May 19 to May 25

BIRTHS:

What is about Jennie that makes me want to know more about her life? She appears in several other family trees on Ancestry, but the fact fields tend to be incomplete and sources are scarce.

Eugenia Schmitt was born in Cincinnati on 21 May 1878. She appears as Jennie in the 1880 census and lives with her parents Jules François and Mary Ann (née Barnes) Schmitt, four siblings, and four boarders.

In the 1900 census, a 22 year old woman works as a servant in the Cincinnati Ohio home of Joseph Guggenheim. Jennie Schmidt (sic) was born in Ohio in May of 1878. Jennie’s father is listed as having been born in Germany (Jules was born in a German-speaking area of France) and her mother was born in Ireland.

On the 10th of October 1907, 29-year-old Eugenia Schmitt married a 35-year-old butcher named Auguste Roman. Both of them lived in Norwood Ohio at the time; Eugenia’s occupation is listed as none.

The couple appears together in the 1910 census in Bellevue City, Campbell County, Kentucky which is just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. August worked as a butcher in a retail store. His birthplace and that of his parents, is listed as France.

Was he born in a German-speaking area of France like Jennie’s father? (I’ve found this to be a common error on census records and assume it is because the person in question spoke with a German accent.)

I searched unsuccessfully for August and Jennie in city directories for a number of years. Then I found August Roman’s widow Jennie, who was a nurse, in the 1919 Norwood Ohio city directory. When was Jennie widowed? I am still looking for a source for Auguste Roman’s death.

Private nurse Jenny Roman lived at the Norwood Ohio home of her sister and brother-in-law Anna and Theodore Reverman, along with her mother Mary Ann Schmitt and her brother Arthur Joseph Schmitt when the 1920 census was taken.

In April of 1924, 46-year-old Jennie Roman married 62-year-old William Black, a Pennsylvania-born recently divorced carpenter and father of five. They were be married for 30 years until William’s death 08 October 1954. Jennie outlived William and her five siblings, she died in Deer Park, Ohio in 1973.

Other noteworthy births this week include my late aunt Lois Marie née Mueller and my late great-uncle Robert Ernest Mueller.

MARRIAGES:

The union of my 4th-great-grandparents took place on the 23rd of May in Alston, Cumberland, England. Thomas Walton (abt 1783-1873) and Abigail Craig (abt 1786 – 1826) later emigrated to the Isle of Man where they had six known children including my 3rd great-grandfather John Walton (1809-1870).

DEATHS:

My 4th-great-grandfather Thomas Walton remained on the Isle of Man until his death on 21 May 1873.

My Swedish 4th great-grandmother, Ingrid Stina Jonasdotter died in Tånnö, Jönköping, Sweden 20 May 1896. In Swedish she would be my mor-mor’s mor-mor’s mor-mor ~ meaning my maternal grandmother’s maternal grandmother’s maternal grandmother.

As a seeker of stories, I am always interested in learning more about the people in my family tree. Are you related to anyone I mentioned above?