Distant Cousin Connections
46
Lori and I began communicating in June of 2020 to jointly correct and extend our respective family trees on Ancestry.com, Fritsche/Miesner Family Tree and Kirmse Family Tree.
Lori noted that Claus Heinrich Korte is often confused with his brother-in-law, Heinrich Cordes. And, in many family trees, they and their families are often interchanged and/or combined. We jointly researched and wrote a blog post titled Confusing Two Heinrichs. It has been submitted to the Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum blog to honor Claus who would be 171 years old this year if he were alive.
Since we both have relatives in Perry County, Missouri and ancestors who lived in Parish Scheeßel, Germany, we felt that we were likely related. After researching and extending our respective family trees, we found the following rather contorted connection between us:
is a 3rd great-niece of the husband of Dale’s 2nd great-aunt
Father of Lori Ann Fritsche
Mother of Harold Lloyd Fritsche
Father of Meta Anna Margaretha Miesner
Father of Johann Heinrich Miesner
Father of Caspar Claus Miesner
Son of Johann Miesner
Wife of Johann Heinrich Miesner
Father of Maria Meier
Daughter of Peter Meier
Daughter of Margaretha Meier
Son of Martha Margaretha Cordes
Dale is the son of Julius Heinrich Kirmse
Lori is an avid genealogist and has noted that when she began family history research,
was back before computers and the internet took over the world, Ancestry.com didn’t exist yet, and everything was still library catalogues, writing notes on paper, using copy machines, microfiche machines, etc. I still have lots of papers from the trips I took [to visit] with my aunt back in the ‘90s, and I honestly don’t know how I was able to survive that kind of toiling labor! 😊
And, she has expressed her passion for family history research as follows:
My dream accomplishment is to one day be able to spend days, weeks, months, probably even years just going through all of those church records from the Scheessel area and fill in blanks with new parents and siblings of people still missing family members on my tree! I’m a jigsaw puzzle fanatic (the more pieces, the better!), and with this family tree [Fritsche/Miesner Family Tree] that’s exactly what I’m wanting to do: take the puzzle of 10,000+ pieces and arrange it all into one perfect picture! But the first question is always: Just WHERE do I begin??? With what person or family??? If I didn’t need to eat, sleep, take care of kids, etc., that’s exactly what I’d spend every hour doing!
When Lynn Degenhardt shared the German Family Tree with me from the museum {Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum], I was in heaven for months going through every name in that tree with a fine-toothed comb, comparing their information with mine. And, then I got to spend about 2 weeks in heaven a couple years ago when I finally got to make a big trip back to Missouri and Illinois (I grew up in Illinois) and spend days and days exploring the whole Perry County area, the churches, cemeteries, talking with everyone at the museum and spending a few days with all of them. I had the time of my life, and I will never forget that trip back! I told Lynn, Warren, and Gerhard that I would give anything to be able to move back there permanently and spend the rest of my life working at that museum!