The New Year’s Eve baby and the resolution

About that marriage…

Here as 2022 gets ready to tick over to 2023, The Legal Genealogist reflects on family history and resolves to solve a mystery.

That, after all, is what any good genealogist should do on New Year’s Eve, right?

So here’s the tale…

A baby girl was born, the church records say, at 9:30 a.m. on 31 December 1888 in the village of Bad Köstritz, and was baptized Elly Emma Martha Maria Geissler in the Lutheran church there on 24 January 1889.¹ That was in what was then the principality of Reuß jüngerer Linie and is now the German State of Thüringen.²

Fifth child and fourth daughter of Hermann and Emma (Graumüller) Geissler, she was my paternal grandfather’s older sister. So she’s the New Year’s Eve baby here.

And (sigh…) the source of one of my most persistent family mysteries.

Which I’m resolved to solve.

You see, Elly married Max Wilhelm Nasgowitz in Gera on 10 February 1920.³ She then entered the United States as Elly Nasgowitz on 17 January 1923.⁴ Max was left back in Germany, never to reappear in the records of her life.

As Elly Geissler, she married Paul Froemke in Chicago on 4 May 1935.⁵ As Elly Froemke, she became a naturalized United States citizen on 26 Jul 1939.⁶ Elly and husband Paul are recorded living in Chicago in 1940,⁷ and in 1950.⁸

By 1954, they had moved to Riverside, California, where both were registered to vote.⁹ And it was there, on 10 Dec 1964, that Elly died.¹⁰

There’s just one minor hitch here.

On the ninth of September 1927, the ship the S.S. George Washington arrived in New York City from Bremen. On board, recorded among the United States citizens, one Paul A. Froemke, residing at 1533 West 51st Street, Chicago.¹¹ And recorded among the non-citizens arriving, one Elly Froemke, residing at 1533 West 51st Street, Chicago.¹²

Waitaminute.

Elly Froemke? In 1927? When she didn’t marry Paul until 1935?

Look at one more record. The 1930 census. What does it say? Paul A. and Elly Froemke, living in Chicago, and married — if you do the math to subtract age at marriage from age on the census — roughly four years earlier.¹³

Waitjustaminute.

How exactly did Elly go from being a Nasgowitz wife in 1920, to an emigrant named Nasgowitz in 1923, to a wife named Froemke by 1926-27?

There’s got to be more to this story.

Except… so far … I can’t find it.

No death record for Max Nasgowitz that I can find.

No divorce in the parts of Germany where I’d expect to find it.

No record of a divorce in Chicago.

And — sigh — since my German research trip scheduled for September 2020 got cancelled,¹⁴ no record located yet for a marriage in Germany that might support my working theory.

That theory is that that Elly took Paul home to Germany in 1927 to meet the family and married him there, but didn’t have adequate documentation to prove the marriage in the United States, so they married again in Chicago to make sure all their record ducks were in a row.

Somewhere, I suspect, there will be documentation to explain the marriages of that New Years’s Eve baby.

Documentation of a death-divorce for Max and of that marriage to Paul in Germany.

And someday… maybe even in 2023… I am resolved to find it.

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Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “The New Year’s Eve baby and the resolution,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 31 Dec 2022).

SOURCES

1. Kirchenbuch Bad Köstritz, Taufregister Seite 57 Nr. 89 aus 1888 (Church book, Baptismal Register, Page 57, no. 89 of 1888); digital image of entry in the possession of JG Russell. ↩
2. See generally Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org), “Reuß jüngerer Linie,” rev. 15 Dec 2022. ↩
3. Marriage Certificate, Nr. 81 (1920), Max Wilhelm Nasgowitz and Elly Marie Geissler; Standesamt Gera, 4 January 1929 (photocopy provided by Stadtarchiv Gera). ↩
4. Manifest, S.S. President Harding, 17 January 1923, p. 131 (stamped), line 1, Elly Nasgowitz; “New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957,” digital images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Dec 2022); citing NARA microfilm publication T715, roll 3244. ↩
5. Cook County, Ill., Marriage License and Return No. 1446337, Froemke-Geissler, 4 May 1935; digital image in the possession of JG Russell. ↩
6. U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, petition 187495, certificate 11 207667, Elly Martha Marie Froemke; digital images, “Illinois, U.S., Federal Naturalization Records, 1856-1991,” Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Dec 2022). ↩
7. 1940 U.S. census, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, Chicago , enumeration district (ED) 103-1194, sheet 7B, household 126, Paul and Elly Froemke; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Dec 2022); imaged from NARA microfilm T627, roll 957. ↩
8. 1950 U.S. census, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, Chicago, enumeration district (ED) 103-1387, sheet 82, dwelling 326, Paul and Elly Froemke; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Dec 2022). ↩
9. California Great Register of Voters, Riverside County, 1954 Official Index, Beaumont Precinct 2, entries for Paul A. and Mrs. Elly Marie Froemke; digital images, “California, U.S., Voter Registrations, 1900-1968,” Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Dec 2022). ↩
10. Riverside County, California, Death Certificate 3397, state file 03058, Elly Marie Froemke, 10 Dec 1964. ↩
11. Manifest, S.S. George Washington, 9 Sepember 1927, page 225 (stamped), line 9, Paul Froemke; digital images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Dec 2022); citing NARA microfilm publication T715, roll 4125. ↩
12. Ibid., page 218 (stamped), line 7, Elly Froemke. ↩
13. 1930 U.S. census, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, Chicago, enumeration district (ED) 16-583, p. 140 (stamped), dwelling 188, family 211, Paul and Elly Froemke; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Dec 2022); imaged from NARA microfilm T626, roll 441. ↩
14. See generally Judy G. Russell, “blog post title,” The Legal Genealogist, posted date (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 31 Dec 2022). ↩

* This article was originally published here

Colburn Hintze Maletta is a Phoenix Criminal Defense and Family Law Firm. Visit them at https://chmlaw.com