I will give you a heads up on today’s tale. Not much time will be spent in Perry County. I will begin the story by looking at a couple that was part of the New York Group that arrived in Perry County in the spring of 1839. Many of the members of the New York Group did not remain in this area very long. In fact, many of them moved to St. Louis, and many of those became members of Old Trinity Lutheran Church in that city. Such is the case with Georg Gottlob Heid and his wife, Anna Maria.
Let me go back a little farther to discuss how Georg and Maria ended up in New York City. Georg Heid is a little more elusive that Anna Maria. I am not sure when he arrived in America, but we know he was there in 1838 because in that year he married Anna Maria Schlagenhauf. We do have an immigration record for Anna Maria. She came to America aboard the Columbia in 1836. She is shown on the passenger list below which also includes Johann Schlagenhauf, who is almost certainly her brother.
Georg Gottlob Heid married Anna Maria Schlagenhauf on October 14, 1838 at the German Evangelical Mission Church in New York City. Thanks to Ken Craft, the creator of our Zion Roots Library, we actually have an image of that marriage record.
It is interesting to note that the two witnesses for this wedding were Johann Schlagenhauf, Anna Maria’s brother, and Conrad Kalbfleisch, another member of the New York Group who came to Perry County, but ended up in St. Louis.
While Georg and Anna Maria were in Perry County, their first child was born, a daughter by the name of Elizabeth Dorothea Heid, who was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg, Missouri. Here is that baptism record.
I also have a translation of the above baptism record.
It must not have been long after this that this Heid family moved to St. Louis. While they were there, three children were born. They are shown in this list below which comes from records of Old Trinity Lutheran Church.
If you look closely, both child #2 and child #3 had the same name, Goerg Gotthold Heid, which was also the name of the father. The second child on the above list did not live long. On the church death record shown below, we see that child died on June 29 when the baby was just 4 months old.
Since that Georg Gottlob Heid, Jr. died, this couple must have decided to use the same name for the next baby boy. So, the second Georg Gottlob Heid, Jr. is today’s birthday boy because he was born on January 15, 1846.
The Heid family must have moved to Columbia, Illinois before 1850 because it is the census for that place that we find the Heid family. If I read this correctly, it says that George Heid, Sr. was then a school teacher. Prior to this time, he was described as a tailor.
By the time the 1860 census was taken, the Heid family was living in Macoupin County, Illinois which is where the city of Staunton is located. Georg Heid, Sr. had died in 1854, so we no longer see him in this entry.
On August 19, 1867, Georg Heid married Margaretha Faulstich in St. Louis. Margaretha was the daughter of Johann Heinrich and Elisabeth (Warner) Faulstich. I eventually discovered, to my surprise, that Margaretha Faulstich was the sister to my great great grandmother, Elisabeth (Faulstich) Lich. For some reason, Georg and Margaretha were not married at Old Trinity Lutheran Church. Their civil marriage record says they were married by a justice of the peace.
At this point, I will inform you that, according to Google Translate, the word Faulstich means “lazy stitch”. Thus the goofy title for this post.
It looks as if Georg and Margaretha had 3 children, two of which died fairly early. We find this family in the 1870 census for St. Louis which shows 2 of the children.
The 1880 census for this family is shown below. One other child was born in 1871, but only the oldest son, who this form gives the name Georg G. Jr., was still alive in 1880. The small family was living in a boarding house and it looks like Georg traveled for a grocery house.
We have to skip to 1900 to find the next census. This record says Georg was a manager of a soap company, and his son, this time called J. George, was a chemist.
The 1910 census shows just Georg and Margaretha, and Georg was the manager of a soap factory.
Georg was 74 in the 1920 census, yet he was still employed. This time, it says he was a salesman for a silk factory. Margaretha died in 1917, so we see Georg as a widower. Georg was living with his son and his family in this entry.
Georg is found in yet one more census. In 1930, he was 84 years old, and he finally has no occupation. He was still living with his son, who was now a chemist for a soap company, perhaps the same company his father once managed.
We find a George G. Heid listed in a Florida death index for 1935.
That had me puzzled for a while. I was not sure this was the same Georg Heid. Eventually, I discovered that Georg had a granddaughter living in Dade County (Miami), Florida in 1935, so then it made sense that he would die there. No record could be found for a burial or grave site for Georg.
This story enabled me to find an unknown connection of my mother’s family tree to the 1839 immigration. There is a Bergt in her family tree that I knew about. Now, I know there’s another connection through the Faulstich family.
