Margaretha Pink (about 1825 – May 1890), my third great-grandmother

Germany
Map By NuclearVacuum (File:Location European nation states.svg) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Hancock County Ohio, USA
Map by By David Benbennick [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I don’t know enough about my third great-grandmother to write my normal profile on her. This post is to set out what I think I know so far, and indicate areas I need to explore later, more of a status report than a profile.

Shortly after I started with the family genealogy Mom gave me a hand-drawn Snyder family tree (her father’s side of the family) drawn out by someone prior to her – she wasn’t sure who – and some notes of her grandmother (Pearl Pauline Bailey Snyder) talking about her memories of her parents and grandparents and those of her husband, Phillip Snyder. I subsequently received another similar (not quite the same) copy of the hand-drawn tree from one of my Mom’s cousins. Those documents were my starting point in tracing back my Snyder lines. They have proved to be largely, but not entirely, accurate.  Two of the parts that turned out to be, I think, incorrect, are the names of my third great grandmothers on my two Snyder/Schneider lines.

Snyder Tree that Mom gave me (not entirely accurate)

My second great grandparents were John Snyder and Katharine (Kate) Snyder. My Great-grandmother’s notes say that the two Snyder families were not related. The family tree I was given indicates John’s parents were John and Hannah Snyder and Katharine’s parents were Philip and Anna Snyder.  My great-grandmother’s notes go on to say that “Phil’s mother’s name was Pinkstein. After she dropped the Stein they laughed about her having the name Pink. She may have been Jewish. Old Philip (her father) looked more Jewish than most Jews. This Philip was born in Dumstart, Germany. He was a school teacher in Findlay….” (It goes on from there but becomes quite confusing to me, so I’m not going there.)

As is obvious by the title of this piece, I believe great-grandma got her husband’s grandmother’s name wrong. I did start out my search for her using the name Hannah Pinkstein and Hannah Pink, but couldn’t find her, and using Hannah Schneider I couldn’t find a family with the correct children, let alone in some place that made sense.

I looked for any clues to her name when researching my second great-grandfather and his siblings, and I found that my second great-grandfather’s death certificate, in 1925, indicates that his mother’s last name was Pink, but didn’t give a first name. His sister Dena’s death certificate in 1928 indicated that her mother’s name was Margaret, no maiden name given. His brother Benjamin’s death certificate, in 1939, indicates that his mother’s name was Margaret Snyder. Then I found his sister Lizzie’s husband in a bio-sketch in The History of Wyandot County Ohio, published in 1884, it said “[George H Hines] was married on July 14, 1881, to Miss Lizzie Snider, daughter of John and Margaret (Pink) Snider, both born in Germany.”  While later, in Lizzie’s obituary, in 1937, it said she was, “the daughter of John and Malissa Penk Snyder…,” as the bio-sketch in the county history book was written while my third great-grandmother was alive, it is more likely to be accurate. Moreover, the information in the others’ death certificates corroborated the name Margaret Pink.

When I started looking for Margaret Snyder (Snider, Schneider, etc.)  instead of “Hannah” Snyder, I found the family, with the right kids, in the 1870 and 1880 censuses in Ohio, and I was able to find my second great-grandfather’s birth record, naming his mother as Margaretha Schneider. So I think that the passed down family clues were wrong in this instance and that Margaret/Margaretha Pink is the correct name. I’ve tried to look for Margaretha Pink in Germany, but, as I explained in my last two posts, I’m having problems with looking for genealogy information in Germany. I need to take a course in it, and in German, but I don’t have time right now. As I mentioned in my entry on Margaret’s husband John (here), I’ve been in conversation via Ancestry messaging with a man who told me that Margarethe was Johannes’ second wife and that his first wife, who had died, was Margarethe’s sister, and that both marriages occurred in Frankenhausen, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany. I’ve not been able to confirm or deny that yet (continuing to try). When I’ve searched for Margaretha in Germany, I found a lot of persons named Pink, so it’s not unreasonable to consider that Pink is her entire name, rather than Pinkstein. (There are Pinksteins as well, so I can’t rule it out)  I can’t find, yet, a Margaretha with a father named Phillip (?) or a husband named Johannes Schneider in Hesse in an appropriate time frame under either name.

