Walter and Paul (Jr) Junghans

Here is a photo of my grandfather, Walter Junghans taken sometime in 1909.




Here is another photo taken around 1910 with Walter's older brother, Paul Jr.

Walter Junghans - birth certificate

My grandfather, Walter was born to Paul and Wilhelminia Junghans on January 24, 1909 in the township of Pine Valley, Clark County, Wisconsin.



Walter was the last child of Paul and Minnie and their only child to be born outside of Milwaukee.

1905 Pine Valley Township plat map

Here is a copy of the 1905 plat map of Pine Valley Township, Clark County, Wisconsin.





Paul Junghans' plot can be seen on the lower right hand corner.

1905 Wisconsin Census - Paul Junghans

In 1895 and 1905, Wisconsin had a "mid-decade" census.

In 1905, Paul Junghans, wife Wilhelminia, and their 3 sons, William, Carl and Paul Jr were living in the township of Pine Valley, Clark County, Wisconsin.

Moving from Milwaukee

In 1900, Paul and Wilhelmina (Minna) Junghans left Milwaukee with their three children, William, Carl and Paul Jr. Paul left his life as a tanner behind and became a farmer.

According to Paul's grandson, Richard Junghans, Paul left Milwaukee because "he couldn't take it any more in the lye pits at Gallun's leather works."

On March 26, 1900 they purchased a farm in Clark County, Wisconsin. Here is a copy of the original deed:



Paul and Minna bought the farm for $2600. It included:

- the house
- two heifers
- one mower
- one house rake
- two drags
- one plow
- one wagon
- one set of Sleighs

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Part II

The city of Milwaukee went through a street name and numbering change after the Junghans family left the city. It can be quite cumbersome figuring out the present street address without being in the city and having some of the old maps.

I do not know what street numbers were assigned to 467 4th Street or 696 Hubbard Street .

1173 5th Street is now 2919 N 5th
1076 11th Street is now 2748 N 11th
1059 2nd Street is now 2723 2nd





Below is the plat map showing 467 4th Street (red arrow) which is just a half block south of the German Reform Church where Paul and Wilhelminia were married (black arrow) in the 1880's:



I did not take a photo of the present day location of 467 4th Street when I was there in 2007.



Below is a current map showing Hubbard street:



I did not take a photo of Hubbard street when I was there in 2007.




Below is the plat map showing 1173 5th Street (black arrow) in the 1890's:



Below is 1173 5th Street, which is now 2919 N 5th as photographed in August 2007:






Below is the plat map showing 1076 11th Street (black arrow) in the 1890's:



Below is 1076 11th Street, which is now 2748 N 11th as photographed in August 2007:








Below is the plat map showing 1059 2nd Street (black arrow)in the 1890's:



Below is 1059 2nd Street, which is now 2723 2nd Street as photographed in August 2007 - an empty lot:

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Paul Junghans and family lived at a few locations while they were in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Upon Paul's arrival from Germany in 1886, until 1900 when Paul, wife Wilhelminia, and their children William, Carl, and Paul Jr moved to Pine Valley township, Clark County, Wisconsin, the following were addresses where they resided in Milwaukee:

467 4th Street: 1886 - 1887
696 Hubbard Street: 1887 - 1889
1173 5th Street: 1890 - 1895
1076 11th Street: 1896 - 1897
1059 2nd Street: 1897 - 1900

Here is a copy of the directory listing for 1889.



Here is a copy of the directory listing for 1890.



The last two addresses I obtained from microfilm of Milwaukee directories located at the archives at the library of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. (These same archives also confirmed the 1173 5th Street address for the year 1895.)

William Junghans - birth

I posted photos of two of Paul and Wilhelminia Junghans' children in the past few days.

Here is a copy of William's birth certificate from 1887.



William was born at 3:00am on Wednesday, September 7, 1887 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

It appears William was born at home, as the Junghans' address, according to an 1889 Milwaukee directory their address was 696 Hubbard.

William Junghans

Yesterday I posted a photo of William and Carl Junghans as infants.

Here is an earlier photo of William taken most likely in 1888.

William and Carl Junghans

Here is a photo of Paul and Wilhelminia Junghans' first two children.

William was born September 7, 1887 and Carl was born January 7, 1889.



The photo did not have a date, but I'm guessing that this photo was taken probably toward the end of 1889 or early 1890. The Junghans family was still living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the time this photo was taken.

Census records indicated Paul and Wilhelminia had another child that had died prior to the June 1900 US federal census.

Taking into consideration their three surviving children through June 1900, the possibility of a pregnancy of this unknown child most likely had to have occurred from:

- October 1887 - December 1888
- February 1889 - November 1894
- September 1895 - June 1900

According to the Wisconsin Genealogy index, Milwaukee had the following documented births that fell into these time frames:

Alexander Junghans - January 13, 1899
Heinrich E Junghans - September 18, 1892

Milwaukee had the following documented deaths that occurred prior to June 1900:

- Emil Junghans died 12/15/1990

-three Junghans' deaths listed without a first name:

- June 1, 1892
- July 21, 1898
- July 24, 1899

I don't see the point in ordering these particular records, but I was curious as to who and when this child was born, but I'd guess that it was Heinrich Emil Junghans, born 9/18/1992.

Otto Junghans marriage

Paul Junghans' older brother Otto married Hulda Hahmann in Mequon, Wisconsin on July 1, 1883.



According to the records I obtained in Mequon, an index card had been completed naming Otto's parents, which helped me decipher the handwriting from Paul's marriage document in Milwaukee. I can only assume Otto was guessing as to the year of his parent's marriage, because Emil was born in 1855 and Carl in 1858 and Otto in 1861.

Or the 1860 number was just a clerical error.




