Andrew Dabelstein family – Tombstone Tuesday

Dabelstein family plots

After my family research trip to Chicago this week-end, I have most of the blanks in the Andrew Dabelstein group sheet filled in. I need 1 date of death for a son and confirmation of the marriage guess that I have made (and the parents of Andrew or his wife, Alvina Carsten).  A combination of church records on microfilm from the Newberry Library and a visit to the cemetery helped fill in blanks or confirm educated guesses that I had made.  Here’s what I have:

Andreas “Andrew” J Dabelstein – b. 27 Jan 1853  m. around 1879  d. 23 Nov 1929 in Kankakee County, but buried in Concordia Cemetery, Chicago.
Alvina Carsten/Karsten – b. 17 June 1857 d. 27 May 1912.

Andreas was born in Lubeck, Holstein, Germany and Alvina was born in Kayhude, Holstein Germany.  They came to America in 1882 along with their 11 month old son.

John (Hans) Dabelstein – b. 27 Dec 1881 in Germany.  I don’t believe he was married.  He died 6 Mar 1903 in Chicago and is buried in this plot in Concordia Cemetery.

Martha Dabelstein – b. 5 Jan 1883 in Chicago.  Never married.  d. 27 Mar 1913 in Chicago and buried in this plot.

Wilhelmina Dorothy Dabelstein – b. 25 Apr 1885  m.  Paul Danker on 28 Apr 1909 in Chicago  d. 18 Feb 1972 in Rockford, Illinois.  Also buried in Concordia Cemetery with her husband and 3 daughters in the Danker plots.

William Dabelstein – b. 13 Sept. 1887 in Chicago.  Never married.  d. 18 Jun 1917 in Chicago.  Buried in this plot in Concordia Cemetery.

Henry “Andrew Jr.” Dabelstein – b. 26 July 1894 in Chicago.  Possibly married to Emma Stolz on 26 July 1916.  I have no date or location of death.

I would love to be able to fill in the final blanks for Andrew Jr and obviously, I’d like to find the next generation back.  For the next generation, I think the next step will be to take a look at some Kayhude and Lubeck records, but I’m uncertain what is available and if I’ll be able to determine which church records to look at.  There are some records for Lubeck on Ancestry, but everything is in Germany and the last time I was at the library, I was unprepared to do any translations.  I don’t believe any of the records were church records.  I know that AWAP is working on transcribing an index for Lubeck census records and I’m anxious to see those!  Guess it’s time to visit the Family Search web site!

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Newberry Library Impressions

Finally, after weeks of great anticipation, I was able to do family research at the Newberry Library!  I had been so nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. I found the web site to be very difficult to find answers to my questions because the site is so large.  I thought I’d give my overall impressions here as well as the answers to basic questions that I had been asking myself so that if someone else is in the same shoes as I was, they could take comfort in the wonderful experience that I had.

There is no dedicated parking for the Library.  On the web site, I had read that there are 2 parking lots nearby and that if you bring your ticket into the library for validation, parking would be $7 for up to 8 hours.  We arrived at the Newberry on a Saturday at 9am (when the library opens) and were lucky enough to find a street spot directly across from the front door, so I do not know how close the parking lots are.  We used our credit card to purchase parking for 2 hours from the paybox nearby.  Parking cost $2 per hour.  A receipt was printed for us to leave on the dash of our car.  My husband did come back out later to purchase another 2 hours.  We didn’t quite use 1 hour of that and then we walked to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch and made it back just as our time expired. 

As we entered the library, we were greeted by an incredibly friendly gentleman who asked us what we would like to be able to do at the library.  I told him that I was going to look at some microfilm on the 2nd floor.  He explained that we would have to get a free “Reader’s Card” first and asked for our drivers licenses.  I knew this ahead of time, but it was so nice for someone to greet us and answer any questions before I even asked them!  It was clear that they don’t expect you to know what you’re doing before you get there and they are happy to help.  He clipped the licenses to the application forms and sent us to the 3rd floor and told us which desk to take our form to.  We took our forms upstairs and were again greeted by a very friendly young lady.  You could just tell that the workers were all going to be helpful and friendly and I would not have felt out of place if I had come alone.  She filled in our cards (good for 1 year) and explained how to request books.  (I did hear her tell the women in front of us that they could take photos of the books, if they liked.) She informed us that the online catalog was down, but that we could use the physical card catalog instead.

