Seeking Sophia Müller Steinmetz Frey

So, I started writing this almost 3 years ago exactly. Ugh, better late than never! Back to 2014…

Sophia Müller Steinmetz Frey

Sophia Müller Steinmetz Frey is one of my great-great-great-grandmothers.  Her son Albert Frey was my grandmother’s grandfather.  Sophia’s eighth of my grandmother’s ancestry had been blank for a long time.  The other sides of Granny’s tree were finally filled in thanks to the Třeboň archives online, and many trips to my local Family History Center renting microfilms from Kanton Zürich.  So I finally decided to focus on Sophia, no easy task with a name as common as Müller/Miller.

Her life after arrival in the US is well accounted for with many records, except her first marriage to Joseph Steinmetz and her exact date of arrival.  I still haven’t found those records, but I figured they probably wouldn’t shed any light on the exact location of her birth anyways.   

-Many records agree she was from Württemberg, born in October 1838. 

-She was married twice.  Her first marriage was to Joseph Steinmetz from Alsace and her second to Ulrich Frey from Zürich. 

-Joseph Steinmetz purchased land in Sumner Township (part of Calmar Township at that point) on May 1, 1855.

- The location and date of her marriage to Joseph Steinmetz is unknown.  They were married before July 1856 when they appeared on the Winneshiek County Census. Their first child Mary Steinmetz Baird was born in December 1856, so it’s likely they were married in the beginning of 1856 or in 1855. There’s no record of their marriage in Winneshiek, and it’s probably not in Iowa since those records are well indexed online now. 


-In the 1925 Iowa census, it states for each person the location of their parents' marriage. The only one of the Steinmetz children living at that time is Joseph Jr, and it says that Joseph Steinmetz Sr and Sophia Müller were married in Illinois.

-The “Past and Present of Winneshiek County” from 1913 mentions that Joseph immigrated in 1851 and Sophia in 1855. I haven’t found them on any ship manifests yet though. 1900 and 1910 censuses list Sophia’s immigration year as 1855 or 1856.  

-One family legend states Joseph was living in California during the gold rush and had written somewhere (back home to Alsace?) asking for a woman to be sent to marry.  When he went to meet/pick up his new bride, he saw Sophia and decided he'd rather marry her. Sophia had immigrated to the US as an escort for her sister's child, her sister having immigrated earlier and the child couldn't travel with his/her mother b/c he/she was ill at the time.  So they got married and returned to Iowa.  The timeline seems to match, but it seems unlikely Sophia would have been taking a child to California during the gold rush, when there were very few women heading out there with the men.  Not impossible but it doesn't seem likely.

-The county record of her death states Sophia’s parents were Carl Müller and Friederike Windmüller.  The informant was her daughter Regina Steinmetz Herold.

I thought if I waited long enough the Württemberg immigration index would be updated, maybe some German parish records would be indexed and imaged on Ancestry but neither happened.   Maybe the next best thing would be Iowa parish records.  Maybe when joining the church or her burial record would have something.  Maybe a baptismal sponsor for one of the kids would lead to locating relatives of hers who immigrated here as well?

From family stories we knew she and Joseph went to the catholic St. Clement's Church outside of Spillville.  She did not convert to Catholicism, and after marrying Ulrich Frey they attended the German Congregational Church in Fort Atkinson.  Both churches closed long ago.  Luckily a copy of the St. Clement's records are held by the Decorah Genealogy Association.

The St. Clement's records did not have any info, other than confirming that she did not convert (the word "protestant" appears after her name on daughter Regina's baptism). Baptismal sponsors were neighbors who weren't related to either parent. 

Baptism of Regina Steinmetz Herold from St. Clement's Church, Spillville

Tracking down the congregational records proved more difficult.  I had consulted distant relatives from the area and some other acquaintances but nothing turned up.  I think I ended up googling or digging through some random family tree from the area and noticed someone had listed the church records as a source on their information.  Luckily I found an email address and he responded!  He gave me copies of a baptism index (not many) and told me to contact a man in Fort Atkinson who had originally given these baptisms to his mother.  I met with this man and he gave me the contact information for the Congregational archives in Boston, where the original church records were kept.

After getting a few copies of sections from the book from the archives, I hired a genealogist in Boston to go look through the book for mentions of my relatives.

Lo and behold, the record of Sophia's burial had the information I was looking for:

Sophia's burial record from the German Congregational Church, Fort Atkinson

Transcription:
Am 18ten April 1914 verstarb bei ihrer Tochter Frau Regina Herold in Cresco Iowa eins der ersten Glieder unserer Kirchgemeinschaft die Wittwe Sophia Frei, geborene Müller. Sie war am 28sten October 1838 in Unterroth, Oberamt Gailsdorf, Württemberg geboren und war also im Alter war 75 Jahren, 5 Monaten und 20 Tagen. Am 21sten April wurde sie auf dem Friedhofs in Fort Atkinson beigesetzt. Pastor Hein hielt die Begräbnis gnedigt in der Methodisten Kirche in Fort Atkinson in englisch.

Translation:

On the 18th April 1914 one of the first members of our church-community, the widow Sophia Frey, born Müller, passed away at (the home of) her daughter Mrs. Regina Herold in Cresco Iowa. She was born on the 28th October 1838 in Unterrot, Oberamt Gailsdorf, Württemberg and so was aged 75 years, 5 months and 20 days. On the 21st of April she was buried in the cemetery in Fort Atkinson, Pastor Hein held the funeral of honorable interment at the Methodist Church in Fort Atkinson in English.

