Snowed In : Tackling The Paper Pile

 

With the weather outside being a frightful -14 degrees with a -40 degree wind chill, going to work yesterday and today was not in the cards.  So, after snow blowing to make sure we could get out if we needed to, I decided to work on one of my genealogy goals for 2014 : tackling the paper pile.

I have a bad habit of making photocopies at libraries, courthouses, etc. and then letting them sit around and not getting them digitized or the data input into my genealogy database.  Because of this, I'm sure I've paid twice for information that I already had or perhaps have worked on a problem that the solution was available in the stacks of paper.

I also want to try to get this family information organized between my Rootsmagic database and my online Ancestry.com tree.  I would hate for some of this information to not be shared with others.  I'm at the age where I'm starting to realize my own mortality, and don't want to not pass on what I've found.

I spent most of yesterday and today scanning the files, working through the piles that had been previously sorted by maternal, paternal and other lines.  Slowly, but surely, my intention is to post the information to my blog, add it to the Ancestry tree, and then dispose of the paper.  I'm getting tired of being a packrat for paper.  Unless the document is an official copy of a birth certificate, I don't see the need to keep a copy. 

Grandpa John Metzner was shot

Found an interesting tidbit while searching through old newspapers, the fact that in 1872 my grandpa John Metzner was shot. 



Portland Commercial, Portland, Indiana, May 2, 1872, page 2

The case of the State vs. John A. Bergman for shooting John Metzner was tried last week.  The Jury returned a verdict of guilty of an assault and battery, and accordingly fined him $26.

Question is, which grandpa John?  Was it my 2nd-great grandfather John Adam Metzner (1840-1895), or his father John Metzner (1805-1888)?  Will have to go to the Jay County courthouse to sort this out, though I am leaning on the victim being the younger John, a Civil War veteran.  However, there is the fact that he was often referred to by his middle name "Adam", and the article clearly states the victim was John.

Unfortunately, I've been unable to find any other mention of the incident in the local newspapers that have survived.

Who was John A. Bergman?  I believe he was the husband of Caroline H. Metzner, daughter of John (b. 1805).  This would mean that Mr. Bergman shot either his brother-in-law or his father-in-law.  Either way, this must have made for an interesting family dynamic

Caroline Metzner (b. 1852) and John A. Burgman were married March 11, 1869 in Jay County, Indiana.  The image of their marriage license was located at Familysearch.  Indexed as Burgman, his surname is spelled both Bergman and Burgman in the same document.



"Indiana, Marriages, 1811-1959," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/V6RG-H1P : accessed 04 Jan 2014), John A Burgman and Caroline Metzner, 1869.

In the 1870 census, I've located John and Caroline (Metzner) Bergman living in Bearcreek Township, Jay County, Indiana, with their 5 month old son, George W.  John A. Bergman was working in a saw mill.  Bearcreek Township is where several Metzner families lived.

 I know that Caroline married again in Jay County, Indiana on January 1, 1874 to James W. Huston, and that they had a daughter, Della.  So John and Caroline must have divorced sometime between 1870 and 1874 in Jay County, another avenue for me to research.  A good guess would be that the divorce occurred shortly after he shot John Metzner.

By the 1880 census, John A. Bergman was listed as a 38 year old divorced male living in the village of Bellfountaine, Noble Township, Jay County, Indiana, still listed as a sawmill worker.  I've found no other record other than the 1870 census for son George W. Bergman.  A search of Mt. Zion cemetery records at FindAGrave did not locate a memorial.

Once the weather improves and I can get up to Jay County, will definitely be researching this court case to see what all of the particulars were.  Sounds like an interesting family feud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The search for John Metzner's (1805-1888) cause of death

A message from cousin Paula at Linnea's Legacy prompted me to search my files to see if I had any information regarding the cause of death of our common relative, John Metzner (1805-1888) of Jay County, Indiana.  John was a brother of Paula's ancestor, William Metzner.

John was my paternal 3rd great-grandfather, an immigrant from Saxony who showed up in Licking County, Ohio in 1839 where he married another immigrant from Alsace, Catherine Young (1819-1910).  They moved between 1848-1850 to Noble Township, Jay County, Indiana where they raised their 11 children. 

Eventually, I fully intend to do a working analysis of John's information, but right now I have his date of death as January 10, 1888 in Jay County, Indiana, aged 82.  My Rootsmagic database shows two sources cited for his death, one a family group sheet from Paula, the other is Jay County, Indiana Death Records, Book H-1, page 67.

I have searched through my digital files and cannot locate where I have ever requested a copy of his death certificate from the Jay County Health Department.  So there is one avenue of research that will be on my "to-do" list for 2014.

Using my subscription to Newspaperarchive.com, I decided to see what newspapers they might have for this time period.  Early Jay County, Indiana newspapers are not always extant.  I was able to find some editions of the early Portland Commercial, but none for the month of January 1888, when John died.

I did find mention of grandpa John in the December 22, 1887 edition of the Portland Commercial.  On page one, under the social happenings of the Fair Haven area, is stated :

Mr. John Metzner, who lives north east from this place is seriously sick.

So while this doesn't give an exact cause of death, it does at least put him on the sick roll at the time shortly before his demise.  Now I will need to follow up with a trek to the Jay County Health Department for a copy of the official record.

I'm also not familiar with the neighborhood of Fair Haven, so am unsure what the connection to the Metzner clan.  I had always known them to be around the Westchester area of Jay County.

Wondering also if John might have been suffering from the flu, though that may just be because in 2014 I'm stuck at home doing the same.