Monday, February 20, 2017

Margaret Robitzer's immigration - a new perspective

When I started making some real progress on my Robitzer line last year, I found Margaret Robitzer's immigration record. She left her home in Alsace-Lorraine around 1851 and made her way to America in May 1852. She was just a month and a half past her 20th birthday when she made the journey on the ship Caspian. 



When I saw that she was listed next to some Richerts, I thought they might be related, as I saw a bunch of Richerts in the parish registers where I found Margaret's family. But not knowing anything else about her shipmates, I didn't know how to go about finding how they were connected.

Then a few days ago, my grandma got an email from FamilySearch telling her of her connection to one Margaret Madden. The email even included a 4-generation pedigree chart for Margaret. She forwarded it to me, and I took a look. Turns out Margaret Madden's maternal grandfather was a Richert, and she had a great-grandmother who was a Robitzer!

Using the information in the pedigree chart, I went back to the parish registers in Alsace-Lorraine, and connected Margaret Madden to the Richerts in the passenger list. She was a direct descendant of the Jacob and Catherine Richert that accompanied my ancestor Margaret Robitzer to America. The pedigree chart also helped me find the connection between the Richerts and my Margaret Robitzer - Jacob Richert's wife, Catherine (nee Robitzer) was Margaret's first cousin!

I followed the Richerts forward a few decades, and found they settled in Trumbull County, Ohio, two counties north of where Margaret ended up after she and George Waechter got married. And like the Waechters, the Richerts later moved a little east into southeastern Pennsylvania. It's fascinating how similar their migrations were. I wonder if they kept in touch after landing in the US.

I'm glad Margaret didn't have to make the journey to the New World alone. It must have been quite a trip, but going with family hopefully made it more exciting than frightening. It also reinforces my opinion of Margaret that family was very important to her. She passed family information from the old world to her children in the new; she kept in touch with her family back in France; and when left home, she left with family. What an amazing woman she was.

1 comment:

sequimitesal said...

This is just great new. Good work my favorite genealogist!!