Today’s couple has been mentioned in a previous post, but has yet to be highlighted on their own. As near as I can tell, today’s pair was the first couple in this area to carry the surname, Amschler. This couple had 11 children, so they would have plenty of descendants. I did a search for posts on this blog that have mentioned this surname and got 14 results.

Johann George Amschler was born on June 4, 1824 in Bavaria, Germany. Although their names are not found in our German Family Tree, an Amschler family binder that we have in our research library states that his parents were Andreas and Anna (Held) Amschler, who lived and died in Germany.

This page from that binder shows the ancestors of Johann George Amschler.

In 1850, John G. Amschler made the voyage to America aboard the ship, President Smidt. We find his name on the passenger list shown below.

I will be using the middle initial for him in this article because he had a son by the same name that has been called John Amschler in a previous post. The above ship did not arrive in this country until November of 1850, so John G. did not show up in the census for that year. Because he got married before the next census, we never find him in an American census as a single man.

Let’s now discuss his future wife. Her name was Anna Harz Lang, who was born on April 28, 1834. She was also born in Bavaria. She was the daughter of Johann and Magdalena (Harz) Lang. Anna’s family came to America in 1840, traveling aboard the ship, Clementine, which landed in Baltimore, Maryland. Anna can be found on the portion of that ship’s passenger list displayed below. She was 6 years old at the time.

Anna is found in the 1850 census at the age of 17. Her father was a farmer.

John G. Amschler married Anna Lang on July 10, 1853, making today this couple’s 168th wedding anniversary. The pastor on this couple’s civil marriage record was Rev. E.O. Wolff, indicating that they were married at Peace Lutheran Church in Friedenberg.

It is a bit debatable where the Amschler children were baptized. There was one child baptized at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown in 1856. We do find quite a few of their children being confirmed at Grace, Uniontown during the 1870’s and 1880’s. When the 1860 census was taken, we find the entry shown below for the Amschler family. There were 4 children in their household, and John G. was a farmer in the Cinque Hommes Township.

John G. Amschler spent some time serving in the Union Army during the Civil War. A record of his military service is shown here.

In the Amschler binder, there are photos of some pages from Johann George Amschler’s family Bible. Below is a page that lists the children of John G. and Anna Amschler. It is written in German.

Fortunately, that binder also contains an English translation of that page. A few of the children are found on another page that I did not display above.

When the 1870 census was taken, we find the Amschler household still living in the Cinque Hommes Township. We can see that most of their later-born children were boys.

When we look for this family in the 1880 census, we have to open up the long-lost pages from the Union Township census of that year. Their entry in that enumeration spills over two pages.

The above census record is the last one in which we find John G. Amschler. He died in 1892 at the age of 68. His death record is found in the books of Grace Luthreran Church in Uniontown.

When Anna Amschler was 63 years old, the photograph below was taken of her.

Anna Amschler would be found in 3 more censuses. In the 1900 census, we find Anna living with one of her sons, George. However, just above her entry is that of Adolph A. Amschler, another son, and that of Traugott Fiehler, who had married Johanna, one of her daughters.

In the 1910 census, we find Anna at the age of 75 living in Adolph’s household. Once again, we see the Fiehler’s nearby.

The last census in which we find Anna was the one taken in 1920. Once again, we find her in the Adolph A. Amschler household.

Anna Amschler died in 1921 at the age of 86. Her death certificate says her death was partly due to a fractured femur.

The obituary printed in a local newspaper is shown below.

John G. and Anna Amschler are each buried in the Grace Lutheran Cemetery in Uniontown. It looks like an effort was made to clean this tombstones before the photos were taken.

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I think the thickness of this Amschler family binder indicates how many descendants came from this couple. If you are connected in some way to this family, our research library would be an excellent place to visit if you would like to research your family tree.