Henry Joseph Schmidt 1850-1903

I always thought of the Heinrich Joseph Schmidt family as the "Milwaukee connection." He was mentioned briefly in the White Star history, but more details have been discovered recently.

The birth of Heinrich Joseph Schmidt was recorded in the church book of Winkels, Hesse-Nassau. His parents were Johann Heinrich Schmidt, born in Breitscheid and Catherina Bernhardt, born in Ruckershausen. Johann was the brother of Catherina Elisabeth Schmidt, our John Henry Smith's mother. John Henry and Henry Joseph were cousins, just as the newspaper item reporting his death stated. 

The Breitscheid side of the family were potters, which would explain why Henry Schmidt eventually partnered with George Weis in a pottery/stoneware business in Milwaukee. That business was established in 1875. An article in the "Historical Messenger" of the Milwaukee County Historical Society from March, 1970 provides more history of the business.

"The last major pottery concern founded in Milwaukee in the 19th century was that of Henry Weis and Frederick Schmidt (notice the mix-up of names: Frederick was George Weis' son) which began operation in 1876 at 750 2nd Street. They later moved to 31st and Cherry, where they continued operations until 1915, when they went out of business." (Corporation Records of Milwaukee County, Vol. R. p 556.)

* Craft - 52 Ancestors

Scandinavia Cemetery

The original "map" of the Scandinavia Lutheran Cemetery was kept on the back of a window shade. The top photo explains that a copy was made of a 1927 plat drawing in 1962. The bottom shows a portion of the original 1927 sketch. The tombstone information is available in several locations online at present.

* 52 Ancestors - "At the Cemetery"

Isaac Newell 1660-1738

Isaac Newell was Dick's eighth great grandfather. We had carefully tracked his mother's maternal line through Hackett, Bailey, Rich, and Conant (and through Wisconsin, New York and Vermont) to the Newell family of Dudley, Massachusetts.

After our son's wedding his wife presented us with a packet containing family research that her mother had collected through the years. This was exciting for me, as her ancestors had lived in many other locations than Wisconsin, where most of my research was focused. We added the information to our database and planned to continue working with the names.

Within the next few years we happened to be visiting the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We were using their resources to add information to our family tree. Imagine my surprise when Dick found a book called The Early Records of Roxbury, Massachusetts. The book contained records pertaining to his Newell family line, but he had traced our daughter-in-law’s Newell line to the same family!  

We were amused to be able to tell our son that he and his wife were distant cousins! Isaac Newell was their common ancestor. They were able to take this in stride, however, as they named their son Isaac.

52 Ancestors - "Namesake"