So now to order the microfilms! I was so excited I ordered the wrong films and had to cancel the order the next day.  Then I thought I found the right films and ordered those.
They ended up being backordered (up to a month before they'd arrive) but I couldn't wait. So I contacted a historian who lives near Unterrot and has published volumes about different families from the area. He looked through his records compiled on Unterrot parish and found that there's no record of Sophia born at that time in Unterrot village or parish, nor any families with the combination of names Müller-Windmüller there, despite there being several Müller and Windmüller families. He suggested perhaps she was from a close by village Oberrot, and someone along the way had mistaken the two.

This seemed like a set back, I wasn't sure what to do with the potential wrong microfilms (again) waiting to be shipped to me.  I then found someone in Michigan who has ancestors from this region as well, and she has a large number of the church records from parishes in this region on permanent loan at her family history center. She offered to look in the Oberrot records and the other parishes in the area to see if she could find Sophia. She wasn't in the Oberrot or Gaildorf records (I ended up checking Unterrot/Münster and Gschwend parishes myself when the microfilms arrived and also found nothing at all), but she found a family that matched in the Fichtenberg parish records.

The image she sent me (translated here at the end) is from the Fichtenberg Familienbuch. In Germany and related countries, churches sometimes arranged all their current member information like a census, listing families with complete vital information sometimes including notes on immigration.

Sophia was from the village of Honkling (previously spelled Hohenkling and Hohnkling), which belonged to Fichtenberg parish but administratively belonged to Unterrot. It’s the only village in the Unterrot “county” that wasn’t also part of Unterrot parish, which accounted for all the confusion.

Her parents names were Leonhart and Dorothea. She did have siblings named Carl and Friederika, so perhaps her daughter Regina knew those names but didn’t realize they were an aunt and uncle, and not her grandparents’ names when acting as the informant on Sophia's death record.

Also, I returned to the emigration application records for Württemberg and found that Sophia’s siblings Carolina and Jacob got permission to emigrate on 11/3/1855 and they were taking with them their sister’s child! So perhaps Sophia ended up tagging a long with them or decided to join them after the paperwork was completed, assuming the oral history of the family was correct in that regard. Despite the number of them immigrating, I haven’t found any of them in ship manifests or in any record in the US yet.

I ordered the Fichtenberg church records, which of course were also backordered and also put in an order for Kirchenkirnberg books, where Leonhart Müller is from.

Here is a tranlation of the image she sent me:

Johann Leonhart Müller, a weaver born 4/7/1793 son of Johann Melchior Müller of Horlachen who was also a weaver. Married on 9/14/1816 to Eva Dorothea Windmüller born 3/15/1794 daughter of Johann Adam Windmüller, a farmer and Anna Margaretha Deininger of Honkling.

Children:

Christina Jacobina born 10/29/1816 died 12/30/1817

Katharina Maria born 9/11/1818

Christina Susanna* born 10/9/1819 died 11/11/1854

Susanna Barbara born 2/7/1821 immigrated 1867

Friederika^ born 8/15/1823 married 5/5/1868 to Matthias Bäßler

Jacob Michael born 9/14/1825

Eva Maria born 3/7/1828 died 11/9/1848

Eva Dorothea~ born 5/26/1830 emigrated 1855

Christina Carolina born 10/12/1833 emigrated 1855

Johann Jacob born 7/14/1836 emigrated 1855

Christina Sophia born 10/28/1838 emigrated 1855

Christian Carl born 2/3/1843 died 9/13/1865

Illegitimate (Grand)Children

* Eva Friederika born 11/22/1838 died 3/27/1839

^ Eva Susanna Catharina born 5/3/1850

^ Johanna Carolina born 1/28/1856

~ Johann Jacob (Wörner) born 4/4/1853, emigrated

As of 2017 I still haven't found Joseph and Sophia's marriage record, nor their names in ship manifests (that can be proven to be them), nor any records of Sophia's siblings in the US.  The search continues!

Sophia with sons Will and Philip Frey

Sophia had 2 husbands, 15 children, 59 grandchildren, 145 great-grandchildren….needless to say there are many living descendants!  Her children are listed below:

Child                                Birth                        Death

Mary A Steinmetz           10 Dec 1856            21 Mar 1908

Regina C Steinmetz         5 May 1858             9 Aug 1917

Sophia Steinmetz             8 Jan 1860               6 Sep 1924

Joseph T Steinmetz          3 Aug 1861             11 Mar 1938

Margaret Steinmetz          1862-1864               Aft 8/2/1865,Bef 1870

Bernard Steinmetz            2 Feb 1865              21 Oct 1902

Albert Frey                       6 Nov 1866              27 Jul 1929

Charles Frey                     9 Aug 1868              12 Aug 1943

Louisa D Frey                   6 Jan 1871               2 Jul 1944

Katharina Frey                  6 Jan 1871               8 May 1875

Anna Dorothea Frey         29 Apr 1873            12 Feb 1955

Katharina Susanna Frey    7 Nov 1875             Dec 1878

William Henry Frey          1 Nov 1877             15 Feb 1952

Bertha Frey                       10 Apr 1880            30 Nov 1883

Philip George Frey           10 Apr 1880            12 Feb 1940