Our story today begins with the birthday of Maria Catherine Seibel, who was born on November 9, 1841. She was the daughter of Johann and Elizabeth (Theiss) Seibel and baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church. Maria’s father was part of the New York Group that arrived in Perry County at about the same time as the rest of the Gesellschaft. Here is Maria’s baptism record from the books of Trinity, Altenburg.

Maria was 9 years old in her first census taken in 1850. Her father was a cooper. Interestingly, the teacher for Trinity Lutheran School, Teacher Winter, was living in their household.

Let’s now turn our attention to Maria’s future husband, August Friedrich Wilhelm Engert, Jr. He was the son of August Friedrich Wilhelm and Christiana Eleanore (Matthes) Engert. The story of her father’s amazing number of children was told in the post, Another Fertile Father. Frederick, Jr. was born in Germany on December 3, 1832. He came to America with the rest of his Engert family aboard the Johann Georg in late 1839 as part of the Gruber Group. Here is the passenger list showing the Engert’s. Frederick is the 6 year-old, and his father was a shoemaker.

Frederick was 18 years old when the 1850 census was taken. His mother had died in 1849, and his father would re-marry in 1851.

In 1857, when Rev. Georg Schieferdecker left Trinity Lutheran Church and established Immanuel Lutheran Church on the other side of town, the Engert’s and the Seibel’s became charter members of that new congregation.

On May 3, 1860, Frederick Engert married Maria Seibel at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Here is the church record for that wedding.

We can also view two different civil marriage records from Perry County for this couple.

Frederick and Maria were married early enough in 1860 to be included together in that year’s census. They were living in the household of Frederick’s father and stepmother.

The German Family Tree lists 8 children born into this family. Several of them died as infants. When the Civil War broke out, Frederick signed up to fight for the North. The military record shown below says he served under Captain Estel.

Frederick’s second son was born in October of 1862, so it appears that this child was born after Frederick was mustered into service in August of 1862.

Next, we find the Engert household in the 1870 census. Maria is called Elizabeth in this entry.

The last of the children was born to Frederick and Maria in 1875, however, the last few children died right away. We find their family in the 1880 census.

The above census would be the last one in which we find Frederick. He almost made it to be included in the 1900 census, but he died in 1899 at the age of 66. The 1900 census shows Maria as a widow and living near her son, Adolph Engert.

The last census in which we find Maria Engert was the one taken in 1910. She was living in the household of her son, Paul Joseph Engert.

Maria Engert died in 1914 at the age of 72. We can take a look at her death certificate.

Frederick and Maria Engert are each buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Altenburg. When I looked on Findagrave to see gravestone photographs, I found none. That site says they are buried there. After all, Maria’s death certificate indicates she is buried in Immanuel’s cemetery. Since I had the time, I decided to visit the cemetery, and thanks to a diagram inside Immanuel’s fellowship hall, those gravestones have been located and photographed. Now, all we need is for Diane Anderson to add these photos to the Findagrave site.

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The Engert and Seibel surnames continue to be found around here. As time went by, both of these surnames could be found as members of Trinity and Immanuel Lutheran churches in Altenburg.