Thursday, December 2, 2010

FAMILY MYSTERIES...

We have several family mysteries:
  • The passenger list found for Martin and his sisters - were they all sisters or was Charlotte their mother? [compare to 1850 NY census]
  • Martin's place of birth in Germany, and his parents/family in Germany - only one sister's death certificate to date names a parent - father John [probably Johan-something, in German].
  • Martin's date and place of death; perhaps his death certificate names his parents?  And where is he buried?  Not in GreenWood Cemetery, Brooklyn NY with the rest of his family.  Was still living with his former son-in-law through the 1900 NJ census; not found in 1910.  A distant relative searched [without success] for his death certificate in NJ under the surname Kramer; perhaps need to check under Cramer, which was the more common spelling by 1900.
  • Daughter Caroline's marriage to Stephen Nanke...appears to have taken place in the early 1890s; an unnamed child stillborn in the mid 1890s; "Carrie" appears in the NJ 1895 census but is deceased by 1900.  I'd assumed she died in childbirth--but there are quite a few years between the stillborn birth and her death.  Also need her date of death....FOUND date of death for Caroline [Carrie E.], 26 April 1897; and date of death of unnamed male child was actually 1889 [20 Dec], so marriage must have been prior to that...
  • The Mystery Photo [will be posted soon] - appears to have been taken by Stephen Nanke, husband of the deceased Caroline Kramer.  Martin and eldest dau. Clara Kramer lived with Stephen Nanke at the 1900 census; they were gone and he had remarried by the 1910 census.  Can't identify most of the people in the photo, which isn't the best quality - but I think the Kramers can be recognized by their rather protruding noses!    Possible subjects:

    Martin Kramer [age 75]
      his daughter Clara [age 49]
        his son Theodore [age 47]
        his wife Alice [age 47]
          their daughter Clara [age 17]

    [post this photo, plus one of Clara Cramer Bickerstaff, and Mom...]
  • Martin's oldest dau., Clara Kramer, was a piano teacher.  [Her namesake, niece Clara [Kramer] Bickerstaff, also taught piano...].  She lived with her father and the Nanke's in NJ from 1895 through the 1905 NJ census.  Afterwards lived with her maternal aunt's family, the Geyers, also in NJ.  Is not interred in their burial plot.  When did she die, and where is she buried?  This woman always understated her age by approximately 10 years in the federal censuses.