A genealogist's cry heard 'round the world!

Milwaukee area genealogists are traveling to Salt Lake City for research ... and hopefully protest for the RELEASE of THE EPSTEIN FILES on Ancestry!!!😁

What can you expect to find in Milwaukee's German newspapers?

Besides the news stories about the horrific death of Melissa Hortmann and her husband by a deranged christian nationalist, Milwaukee's German-American papers might have had multiple obituaries, repeated death notices some maybe with pending info, followed by the funeral details, fraternal notices, reporting about the funeral and burial event, then family thanks, and even later, more notices of thanks from the family, possibly death anniversary notices in following years.

In the 1860s and 1870s, you might've found one of the papers lined with heavy black borders, just as the death notices are found, including running between the entire length of each column, as the newspaper draped itself in mourning.

That is, if you weren't the current so-called "presidential" administration of the USA that feed$ off the white christian nationalism of the assassin, and barely acknowledged this horrific, religious act.

A 'Deutsches Haus' in Germanic Milwaukee? Couldn't be built: the German 'community' was too divided.

A "German Haus" built in Milwaukee? An old question dating back to the 1930s. 

You would think that Goethe Haus' 30 years of residency at the Milwaukee Public Library was a logical answer to this question. But that residency never produced a single project or event, not a pamphlet, not a poster, celebrating Milwaukee's huge, diverse, German immigrant working-class community. Nothing was done in conjunction with the Milwaukee Public Library, nor with the Milwaukee County Genealogical Society also in residence there, nor with any of the then-fading German cultural groups.

Der Volksfreund in 1848... The Peoples' Friend, "Devoted to Equal Rights"

An old "German guy" - a naturalized US citizen - had a beer-scented complaint for me about my display at German Fest: "The first German paper was published in 1944, NOT 1844!" he stated emphatically. "Nope" I said, "publishing in Milwaukee spanned 1844 to 1950." "1944!", "1844", "1944!", "1844". He eventually walked away. Another contradiction by other German Fest attendees followed. They had delivered the old Milwaukee Herold in the city AFTER 1950, one even worked in the office! But the publisher had left the City of Milwaukee in 1950 or shortly thereafter, but keeping the name of the paper.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, found in Milwaukee's genealogy circles ...

Recently a cluster of genealogy hacks went on the attack for my posting many of Holy Trinity Cemetery's lost burial records at Find-a-Grave. They complained to Find-a-Grave that my sources do not mention the cemetery. Admin. threats followed that these memorials would be changed to "burial unknown". But those whiners, who have more ambition than smarts, were wrong! 😄

Then an Admin. demanded I reveal specific sources used for my transcription of church registers specifying the cemetery. Imagine an LDS / FHL employee NOT knowing the source of church records? 😌

Then followed a new tack concerning my helpful research leads into Milwaukee's German newspapers: "Stop forcing volunteers to use your index at the library." Those valuable leads don't satisfy today's demand for instant gratification taught by the Ancestry retail site. Or maybe standard look-up requests as a library service by MPL were refused, or lacking, or both? It's easy to request a look-up in a specific resource when a name and death date are supplied. 😏

One volunteer demanded I post clippings & citations at Ancestry for her to copy. 😂

Not only do these people lack research skills, but they've also proved to be especially malicious and vindictive. My effort to post the bulk of lost records for Holy Trinity Cemetery - from its founding through 1909 - is largely complete. That was accomplished just in time before Find-a-Grave vindictively terminated my access to my account there. 😇

Researching German family in Milwaukee? You might have to create the resources yourself ...

I made a rare find in the German papers for a relative: an authentic, but unlikely obituary for a poor, old, insignificant German immigrant named Agnes Schumacher (née Hamacher). She died in the County Asylum in 1884, and is officially recorded as buried there ... but she's not!

Agnes' step-son, Peter Schumacher, claimed her remains, and took steps to have an obituary published by the Seebote. She was buried from St. Anthony Catholic Church, at Holy Trinity Cemetery, recorded in the parish register, but where? Burial records were destroyed in a fire in 1909.

In winter 2024, I flipped over a toppled marker at Holy Trinity Cemetery & experienced a thrill: here was my step-3rd-great-grandmother Agnes! She wasn't buried with her daughter's Esser family in Block 3 as I presumed, but in St. Anthony parish's section of single adult graves called "Section 1".

Sad to say, this is how we have to research Milwaukee's "working class" families: need a resource? You might have to create it yourself. I wouldn't have known anything about Agnes without randomly browsing the German papers. I created a huge index to help others.

I've done that twice for Milwaukee: first with the German-American papers. 

After collecting secondary resources for 20 years, I've been using that data as an imperfect substitute for records lost by this cemetery. Most are entered as online Memorials at Find-a-Grave, where I've been blocked from creating or editing my work for not handing out detailed newspaper citations and clippings.

A family's Memorial for Anna Heinl

 

Two Milwaukee death notices for Anna Heinl: one from a German language paper and the other from one an English language daily. It's reminiscent of Catholic funeral card Memorials.

There was no separate obituary in either paper.

The information is similar, but not identical. One is clearly a family memorial to a loved one, published by the family. The other is a helpful, but perfunctory piece of information about funeral arrangements, and adequate for the data collectors.