Schwinns, Winters and Kellers

Well...where to start. Yesterday I did go to the Menard County courthouse, and looked for CB's death certificate, but no luck. This guy really doesn't want to have any solid, significant facts printed about him. On Sunday I will go to the Presbyterian Church in Middletown and see if I can find out any information from them. After that stop, I went on to Peoria to hunt out anyone else I could, and recheck the death records. Zero. Next stop - Woodford County, to research the Schwinns and Muellers.

I want to stop here for a moment and just say how beautiful most of these courthouses are. With the exception of Peoria's, which is an ugly cement square block building, all of them are the original old buildings, either brick or wood, with long graceful staircases and scrolled bannisters, doors that have etched glass insets in the top part, with the name of the department either painted on or etched in. The floors creak comfortably, and the air smells of old documents and excitement. Visiting these lovely old buildings of history has been one of the highlights of my trip.

So onto Woodford. I was greeted by a very nice woman in the county clerk's office, who was very helpful. While I was searching the huge register books, she was searching in their new computerized database. She actually came up with more than I did! I came up dead empty, and she found two death certificates of children from my Henry Schwinn's brother, Nick, and then a birth certificate of Henry Schwinn and Mary (Miller) Schwinn's eleventh child - a son. The only census I can find these guys in so far is the 1880 census, and this child was born in 1882, so I don't even have him listed. It lists their residence as Germantown, which is another thing I had been wondering about. Since they came from Germany, as had many in this area, why were they not living in Germantown? Not that they necessarily had to - I am not trying to pigeon-hole them - but it just made sense to me that they would be there. All of the other information I have says Worth Township. Well - Germantown is a Village in Worth Township, so they were actually living in both! Anyway, I get off topic easily. The birth certificate also lists him as a blacksmith, as does the 1880 census entry, so that seems pretty solid. As I was lamenting to this nice lady (I never did get her name, I'm sorry to say!) she suggested that I go to the Woodford Historical Society, which is across the street. But of course, they are only open on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, and this was Thursday, so that was that.

So this morning I went yet again to Peoria, but this time to the Library. They have a beautiful newly renovated library, with an entire floor devoted to genealogy and history. The two librarians there were very helpful, and I soon had a table full of books to look through. I searched through cemetery listings, marriages, births, deaths, tax rolls and probates for any hint of Muellers, Winters or Schwinns. (Kellers really didn't get there until the 1900's, and I have most of my direct line's info to that point, and what I don't have, I'd already searched for at the courthouse and come up blank). I even looked at the Coroners records for 1897-1904 to see if Gustav were there. He wasn't, but there were a lot of interesting deaths that occurred. A lot of Irish men in their mid-twenties, drunk and getting into brawls, or being run over by trains. Also a lot of children drowning in cisterns - ugh! Anyway, in all of those books, and my 2 1/2 hours of searching, I found an entry for Gustave Winters (Gustav and Elizabeth's son) in the St. Joseph's Cemetery, place of death Peoria State Hospital. So at least I found something.

Next it was back in the car and on to Eureka to go to the Woodford County Historical Society. The woman there - Barb - was terrific! She brought out book after book of marriages, births, deaths, cemetery indexes, and not just for Woodford County, but also Tazewell County, which is right "next door". She is the one who explained to me about Germantown being a village in Worth Township. She also had some very colorful language about a lot of things, and then would walk over to me and nudge my arm and say “ya know?” She was a hoot! So, we looked through all of these books, and did not find a single thing that I didn’t already have. Wait - not quite true. I now have the section, row and lot numbers for the people who I already knew were buried in the St. Mary of Lourdes Cemetery in Woodford County. So that will help.
So back to the car to call it quits for the day. But, then as I took out my cell and turned it back on and there was a voice mail from Peoria. It was the volunteer at the courthouse saying the records I had requested earlier in the week were ready for me to pick up. So back to Peoria I go.

I had requested copies of Elizabeth Schwinn and Gustav Winters marriage certificate (I hoped), Anna Mueller and Henry Schwinn’s marriage certificate (I hoped) and Louis Winter’s birth certificate. What I got was Anna Mueller to someone else – not my Anna Mueller – and a birth certificate for un-named baby boy Winter (turns out it is Louis) and a marriage certificate for Elizabeth Schwinn (the right one, with parents Henry and Mary Schwinn) marrying Adolphus Danner. Oops! Wrong groom. So now, it appears that Elizabeth was married once before Gustav. This marriage was dated 5 Jul 1887, and I have Elizabeth and Gustav as marrying around 1886 – so I guess my estimate was off!. Their first child that I know for certain was my grandmother in June of 1890, so there is still time in the timeline for Lizzie to get divorced, or widowed, and then marry Gustav.  The other interesting find was that on the birth certificate for Louis Winter, son and second child of Lizzie and Gustav, it lists the father’s name as August Winter. I have two entries from city directories that list him as Gustav A Winter, so I guess he used his middle name, August. Now I will search all over again using August Winter rather than Gustav.

All in all a successful day, I think. I met some great people, and at least made a little progress. If I have learned nothing else this week, I have learned to be at peace with this slow progression, and know that eventually I will find out a little more about these people, but probably not today!