I came a step closer this week to knowing the names of all 32 of my 3rd great grandparents. It took a little digging but I’ve identified the names of #29 and #30. As far as I can tell, this is new information so I’ve accomplished my goal of picking up where my mother left off. (#31 and #32 may require a trip to Itawamba County, Mississippi, exhuming bodies, testing the DNA of local residents, etc.)

#29 and #30 are the parents of Sophia Friederike (Brundiek) Utlaut, one of my 2nd great grandmothers.

From my mother’s research I know that Sophia came to the U.S. in 1848. Immigration records seem to indicate that she traveled without any other family members. She would have been 15 years old at the time! In 1857, she married my 2nd great grandfather Rudolph Utlaut in Holstein, Missouri. Together they had seven children. Sophia had a sister, Elizabeth, who had also immigrated to the U.S. Her husband was Ernst Schomberg. Sophia died in 1877. Standardized death certificates filed with the local authorities had not yet been implemented in Missouri so there is no official record of her passing.

However, I was able to locate Elizabeth’s death certificate from 1913 filed under “Mrs. Elizabeth Schoenburg”. Elizabeth’s son-in-law, Fritz Poeppelmeyer, was the informant. Thankfully, he identified her parents as “Rudotph “Brundeik” and “Sopha Mind-something”. Close enough!

From there, I was able to determine from German records that Elizabeth was born “Maria Elisabeth Brundiek” on August 15, 1830, in Lienen, Westfalen, Prussia, to parents Heinrich Rudolph Brundiek (#29) and Catharine Marie Mindrup (#30). Elizabeth was baptized August 29, 1830.

Her sister and my 2nd great grandmother, Sophia, was born on February 2, 1833. Her name was recorded as “Friederike Wilhelmine Brundiek”. She was baptized February 17, 1833. “Sophia” might have been another middle name or a nickname shared by both mother and daughter. Given that German children often had two middle names, it’s also possible that “Sophia” was simply left off the birth and baptismal records.

A third sister, “Catharine Sophie Brundiek”, was born November 15, 1835. Unlike her two older sisters, it appears she stayed in Prussia and died there in 1917.

Mississippi here I come!

Kenfolk: Utlauts
Relation: 3rd great grandparents
Common ancestors: Presumably the Brundieks and Mindrups of Lienen, Westfalen, Prussia