The Hessen Archives has an online database listing those who emigrated from Hesse; it indicates that Johannes Schneider (Fethe-Peters) of Frankenhausen born in 1819, emigrated in 1863 with his wife Pink (citing “Source: sic. Mertz, Dr. Wendel: Heimatbuch Frankenhausen 1955, p. 29” – I’ve tried to find a copy of the book but no luck so far).  It confirms a marriage between Johannes Schneider and a woman surnamed Pink, but is problematic in that it shows them emigrating in 1863, 13 years after John indicated he did in the 1900 census (he said he arrived in 1850).  Their daughter Dena's obituary also stated that her parents came from Germany in 1850.

Margaretha and Johannes appear in the church records for the Second Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chambersburg PA in for the 1 February 1851 birth of a son, Jacob, who was baptized on 20 August 1851 – this is the first and last time I’ve found anything mentioning Jacob, and the 15 August 1854 birth of their son Johannes (later ‘John’), my second great-grandfather, who was baptized on 3 November 1854. Johannes’ and Margarethe’s daughter Dena was born on 28 July 1852, also in Pennsylvania (per her obituary) between those two, but is not recorded in the same church records.

Hancock County Ohio Townships (Delaware Township highlighted)
Map by US Census, Ruhrfisch [GFDL (httpwww.gnu.orgcopyleftfdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (httpcreativecommons.orglicensesby-sa3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Margaretha and Johannes had moved to Ohio by 1859: the 1870 census lists an eleven-year-old daughter, Margaret, born in Ohio (well, it says all the kids living at home were born in Ohio but I know that John and Dena were born in Pennsylvania). I haven’t been able to find the family in the 1860 census, anywhere. The 1870 census shows John (52) and Margaret (45) Snider living in Delaware Township in Hancock County, Ohio with their children: Dena (16); John (13); Margaret (11); Eliza (9); Ben (7); Charlie (5). It’s possible they moved there because they already had relatives or former neighbors there as there were a number of German immigrants from the Odenwald in the county (the Odenwald is a low mountain range in the German states of Hesse, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg). A county land ownership map for 1879 showed John Snyder owned a farm in Wyandot County, across the street from that owned by their daughter Mary and her husband, Frederick Stumpp.

The 1880 census shows the family again living in Delaware Township in Hancock County (next door to Wyandot County). John was 63 and listed his trade as “Pump making”; Margaret was 55, and had ague, which was an old term for malaria, for the recurrent chills and fever.  It was prevalent near marshy swamplands where mosquitoes multiplied rapidly, and a large portion of northwest Ohio was very swampy until drained in the mid-to-late 19^th century.

Also living at home in 1880, according to the census, were Lizza (19), Benjamin (17), and Charley (15). The non-population schedule of the 1880 census shows that John Snyder, sr. also owned a 124-acre farm in Delaware Township in Hancock County, Ohio, (92 acres tilled and 32 acres woodland),  worth $4500 for the land, $800 for the tools, and $600 in livestock.

Detail of 1880 Federal Census showing Snider family in Delaware Township in Hancock County Ohio
(found at Ancestry.com)

The 1890 census burned in storage in Washington DC, so we have no record from that year. But John’s 1907 obituary mentions Margaretha’s death, “Mrs. Snyder died 17 years ago last May,” which means she died in May 1890. I’ve not yet found any other confirmation of that.

Margaret and John’s children:

Mary, born 25 July 1850 (actually, if John did have a prior wife, I can’t be sure that Mary is Margaret’s child at this point); married Frederick Stump (1836-1880) on 30 May 1869 in Hancock County Ohio; had four children with Frederick – Benjamin F Stump (1872-1953), Frederick Grant Stump (1874 – 1953), Edward Stump (1876-1958), and Daisy Stump (1878-1884); after Frederick died, she married Daniel E Kachele (1860-1946) on 17 March 1881 in Wyandot County Ohio; she and Daniel had six children – Emmanuel Jacob Kachele (1882-1944), Anna Kachele (!884- ?), Margret Kachele (1888-1930), Daniel Ellsworth Kachele (1891-1974), and Esther Kachley (1896-1977); Mary died on 21 Jul 1926, twenty years before her husband Daniel died. (Mary’s story is HERE.)

