Day: April 9, 2008

Grandpa left me a comment with some information on his father and paternal grandparents. I’d hit a dead end on that side of his family. It’s funny, though. I’d found his parents in the 1930 census, along with him and his brother. His father was identified in that census as John F. I could find no trace of him in earlier censuses. The only Meineke I could find who was born at the right time, in the right place, was a Cecil. Meineke is not a super rare name, though, and there were several in the upper midwest at that point in time. I had no reason to think that Cecil and John might be the same person, until Grandpa said that his father’s name was Cecil.

So now I know. And with that little tidbit, and the fact that Cecil’s father’s name was Henry and that his mother was a Shoemaker, I was able to go to work. I found a 1900 US census record for Henry and Mary Mincke (lines 65-69).

1900 US Census, Wright County, Iowa

According to the 1900 census, the couple was living in Iowa. Henry emigrated in 1871 and Mary in 1893. Henry would have been about 8 years old when he came to the US. I haven’t looked for an emigration record yet, and I’ll have to, because I think the emigration date on the 1900 census is a little off. That sort of thing is not at all uncommon, especially not for someone who came over as a child. Henry could have easily misremembered or misguestimated the date.

Mary is not on the 1910 US census, and Henry is listed as widowed, so Mary must have died sometime between the birth of her last child (about 1904) and 1910. I found census records for Henry and his children in 1915, 1920, and 1925. Grandpa remembers that Henry died around 1928, and there’s no record of him in the 1930 census, so we know he was gone by then.

According to the 1900 and 1910 census, Henry and Mary were in Illinois when their first child was born. That’s probably where they met and married. I know from the 1925 Iowa census that Henry’s parents were Chris Meineke and Henryetta Litteke (line 99). Also note that Henry’s sons Clarence (line 97) and Henry Jr. (line 119) are on the same page.

1925 Iowa Census, Wright County

And guess what I found? A Christian and Henriette Meineke in the 1870 US census, living in Tazewell County, Illinois. They have three children: Henry, Juliano, and Auguste. Henry is 8 years old as of the census date, which would mean that, if this is the correct family (and I think it must be), they actually emigrated a little earlier than Henry recalled in 1900. Like I said, that happens and is not outside the realm of logic.

1870 US Census, Tazewell County, Illinois

And boy, I thought the name Basquill was open to mangling. You should see what some of the census enumerators did with Meineke. Aieee! Grandpa, if you’re reading this–I don’t know if you can tell or not, but on the 1870 census, the name is spelled Meinecke. Mom said that you thought the there was probably a relationship between the Meineke and Meinecke families. I think it’s just two variations of the same name, sort of like some of the Basquills tacked an e on the end of the name. I’ve also seen it spelled Mineke and even Mohneke. On the old census records, the enumerators sometimes had to literally play it by ear. They did the best they could, but it makes finding people difficult.

And to make matters more confusing, the transcribers added another potential level of misdirection. It’s kind of like playing telephone. You tell someone a word and they write it down, perhaps spelling it phonetically, to the best of their ability. Then, a hundred years later, someone else comes along and tries to decipher the handwriting. So you tell the enumerator that your name is Meineke. He writes down Mineke. The transcriber sees Minske. That’s what happened with the 1900 census, and it made finding it somewhat akin to searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack.

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1. And if Tazewell, Illinois sounds familiar, it’s where Esther Munro‘s mother’s family lived at about the same period of time. Small world, eh?