The name of my 4th great grandfather, Caspar Bruenstreip, was buried in the city cemetery records of Warrenton, Missouri alongside the name of his interred daughter, Mary Wessel. She died October 5, 1892 (coincidentally) and is buried next to her husband, William. Thankfully those cemetery records have now been digitized so the shovels I had taken with me to exhume information or bodies were not needed. But as thrilled as I was to uncover his identity, I accepted then and there that I might have to live with just knowing Caspar’s name.

For some reason, records of Mary and William’s lives before they came to America are missing from the various online databases which house such things. I can find no record, for example, of their marriage which took place in Germany; and, there are no baptismal or birth records for their two oldest children who were born in Germany. Either the records have been destroyed or they haven’t been digitized. As I expected, searches for Caspar proved unsuccessful as well. At least in Germany.

It turns out that Caspar came to America in 1847 aboard a sea-faring vessel named Ellerslie. In the passenger list, he was listed as 60 years old and a “farmer”. His daughter, Mary, and her family had arrived two years earlier through the same port in Baltimore. They had made Wheeling, West Virginia their “first” home and so did Caspar according to the 1850 census. But when Mary and her husband packed up the kids and the covered wagon and made their way to Warren County, Missouri, Caspar stayed behind.

At first I thought this was a bit odd. I’d always assumed Mary and William had gone to Wheeling because other Wessels lived there which is true. But I soon discovered that Mary’s kinfolk lived in Wheeling, too, with last names recorded as “Branstreep”, “Branstroop” and “Broenstrap” just to name a few. (Census takers wrote down whatever they heard in those days.) So Caspar wasn’t exactly living amongst strangers. The spelling of the last name that mattered the most to me was found – naturally – in the family tree of one of my DNA matches. His ancestor was born Johanna “Broenstrup”. She died in Lafayette County, Missouri but was living in Warren County, Missouri per the 1900 census. Bingo.

I have to give credit to West Virginia. They started keeping track of deaths in 1853. That’s a lot earlier than most states I’ve encountered. Caspar died from typhoid fever August 7, 1856 at the age of 69. No other information was provided. That’s okay, though, because it’s a lot more than I was expecting to find.

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: 4th great grandfather
Common ancestors: Presumably, the Bruenstreips or Branstroops of Germany