I haven't blogged in over a year and am not going to make excuses - just haven't felt like it. Perhaps with the ridiculous price of an ancestry.com membership I'll start blogging instead of working on my tree.
Anyway, I have been working on my tree and occasionally checking ThruLines to see if there are any new discoveries. I had previously blogged about my 3rd great grandparents John and Minnie (Helm) Freiheit If you haven't read the previous blog it boils down to the fact that the researcher I paid found John and Minnie's marriage in 1857 but also found that Minnie had been previously married to Johann Friedrich Theodor Springborn in 1854 and had a son Heinrich Carl Christian Springborn in 1855. Given her remarriage and no records found for her first husband and son, I figured they both died, Minnie remarried and came to America. I believed that until 12/21 when I found this:
I have 3 connections via Charles Springborn? Who is Charles? I looked at one of the trees and found that Charles IS Heinrich Carl Christian Springborn. He came to America with his dad and stepmother in 1864, where they settled in Manistee County Michigan. Charles' dad John Springborn also had what appears to be his 2nd wife Marie, a son Frederick and a daughter Fredericka with him. Looking at the tree and other records online and Fredericka was also Minnie's daughter with him, and Frederick was born as an illegitimate child in 1852 as Frederick Helm.
It seems impossible that Minnie was married, had 3 children and ended up remarried and moving to America with her 2nd family and settling in the same area as her first family? I have Minnie's probate record and it only lists her Freiheit children, furthering the case in my mind that this tree has to be wrong. The problem is, DNA doesn't lie. I match 3 different people descended from Charles Springborn.
I reached out to Robert Albert, the researcher that I hired over a decade ago that busted down this brick wall and he was still at the email address I had. He took a look and concurred with the tree, and that Minnie's first family did indeed come to America. He found the ship record and there's a youngest daughter yet to be placed, that could be Minnie Helm's daughter, or the Marie that John Springborn remarried to. His guesses as to what happened are as plausible as any:
Yeah, as to that youngest child, I haven't looked to see how she is connected. According to the Hamburg list it says she is a child, presumably of Johann Friedrich Springborn, but if he had a "fling" with Marie, who would have been say 20 at conception, and he being 31, this "could" have been the spark that dissolved the family. Or perhaps even more likely is that Minnie had an affair with Mr. Freiheit, and so J. F. Springborn leaves her and takes the children with him because she is "unfit", and meets up with Marie. Maybe Minnie getting pregnant was the straw that broke the camel's back. Wish we could go back in time and visit this household to get the story that I agree has been lost to eternity. I am sure no one living post emigration wanted to retell it for sure. But then to think that she brings her new beau and kids to the same spot in the USA is just... wow! WOW!!!!! Yeah, this is maybe the best unknown story I have ever heard of in all my years of researching. Remarkable.
Of even further intrigue is that sailing with the Springborn family is a Dorothea Kehnscherper. Minnie Helm Freiheit's mother's name was Maria Dorothea Kehnscherper. I don't know anything about Maria Dorothea yet, but the age on the ship log makes it unlikely that she's Minnie's mother but there has to be a connection.This is all developing and I have Robert on the project again. He doesn't have his business website anymore but if he's officially doing research still I'll try to get his information into a blog. He is friendly, thorough, reasonable, and honest. I very much enjoy working with him. He's already added to my Freiheit family, as records are available online now that weren't a decade ago. I could probably find the records, but I can't read them so hiring him to ensure I don't miss anything or record it incorrectly is absolutely worth it.
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