We received a comment on an old post on our blog yesterday. It was in reference to a post titled The Blancken Brood. The comment is shown below.
It just so happens that September 1 is a day that is significant in the Dietrich Blancken family. On September 1, 1878, Dietrich’s first wife, Magdalena (Eggers) Blancken gave birth to a set of twins, Ana Margaretha and Magdalena Catharina. It was also the day when his wife died as a result of that childbirth. Ana died on September 11; Magdalena died on September 16. Those deaths left Dietrich all alone. A few years later, on November 11, 1880, he married Marie Louise “Lisette” Eisenberg, who is mentioned in the above comment.
I found a few documents concerning these events. First, here are the three consecutive death records found in the books of Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna, Missouri.
By the way, sometimes I see this surname spelled Blanken or even Blank. I choose to be consistent and use the Blancken spelling all the time.
The marriage of Dietrich Blancken and Lisette Eisenberg took place at Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim, Missouri. Here is an image of that church record.
However, who is this Marie Louise Eisenberg? At this point, I am going to just tell you that this Eisenberg story gets very confusing. I have not figured it out yet. I will just tell you some of the things that I have found. First of all, in different family histories that can be found on Ancestry.com, there are two different fathers identified for Marie. One is Henry William Friedrich Eisenberg, who most agree was born sometime around 1839, and the other is Johann Carl Friedrich Eisenberg, who was supposedly born around 1840.
I did find a passenger list for a Henry Eisenberg family that came to America in 1847. They were aboard the ship, Post, which landed in New Orleans. The father of this Eisenberg family would not have been Marie’s father because he would have been born around 1800.
The ages of the two possible fathers of Marie do not match up very well with the others on this list. However, what makes it interesting is that there were also some other surnames on this passenger list that are connected with the Eisenberg family and are names found in the Trinity, Friedheim church records. Those names would be Bangert and Wilke. All of these passengers were from Waldeck also, and there are other documents which show the Eisenberg’s being from that place.
Let’s take a look at the 1880 census which shows Marie Eisenberg earlier in 1880 before she was married. She is found at the bottom of the Charles Bangert household and listed as an 18 year-old step-daughter.
If we backtrack to 1876, we find Henry Eisenberg in the 1876 Missouri state census.
Here is where we get to the phrase in the comment shown before that said Henry “died or disappeared”. Henry appears to be alive and well and the head of a household in 1876, but if Marie is his daughter, she is called a step-daughter in 1880.
Add to this the death record I found in the Trinity, Friedheim books.
It shows a Heinr. Isenberg (the beginning “E” is no longer there). It indicates he died on January 28, 1887 at the age of 57. That would make his birth year 1830. Is this Marie’s father?
If we backtrack to the 1860 census, we find a Hy. (a common abbreviation for Henry) Eisenberg who was 34 years old and married to an Elizabeth.
On the same census page, we find Hy. Isenberg who is 60 years old. He is likely the Henry Eisenberg from the passenger list of the Post.
At this point, I throw up my hands and say, “I give up.” At least for today. I happen to know that there are some people who are in the process of developing an index for the church records of Trinity, Friedheim. Once that is done, and Lynn Degenhardt gets those records included in our German Family Tree, I may have more success at unraveling the Eisenberg dilemma. So at this point, I am going to consider today’s efforts to be more or less an intelligence-gathering mission. I will use the data I collected today to fight the Battle of Friedheim at a later date when I have more of a chance to win. I hope Beth Ander can wait.
In the meantime, let me remind you that a previous post told the story of another Hy. Isenberg with the title, Isenberg in Wittenberg. He ran a saloon in Wittenberg and was tied in with this whole mess.
I have spent a good amount of time reading these posts and researching (I have screenshots of all the documents referenced but could not figure out how to attach to the comment), so I wanted to share my best guess as to Maria Lisette Eisenberg’s father. My hope is the theory makes sense to others, possibly answers some long-standing questions, and perhaps gaps could be filled in with additional information that might now be available or newly indexed.
I believe the Henry & Fredericka Eisenberg family referenced who came to America in 1847 (along with William Bangert and Henry Wilke) is the source of the confusion. Henry Eisenberg was named Johann Heinrich Eisenberg (1800-1880) and the oldest son was also Henry named Heinrich Christian Eisenberg (1826-1880). The 2nd son was Heinrich Wilhelm Friedrich Eisenberg (1831-1887) and originally known as Friedrich, but later went by Henry and who I believe is the father to Maria Lisette Eisenberg.
The 1860 census shows the Friedrich Eisenberg age 29 (newly married to wife Caroline reportedly age 17) household also consisted of Henry, Fredricka, and Charles Eisenberg (parents and brother) along with Fredrick Oehl. Since Caroline Wilke (born 1845) would have been 14 or 15 at the 1860 Census this likely was an exaggeration since Caroline Wilke was not listed in the Wilke household in the 1860 Census and Fredrick Ohel is the maternal uncle of Caroline Wilke (see Schindler’s List of Two Civil War Veterans post). I was not able to locate a marriage certificate, but the 1860 Census indicated a marriage had occurred.
The Civil War started in 1861.
Maria Lisette Eisenberg was born in 1862 to Henry Eisenberg and Caroline (Wilke) Eisenberg.
