I was very hopeful that I would solve another one of those genealogy mysteries this past month, and now I’m very frustrated that I haven’t quite done that. Many of you have been where I’m at. You hear the family story and things don’t quite “jive”. You start digging and find out that Grandma didn’t have her facts straight, so you keep digging, you get a lead, you chase that lead, you find some promising things, and…pfffft! Your lead fizzles out. You just need something that will prove or disprove your theory and you can’t find it. Heavy sigh.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at with my husband, Tim’s, Ploeger line. Here’s the story:
Another Brick Wall
When I started working on Tim’s family tree, my mother-in-law, Helen, gave me piles of information. The Ploeger line started with my father-in-law, Bud’s, grandmother, so most of this line had been traced by Bud’s sister and niece. Helen only knew what they had told her. I read through it and saw that Bud’s great-great grandfather, Christian Ploeger, had immigrated to this country with his wife, Caroline Viestenz, along with other members of the Ploeger family, sometime in the 1850s. Christian’s parents and brothers immigrated as well, but not as one group. Most of the family ended up living around Greenville in Outagamie County, Wisconsin. Christian and Caroline, however, ended up in Waupaca County, near Fremont, Wisconsin.
The only way I know this is because by 1863 Caroline had remarried, had a son, and was living in Fremont. The family legend claims that Christian didn’t like America and he moved back to Germany. Caroline stayed in America and remarried. This never quite made sense to me, but while I found tons of information on Christian’s brothers in this country, I could never find anything on him. No census, no immigration records, nothing. I finally called it a brick wall and went on to research other family lines, hoping that someday I could revisit the Ploeger line.
What I Knew for Sure
Now I did know a few things from the information out there about Christian’s parents, Christian Frederick Wilhelm Ploeger b. 1796 and Fredericke Charlotte Krull, b. 1800. On some records, Fredericke’s maiden name was listed as Crouse/Krause. I know that they were from a little town in what is now the Brandenburg region of Germany, called Carmzow. Records showed that Christian Sr. and Fredericke immigrated to America in 1856 and that by 1860 they had settled in Greenville, Wisconsin. I know that most of their sons also settled in that area and that some of them immigrated with their parents. A couple of them even fought in the Civil War.
I also knew that Caroline Vestienz Ploeger remarried a Fremont resident named Johann Menk. They had two children, a daughter who I have no information about and a son, August Menk, born in 1863. This tells me that Caroline remarried before 1863. Finally, I knew that Christian II and Caroline’s sons did not all immigrate to America with their parents. In fact, their youngest son, Johann Ploeger (b. 1848), my husband’s great-great grandfather, came over by himself in 1870. Once Johann and his other brothers were in America, they all stayed here and settled in Wisconsin or Upper Michigan.
What I Finally Found Out
Fast forward to this year (2021). I hadn’t worked on the Ploeger line for a while. Being stuck is less than motivating, you know. When those little green leaves in Ancestry pop up, however, I always want to click on them, and when a leaf appeared on Christian Ploeger’s name, I clicked eagerly. It happened to link to another family tree, listing a Frederick Ploeger, b. 1824, who married a Louisa Schernow in 1877 in Waupaca County, Wisconsin. His parents were listed as Christian Ploeger and Fredericke Crouse on the marriage record. Curious. I had never heard of a son named Frederick.
After they married, Frederick and Louisa moved away from Wisconsin and ended up in Kansas, where Frederick Ploeger died in 1902. His will is on record and it mentions his wife Louisa and his children by her, but no mention of any other children.
Suddenly, something dawned on me. What if my Christian Ploeger, b. 1821, could be the same person as Frederick Ploeger, b. 1824? Maybe he didn’t go back to Germany? That might have been a story he told his family. Maybe that’s what his wife told everyone to save face? It was a possibility. How could I find out?
The first thing I decided to do was to confirm Christian Ploeger’s birth date. The only birth date I had on record for him was 1821. The other tree lists 26 July 1824 Frederick Ploeger’s birthday. I know that the Ploeger family came from a little town called Carmzow in the Prenzlau district of Brandenburg, northeast of Berlin, Germany. In the past, I had not had much luck finding records from this area, but I decided to once again try my “go-to” website for German church records, Archion.de. I did a free search first to see if records from Prenzlau had been digitized yet, and there they were! Hooray! Finally one of my missing batches of records was online! I paid for the subscription and started searching.
That search led to a lot of information, including another generation for both the Ploeger and Krull lines. I also found Fredericke Krull’s birth record, Christian Frederick Wilhelm Ploeger Sr. and Fredericke Krull’s marriage record, and Christian Ploeger’s birth record. Guess what? His full name was also Christian Frederick Wilhelm Ploeger and his birth date was 26 July 1824. Well, that matched the other family tree. So, maybe my theory was right? Were Christian Ploeger and Frederick Ploeger the same person?
When You Open a Door, You Find…Another Brick Wall
To really prove this, I needed to find some supporting records. I searched for Christian Ploeger and Caroline Viestenz’s marriage record. Nothing. I searched for birth records for their children. Nothing. The family story was that Christian Ploeger returned to Germany and died in Passow in 1875. I searched for that record. Nothing. I looked for immigration records, census records from the 1850s and 1860s – nothing, nothing, nothing. So much progress, only to hit yet another brick wall. Grrrrr. You experienced genealogists all know how this feels. Can’t you picture the little black raincloud over your head?
Now that I’m stuck again, my burning questions are:
- Where was Caroline Viestenz born? If I can find that, I will possibly find her marriage record with Christian Ploeger and maybe the birth records of their children.
- When did Christian Ploeger and Caroline Viestenz Ploeger come to America?
- When did the divorce occur and when did Caroline marry her second husband?
- Is there any record of Christian returning to Germany or any other proof that Christian Ploeger and Fredercik Ploeger are the same person?
My progress on this line is definitely hindered by poor handwriting, poor spelling, redundant German names (everyone is named Christian or Frederick or Wilhelm), and the fact that the whole family immigrated to this country right around the time of the Civil War. It will take more work and more time, but I am hopeful that one day I will solve this mystery and complete the story. Stay tuned for future updates!
Image Credits
Photo of Johann Ploeger – Meydam Family files
Photo of Frederick Ploeger’s tombstone – Find A Grave, photo added by Cemetery Jones
