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 by Wally Kern

Genealogy has been an interest for me most of my life.  I started research  seriously in the early 1970’s and became more serious at the thought of having children and passing down as to who we are. My first effort was when I stared to asked questions of my grandfather, Adam Kern, when I was about 10 or 12 years old. He told me as to how his father, Johann Wilhelm Kern came from Germany alone at the age of 16 to work as a miller for the Hubinger brothers in Frankenmuth, Michigan.  Here already is the start of experience of pitfalls for genealogists of family legends.  Through research I found that Johan Wilhelm was 18 and came with his younger brother Peter.  In discussions with my father he never believed the results of my research and stated that he believed what his father told him.  This illustrates some of the challenges of genealogical work.

I feel that my ancestry is rather unique.  All of my ancestors came from Franconia in Bavaria of Germany.  They all settled in one of four towns closely spaced in the Saginaw, Bay City, and Tuscola Counties of Michigan.  The settlements were organized by a Rev. Wilhelm Löhe of Neuendettelsau in Franconia.  Rev. Löhe saw the poverty and living conditions of the people living in the area and wanted something better for the people. Of course he also had religious interests too. So he prepared a group of 13 natives in addition to a minister as the leader to immigrate to Michigan.  Interesting enough the minister was well versed in the English language.  There also were several couples that were unmarried and could not get married because of German laws of property requirements for marriage.  So in 1845 the left Germany and settle in Frankenmuth amongst the Indians.  Their mission was to do missionary work among the Chippewa Indians.  The pastor did most of the work with the Indians while the lay people were to live an example of Christian living.  The unmarried couples got married on the ship as soon as they left Germany. The last group of people that came for a settlement was in 1852.  However, many German people came after that and even into the 1950’s when people came as refuges from World War II.

Not only were most of the people above from Franconia but were Lutheran.  The communities were fairly closed communities of German speaking Lutherans.  They maintained that past World War II.  In the 1950s town people thought they had something unique and started to attempt to attract tourists to Frankenmuth at which time it became a bedroom community with many diverse people. I learned to speak the Franconian dialect and did not speak English until I started first grade.

Thus from a genealogists point of view it is fairly easy to do genealogical work of families from that area.  Most of the early church records that were written in German have been translated and fairly accessible in libraries, the Frankenmuth Historical Society, and churches.  The cemeteries are also easy to get to.  In addition much has been published about the Franconian settlement experience. There was much intermarriage between the four communities.  There were many second cousins that married just before my generation.  Me, being a third generation born American one finds that if one search enough that one is quite likely to related as a third cousin to another person of Franconian ancestry. The genealogical work is also simplified because in my experience many people sometimes spend many years in trying to figure out from where their ancestors came from.

In summary all of my ancestors came from Middle Franconia.

In 1971 I entered a mixed marriage. I married Ann Fedder with a German ancestry.  However, she did not completely fit the requirements that my mother had informed me.  In my teenage years she informed me that I should marry a German woman.  I understood that to mean that she would be from one of the group of Franconian communities and speak German.  She was none of those.  Ann’s ancestors came from Prussia, Hanover, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Bavaria; and mostly settled in the St. Louis, Missouri area.  Thus all of our ancestors are from Germany;  they are from different areas and this is what I like to term, jokingly, as a mixed marriage.

Although I have concentrated my research and documentation on my Kern Family I also have spent much time on my wife’s family.  This section attempts to document the information I have about all of our ancestors.  The table below shows the surname pedigree of each of my wife’s and my family to show the area of interest.  The second table shows the surname, the year when they came, the birthplace of the ancestor, where they settled, and where they came from.  It is hoped that with the publication of this information that connections will be made through the Internet to share information with other researchers.

COPYRIGHT © 2012 WALLACE A. KERN          WEBSITE DESIGNED BY WALLY AND MICHAEL KERN

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Kern Family History
 

Fedder Family History
 

Schmidt Family History
 

Winkler Family History
 

Weber Family History
 

Family Surnames

Kern Family Immigration Data

Fedder Family Immigration Data

Notes: 1. These women were all married at the time of immigration with a married surname.
           2. Maria Sabina was not my ancestor but she was my great-grandfather’s, Johann Wilhelm                Kern, first wife.

This Table will be added later.

Again, the introduction and the charts above are to identify the families that I am researching.  By far the most that I have published is on the Kern Family.  However, I am starting to publish information on other families that I am interested in. Below are hyperlinks to family histories that are various stages of documentation.