We headed to the 2nd floor where we had to sign in.  We were assigned 2 spots at a table to do our work – but we were only interested in the microfilm so we didn’t leave our things there.

We went to the microfilm desk and told her that we didn’t have a catalog number, but we knew which microfilms we wanted to look at.  She knew the films immediately and said they were in the cabinets behind her desk.  She gave us the microfilms and assigned us to a reader.  Each reader is in it’s own roomy cubicle with 1 microfilm reader, 1 microfiche reader and counters for spreading out your materials while you work.  We were given a larger cubicle area because 2 of us were working together.  I was concerned that I would have a difficult time reading the records, but they were very readable.  So I asked if we’d be able to go directly to the microfilm printers because I’d just be running down the list of records in chronological order.  If I had been doing a “blind search”, I would have spent time at the reader and then when I found the record I wanted, rewind the film, take it to the printer, and make the copy.  She agreed to let us stay at the printers to do our work.  I don’t know if it is different on a week day or afternoon, but there were very few people there, so I did not feel rushed at the printer.

When you find the record you’d like to print, you can scan it to a flashdrive for free, or make a paper copy for 50 cents per page.  I saw no coin slots, so I’m assuming that after all of your copying was complete, you’d pay the girl assigning the readers, but I had my flashdrive handy, so other than the parking costs, my library trip was free.

Other than the driving downtown, I would feel totally comfortable going back to the Newberry by myself – and that’s saying alot for me!

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Dabelstein Name Study – Chicago

Andrew Dabelstein

I’ve been doing research on my husband’s Dabelstein line as I prepare to go to Chicago to the Newberry Library and Concordia Cemetery.  Wilhelmina Dabelstein was my husband’s great-grandmother.  I know that she grew up in Chicago and I know her father was Andrew Dabelstein.  I have the family group sheet filled out pretty completely except for the date of death for 1 brother.  I decided to purchase a 1 month subscription to Footnote.com to see if the city directories could help me out.

When looking at the Chicago directories, I realized that Dabelstein was a pretty rare name in Chicago, which made me begin to wonder if the families that were listed could be related. Almost all of the Dabelstein men were bricklayers or masons, so it seemed likely that they could be related.  I also found an “old German file” from the FBI on one of the Dabelstein names (a lawyer, not a bricklayer) that made me even more curious!

I began to build an Excel file with all of the information I could find on the families.  Because I had been concentrating on the Chicago city directories, that information was stuck in my mind, so that’s where I started.  I began to build my Excel file with each person listed along with their address from each directory.  My goal was to be able to separate the families based on addresses because there were some duplicate first names.  After assembling the information from directories for 1884 – 1916, I had a vague idea of who belonged to each family, but I wasn’t certain, so I decided to add census information from Ancestry.  This helped me to be more certain of my breakdown and even made me realize that 1 person was listed under 2 different names (August and Gustav) – sometimes in the same directory.

Then, I realized (hand smack on forehead) that if I could find the birthplace for the different heads of each family, I could be pretty sure they were related in SOME way.  I had found the birthplace of Wilhelmina’s father by finding the birth certificates for her siblings on pilot.familysearch.com, so I thought I’d see if I could find birth certificates for the other family and was thrilled to find one that confirmed the same village for Frank Dabelstein!  He was 10 years older than Andrew, so he could be a brother or a cousin.­­­  There was a 3^rd family – a mother and 2 children – all born in Germany.  The 2 children were never married, so I’m not sure how to find a birthplace for them yet, but the ages and date of immigration do not appear to fit with my family but I’ll try to keep an open mind there.

Since I have this connection, I’m going to continue collecting all information possible in this Excel name study to see what potential information I can find on Andrew through Frank.  My next step will be to look for immigration information for Frank.

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