RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 28, 2005
KINSEARCHING
by
Marleta Childs
P. O. Box 6825
LUBBOCK, TX 79493-6825
[email protected]
A well-done family history that rolled off the press recently is CONRAD PITSCHMANN AND HIS DESCENDANTS CA. 1796 - 2004 FROM GERMANY TO TEXAS by Christine Knox Wood. This work is the only known book written about the PITSCHMANN family.
Conrad PITSCHMANN was born about 1796 in what is now Thurlingia, Germany. About 1818 he married Marie Elizabeth FELLMAN, who died in 1843 in Prussia, Germany. Prior to 1 September 1847, Conrad PITSCHMANN and five or possibly six children immigrated from Germany to Texas. After landing in Galveston, the family settled in Harris County where Conrad's children married.
Anna Catherine PITSCHMANN, born about 1820, married Martin M. EICHOLTZ/EICHOLT in 1860.
Eva Magdalena PITSCHMANN, born in 1824 and died in 1882, married Johann Michael BURKHARDT as his third wife in 1849. They became the parents of two daughters and a son.
Christina Elizabeth PITSCHMANN, born about 1829, married William RICHEY/RITCHIE in 1850.
George Frederick Gottlieb PITSCHMANN, born in 1831 and died in 1916, married Friedericke Dorothea Henrietta HEINE in 1854. They moved to Hill County, TX, and had six daughters and two sons.
Charles PITSCHMANN, born about 1832 and died before August, 1859, married Louisa GRABER in 1857 and they had two sons. After Charles died, his widow married William Theodore BURKHARDT, the stepson of Charles's sister Eva Magdalena.
Family tradition says Conrad had a sixth child--another son who went "north" and was never heard from again. If this is true, perhaps the son was Carl PITSCHMANN, born about 1830 in Germany.
Many of Conrad's descendants, such as those who married into the HEYNE family, continued to live and still reside in and around Harris County. Others, of course, scattered elsewhere through the years. Conrad's SCHULTZ descendants, for example, became inhabitants of Waller County while BOESCH descendants became residents of such West Texas counties as Dawson, Lubbock, and Yoakum as well as the state of California. At the end of her book, Wood includes an "excursus" on the BOESCH family.
Documented the way a family history should be, Wood's 374-page volume with end notes is chocked full of a wide variety of information and sources. For instance, she includes a brief historical background on nineteenth Germany; maps of Germany and Texas; numerous photographs of people and houses; drawings by family members; data from censuses, city directories, and tombstone inscriptions; reproductions of marriage certificates, business and military records, and funeral notices; and verbatim transcriptions of family letters, court records, wills, death and land certificates, and articles from various newspapers about family businesses, honors received, advertisements, weddings, and obituaries.
CONRAD PITSCHMANN AND HIS DESCENDANTS CA. 1796 - 2004 FROM GERMANY TO TEXAS is a worthy addition to any genealogical library shelf. Priced at $34.90 postpaid plus $2.48 sales tax for Texas residents, copies may be ordered from Christine Knox Wood, 2410 47th Street, Lubbock, TX 79412.
This interesting death notice (names put in ALL-CAPS or capitalized for emphasis) about a Pony Express rider appeared in the August 23, 1929 issue of the newspaper, The Merkel Mail, published in Merkel, TX:
"Sacramento, Cal. - Thomas J. REYNOLDS, 81, believed to be the last surviving Pony Express rider, is dead. Reynolds helped carry the news of the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Pacific Coast. Sixty-nine years ago his route was between Benica and Knights Landing, Cal...." At the time, the short article points out, the two frontier towns were thriving communities.