accident in the Idaho territory and his orphaned daughter was adopted by his brother, Mathias.  The youngest brother, Joseph, married Mary Egle and had five children.  Joseph settled in Chicago and opened a pub, which remained in the Schulien family until recent years, though the location was moved twice.  Johann Adam returned to Germany where he died, but his sons remained in the United States, though Joseph did return to Losheim for a number of years in the 1890s. 

My ancestors are descended from Mathias Schulien (1816-1870) who married Maria Petry.  Mathias and Maria were both born in Germany, as were their four eldest children.  My great grandfather, Joseph, was their youngest child and he was born in Ohio.  He married Mary Gertrude Frecker, also from a German family.

Joseph was the father of my grandmother, Mary Bernadine Schulien Mueller.  I never met him, but my mother always told me how much she adored him.  He had been an engineer at the city waterworks plant for many years, and later was an entrepreneur, opening a foundry with his sons.  During WW II, a number of German prisoners of war worked in Joseph's foundry, and on Sundays, his wife, Mary Gertrude, would cook a German meal for them. 

I recently discovered that Joseph had also gone to Colorado at one point to try to make his fortune in a gold mine, but had to return home because he could not tolerate the altitude.  He did carpentry in his spare time, and I have in my possession a doll cradle he made for my aunt when she was a child. 


Returning to Mathias and Elizabeth Schulien, I learned that one of their sons, Jacob (1810-1890) remained in Germany, married Maria Treinen and had six children.  One of those children, Johan (1857-1888) married Angela Jacobs and had four children before his premature death.  This is the family that Claudia and Janine descend from.  A picture of Johan is below.

 


Claudia's father (and Janine's grandfather), Reinhold, is the grandson of Johan.  Reinhold wrote a comprehensive genealogy of all the families in the town of Losheim.  It comprises three volumes, and it is from these pages that I have gathered much of my information on the Schulien family. 

The visit to Losheim was most interesting and informative.  The women we met - Janine, Birgit, Claudia, and Sarah - were lovely and could not have been more hospitable. 

It would have been wonderful to stay a few more days and visit, but we were on a strict time schedule and had to depart the next day.  I do want to emphasize how much a visit to distant relatives in the ancestral home of one's family can help one understand not only the genealogy of a family, but also the culture in which they lived, and the cultural elements they brought with them to the "melting pot" of America.  Though travel to ancestral homes is costly, if one can afford it it is well worth the trip. I now have found relatives in both Ireland and Germany, with whom I am acquainted and can correspond and that is priceless.