Barbara Bauer Young Wenser

Barbara Bauer was born about 1816 somewhere in Bavaria, Germany. She arrived in this country before 1843 which is the year her first daughter, Elizabeth, was born in Cincinnati.

Whether Barbara was married when she came to this country is still a mystery. I believe her husband's last name was Young. They had three daughters, Elizabeth, Anna M., and Mary. In 1850, he was not counted with the family in the census. I am assuming he was dead by that summer as Barbara and the girls could be found living in Ripley, Ohio in the household of Thomas and Anna Mariah Shafer. Their last name is recorded as Young. Next door was, who I believe to be Barbara's brother, Albert Bower, his wife, Elizabeth, and their son, Albert. I also believe that Anna Mariah Shafer was a Bauer/Bower by birth and this is possibly for whom Barbara named her second daughter.

By the 1860 census, Barbara's last name is Winzer and she has two additional children, Eva (8yrs. old) and William (6 yrs. old). There is no adult male living with the family and Elizabeth, Anna, and Mary are all listed as Winzer's. They are still located in Ripley, Ohio.

By 1870, Elizabeth had married Michael Beyersdoerfer. They and their children were living in Ripley. Barbara can be found in the same household along with another daughter, Minnie. Their last name is spelled Wensor in this census and Minnie appears to be 19 years old. It is possible that Minnie is the same daughter who was listed as Eva in the 1860 census. In addition to the Beyersdoerfer's and Wensor's, a sixteen year old boy, William Bauer, is also living in the house. He is apprenticed to Michael Beyersdoerfer as a cigar maker and I assume he is also related to Barbara in some way.

Barbara and Mena (Minnie) continue to live with Elizabeth and Michael through 1880 and that is the last record I can find about Barbara. Her gravestone in Ripley's Maplewood Cemetery shows her death was in 1898.

One can speculate about her husbands and name changes. There is a 35 year old George Young listed in the 1850 Hamilton County, Ohio mortality census as having died in August of 1849 from cholera. He was from Germany and his birth year makes him a possibility of having been Barbara's husband. Hopefully, one day I might be able to determine if he is connected or not. As for William Wenser, the only records of his existence are the notations on the death certificates of his daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, and Minnie as having been their father. I cannot explain why they do not name a Young as their father. I can find nothing else other than a listing in the IGI on www.familysearch.org that shows a William Wenser marrying a Barbara Bender in Cincinnati in 1850. The IGI source is named as Hamilton County, Ohio marriage records. Maybe Barbara Bender is my Barbara and her name was misunderstood. Again, maybe time will tell. Until then, I just keep on doing what I know to do - search, search, search.

Mary B. Thill

I have been so busy just researching these Thill's. They were a prolific bunch! I've taken one child of Nicholas's to research at a time and have added quite a few cousins to my tree. As usual, there are some that tug at me for various reasons.

One such new cousin is Mary B. Thill. She was the daughter of Joseph and Mary (Strassel) Thill. I am hoping her middle initial "B" is for Barbara, her grandmother, but chances are, I'll never find out.

Mary, born January 28, 1871, was the first child of Joseph and Mary. The little I know about her, I have discovered from the census data. She is listed in each census year from 1880 until 1930, the exception being 1890 which was destroyed in a fire. In 1900, she can be found still living with her parents as she never married. When her father died sometime between 1900 and 1910, she continued living with Clara, her sister, Joseph, her brother and her mother. When Joseph married, she and Clara, along with their mother were still living in the family house on Loth Street, where they had been living since about Mary's birth.

Mary and Clara's mother died sometime after 1920. Mary and Clara must have sold the Loth Street house as they are found in the 1930 census living at 3229 Glendora Avenue. Also living in the house were owners, Edward and Henrietta Etterer. Mary made her living as a dressmaker while Clara worked as a bookkeeper in a gymnasium.

The last record I have about Mary is her death certificate. She died at the age of 62 from cirrhosis of the liver on June 9, 1933. Clara, her sister, was the informant.

As I got to know Mary through my research I found myself wondering what her life was like. I have no other resources that can help flesh out her day to day life. Was she happy? Did she enjoy life? Hopefully, through my research I will come across a living relative who might have knowledge or an artifact from Mary's life. It might sound far-fetched, but you just never know what will come your way through this hobby of genealogy.