Genealogy Jottings

Here it is September, and all the clubs begin to meet again. This week the German group gathered in small groups to discuss best research practices in various states where Germans first settled. I attended the Missouri group to see if I could get some advice on tracking Tony’s mysterious ancestor Katherina Woermann. She was married in a Catholic church in St. Louis and moved to Minnesota some time after that. We have not found any information about her immigration or her family. Sadly, no one in the group could recommend any magical source in Missouri that would reveal everything about her.

I did get one hint from a man in the group who has done extensive research on his own German lines. I mentioned that Tony had found many different spellings for Woermann. The man said that Woermann (or with an “o” with an umlaut in place of the “oe”) is probably correct although it may also have had an “h”. He thought our best plan would be to do further work in the Catholic records.

The baptism records for the church where Katherina was married are available on microfilm from the LDS library. Our first step should be to look at those to see whether Katherina and her husband had a child in St. Louis before they left. If they did, the record could give us some good information–perhaps parents’ birthplaces and names of family members who served as godparents.

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