Jacob, born 1 February 1851 in Chambersburg, PA. I don’t know anything more about him.

Dena E., born 28 July 1852 in Pennsylvania; married Amos (Amil) Buess (1846-1919) on 20 October 1875 in Wyandot County Ohio; they had nine children – Laura E Bues (1876-1895), Mary Ellen Bues (1878-1941), Albert Benjiman Buess (1881-1923), John Frederick Buess (1885-1977), Charles Amos Buess (1887-1972), Anna M Buess (1889-1965), Earl Oliver Buess (1891-1964), Louis Franklin Buess (1893-1970) and Harley Bues (1896-1896); Dena died nine years after her husband, on 28 August 1928.

John, born 15 August 1854 in Chambersburg PA; married Katharine M. Snyder (1857-1931) on 21 October 1875; they had four children – Mary Margaret (Mollie) Snyder (1876-1949), Dela Snyder (1879-1894), Philip Aaron Snyder (1882-1967, his story HERE), George Snyder (1884-1898); he died 3 November 1925. (John’s story is HERE.)

Margaret, born about 1859, (and probably died before 1884).

Elizabeth “Lizzie”, born 20 April 1961 in Ohio, married George Hines (1853-1911) on 14 July 1881 in Hancock County Ohio; they had seven children – Erma Maggie Hines (1881-1952), Cleveland Hines (1884 - ?), Maxie /Mack Hines (1889 - ?), Hallie/Hattie Hines (1896 - ?), and Geneva Ila Hines (1900-1984), there were two other sons who predeceased their father whose names and birthdates I do not know; Lizzie lived twenty-six years after her husband killed himself in 1911, and died on 6 June 1937.

Benjamin J, born 20 April 1863 in Ohio; married Ella Haner in 1885 in Wyandot County, Ohio; they had five children – Blanch May Snyder (1887 - ?), Erma Snyder (1890-1951), Flossie Merth Snyder (1893 - ?), Earl LeRoy Snyder (1897 – 1971), and Mabel Snyder (1898 - ?); he died on 16 April 1939, nine years before his wife’s death.

Charley, born about 1865 (and probably died after 1884 but before his father, John Snyder, died in 1907).

They may have had other children. A biography of their daughter Lizzie’s husband, George H. Hines, in The History of Wyandot County (published in 1884) says of his wife’s family: “He was married on July 14, 1881, to Miss Lizzie Snider, daughter of John and Margaret (Pink) Snider, both born in Germany. In this family were nine children, six now living, viz.: Mary, Lena, John, Lizzie, Bergaman and Charley. The deceased are Bellvy, George, and Margaret.” (I think that Lena was a misspelling of Dena, and that Bergaman should be Benjamin.)

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I’m very interested in learning more about Margaretha’s life, especially anything before 1870, and anything as relates to her life in Germany. I’d also like to find out why she died in 1890. I’m curious as to whether it was related to the malaria she had in 1880. If anyone reading this knows anything more about my third great grandmother, please leave a comment below or email me at the address in my Contact Me page above (or both – leave me a comment saying you’re emailing me and to check my spam file just in case it doesn’t come directly through.)

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The History of Wyandot County Ohio: Containing a History of the County; its Townships, Towns, Churches, Schools Etc., published January 1, 1884 by Leggett, Conaway & company (found at Google Play e-books) pages 845 and 846 (or, as scanned, pages 788 and 789). Buchstabe S, Glederung, R 21 B Auswander-Nachweise, Hesisches Staatsarchi Darmstadt, Hessen Archives (https://arcinsys.hessen.de/arcinsys/detailAction.action?detailid=v4163003); Historic Hancock County – An Illustrated History  by Paulette Weiser (Historical Publishing Network, a division of Lammert Inc, San Antonio TX 2007), p. 25; Some Medical Terms Used in Old Records, http://www.mifamilyhistory.org/genhelp/diseases.aspx ; Old Disease Names Frequently found on Death Certificates, http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ar/county/greene/olddiseases1.htm; U.S. Federal Censuses for 1870, 1880, and 1900, and non-population schedule for 1880; Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Collection Name: Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records (Ancestry.com); Ohio, County Marriages, 1774-1993 (Ancestry.com)