In April 1864 “Henry” (Fredrich) marries Caroline Bangert and then her brother, Charles Bangert, marries Caroline Wilke/Eisenberg under the name Elisa Eisenberg in June 1864 reportedly as a widower. (Elisa in retrospect is Caroline Wilke Eisenberg and the name was likely either from the older sister Maria Elisabeth Eisenberg who already married (Henry Emde) or Henry (Frederich)’s older brother (Henry)’s wife, Lisette (Selhorst) Eisenberg who went by Elizabeth in 1860 Census, but Lizzie in 1868 Census, and Lissetta in 1870, 1880, & 1890 Censuses. The two women Maria Lisette Eisenberg is likely named after.)
The 1870 Census shows Charles and Caroline (Wilke/Eisenberg) Bangert household including an 8-year-old Mary Bangert. The 1880 Census records Mary Eisenberg in the same Bangert household but as a stepdaughter. Mary / Maria Lisette Eisenberg then marries Deitrich Blancken in 1880.
Charles and Caroline Bangert married when Mary was 2 so it is possible they tried to raise her as their own daughter explaining why shown as Mary Bangert in 1870. The record in the 1876 and 1880 Census indicating she was then called Mary Eisenberg would then likely be explained by the truth being revealed either by questions from the difference in time between her birth and their marriage, or from the connections between the Bangert, Wilke, & Eisenberg families.
The confusion about Mary’s father’s identity and story that he died or disappeared around 1864 is likely due to the Civil War and multiple family members being referred to by different names at different parts of their lives. Additionally, the difference in ages between Fredrich (Henry) Eisenberg born 1931 and Caroline Wilke born 1945 as well as the stated reference point of Henry being born around 1838 added to the confusion.
When Caroline Wilke married Fredrich Eisenberg in 1860 he was 14/15 years her senior and head of the household where her uncle worked and lived with his parents, including father, Henry. The parents sometime between 1860 and 1870 census appeared to have moved near Fredrich’s older sister, Mary, in Bollinger County, Missouri. So, Fredrich likely started going by Henry, his first name, at that time. Between the name changes and Civil War it seems likely to have been the separation and confusion that would allow for the mixing up of families with potential false reports of death, lack of records available given birth in Germany, destruction of records, family interactions while men served in the Civil War, impact of war, etc.
While Charles Bangert & Henry Eisenberg appears to have effectively swapped a sister (Caroline Bangert) for a wife (Caroline Wilke / Eisenberg) the Bangert and Eisenberg families appeared to mesh well as William and Fredericke Bangert (Charles & Caroline’s parents) lived within the Henry & Caroline Eisenberg household. In fact, the 1871 Will of William Bangert indicates that his oldest daughter Caroline and son-in-law Henry Isenberg (sole executor) received all lands and personal property after at legacy payment to daughter Frederike and other debts as well as a provision to provide for his wife Frederike with 1/3 production and housing the rest of her natural life.
Additional confusion may come from Charles and Caroline Bangert having children Fredrick, Henry, Louisa, Frederica, Anna, and Emily (along with Mary Eisenberg) while Henry & Caroline Eisenberg had children Fredrick, Frederica, Anna, Caroline Jr., Louisa, and Mary. So, between the two families there were 2 Henrys, 3 Carolines, 2 Fredricks, 3 Fredericas (counting Frederica Bangert who lived with Henry & Caroline Eisenberg), 2 Annas, 2 Louisas, and 2 Mary Eisenbergs (only Emily Bangert did not share a name with the anyone in the Henry & Caroline Eisenberg family).
The Charles & Caroline Bangert family (per Census records) also likely lived next to Casper & Theresa Vogt who hired Henry Wilke, Caroline’s brother, as a farm laborer and Fredrick Ohel, the maternal uncle of Caroline Wilke who worked in the Eisenberg household, later married Theresa Vogt after Casper’s death in 1879.
This indicates there seemed to be good relations between the Bangert, Eisenberg, and Wilke families who at least in part all came to America together in 1847 from Waldeck, Germany via New Orleans aboard the ship, Post.
(Interestingly, records indicate Henry Eisenberg was naturalized on November 3, 1864 in McLean Co., Illinois where my grandmother, Velma Natalie Blancken Nordine, moved from Flagler, Colorado after marrying her husband, George Joseph Nordine, and raised their family.)
My Grandmother (Velma Natalie Nordine – originally Blancken (George William Blancken is her father and Dieteich Blanken was Grandfather so Maria Eisenberg would be her Grandmother) is looking for more family history. Specifically, she is looking for more information on Maria Lisette Eisenberg’s father.
Her brother, George Washington Blancken Jr., (born on George Washington day, so named George Washington Blancken and they kept the Jr. From George William Blancken) in WW2 said in talking to the Germans found Maria Lisette Eisenberg was of possible Jewish descendant. So her thought was, her (Maria) father may have been Jewish but her mother, Caroline, would have been German-Lutheran from the Hanover, Germany area. She isn’t positive on how reliable this information was because her brother also claimed to be made Mayor for the day of a German town because of the Blancken name.
This post was from 2019 referencing a 2017 post and mentions work was being done on additional records. Has there been any follow-up or updates? We really would appreciate any information and help. Thank you.