The other error I noted was Otto's birth year of 1862, which conflicts with the birth of his younger brother Paul, who was born December 20, 1862. Otto's birth date is September 2, 1861.

If you accumulate enough documents, you can generally weed out the mistakes or make an educated guess with enough information. Even tombstones can be inaccurate.

E H Yunghans Cigars

My great grandfather Paul's older brother had moved from Germany to Indiana. I never knew anything about him until a couple of years ago when I was provided his family tree that I organized onto the spreadsheet I had started to create in 2005.

Other than family members mentioning a couple of the Junghans brothers had lived in Vincennes, Indiana and changed the spelling to Yunghans, the only document I'd seen was a reference in an obituary to a brother living in Vincennes. Once I was provided the names, I then came across Emil's passport application which was posted yesterday. Hopefully I'll locate more and post those as I find them.

I discovered this document a couple of days ago about the cigar company he owned in Indiana.





In spite of the misspellings of the name, these types of documents are invaluable for confirming information and opening the door to other avenues of research.

I came across this article from a book published in 1902, "Vincennes in Pictures and Story".

Emil Junghans (Yunghans) passport application

On March 13, 1895, Emil Junghans (He spelled his last name with a "Y" rather than a "J" - Yunghans) applied for a United States passport.



When you have a name but do not have confirmation that you have found an ancestor, these are the type of documents that help fill in the blanks.

This document confirms the date and place of birth and also provides the name of the ship and date of immigration to the United States.

Emil was born August 13, 1855 in Culten, Saxony, Germany. He left Bremen, Germany on the Weser, January 1871 and lived in Vincennes, Indiana. He became a United States citizen March 10, 1890.

The description at the bottom indicates he was only 5'7" and 39 years old at the time he applied for the passport.

Junghans watches

I started this project in 2006 because I wanted to verify whether we were related to the Junghans watch dynasty in Schramberg, Germany.

While I haven't gotten any closer to verifying that childhood rumor, I did amass much more information than had previously been assembled on the Junghans family that immigrated to America.

It is surprising how little is known about one's ancestry and occasionally you even discover how little they know about their own parents. That will become rather clear as I post additional documents.

For those that received the CD I compiled in the fall of 2007, some of the entries will be familiar - but I hope to accumulate more photos and documents which I will be posting in the future. I will also be adding to the family tree spreadsheet located in the upper right column.

If anyone has photos or documents of the family, please send me a copy so other Junghans family members may view them.

German Empire - 1871 through 1918

Here is a map of how Germany looked from 1871 - 1918, while our ancestors lived there.



The Junghans family lived about 90 minutes (by car) southeast of Leipzig (spelled Lipzig on the map) in Sachsen (also known as the Kingdom of Saxony).

If you are having difficult locating it on the map, find Berlin (in brown), Sachsen is south, in white.

German Reform Church - Milwaukee

The above map depicts the location of the German Reform Church at 497 4th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin where Paul and Wilhelminia were married in 1886. (Ignore the arrow pointing to 487 4th Street.)



Below is a plat map that shows the church (again) and 467 4th Street where Paul resided at the time of his marriage.





The church where Paul and Wilhelminia were married in 1886 no longer exists. It is now a parking lot (photo below). It was also an overcast day when I took the photo in August 2007.




Initially I thought it was the church (below) but the owner of the property (along with a body shop next door) had a plat map. Based upon his information, I went to the Milwaukee downtown library for the above detailed maps.

The church that remains today is the St. John's Bohemian Parish which is across the street from where the German Reform Church used to be.

Paul and Wilhelminia Junghans

This is the only photo I've seen of my great grandparents, Paul and Wilhelminia Junghans. It is a colorized version that my grandparents had at their home.



Below is a copy of the original photo.




S L Stein was apparently a pretty famous photographer in Milwaukee. I've sent an email to the Wisconsin historical society in hopes they may have some more photos taken of my great-grandparents, but I'm not holding my breath.

His studio at the time this photo was taken in probably 1886 or early 1887 was 310 State Street, Corner of 3rd in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Paul and Wilhelminia Junghans marriage document

This is is a copy of a marriage document I had ordered from Milwaukee, Wisconsin for my great grandparents, Paul Richard Junghans and Wilhelminia Schmidt.




I had a difficult time reading some of the items but as I accumulated more pieces of the puzzle I was able to decipher more and more of the document.

1. Full Name of husband Paul Junghans
2. Full name of father of husband Heinrich Junghans
3. Full name of mother of husband before marriage Christliebe Kuehn
4. Occupation of husband tanner
5. Residence of husband 467 4 Street, Mil (Milwaukee)
6. Birthplace of husband Ger (Germany)
7. Full name of wife previous to marriage Minna Schmidt
8. Full name of the father of wife Theodore Schmidt
9. Full name of mother of wife, before marriage Auguste Elwert
10. Birthplace of wife Ger (Germany)
11. Time when marriage was contracted Dec 11, 86 (1886)
12. Place or town, and county where marriage was contracted Mil (Milwaukee)
13. The color of the parties wh (white)
14. By what ceremony contracted Germ. Ref. Ch (German Reform Church)
15. Names of subscribing witnesses Chas. Schmidt/Ludwig Neetzou
16. Name of person pronouncing marriage Henry C Nott
17. Residence of person last named 495 4th Street, Mil
18. Date of certificate or affidavit of marriage Dec 11 '86'
19. Date of registration Dec 16 '86'
20. Any additional circumstances (blank)

Moving to America

I spent hours attempting to locate documentation confirming when the Junghans brothers came to America. The microfilm at the national archives facility in Denver was an unsuccessful, tedious job. Not knowing the exact dates of travel, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack, though I did know my great grandfather Paul had come to America sometime in 1886.

In 2007 while in Vincennes, Indiana trying to locate information on one of the Junghans brothers, I was looking through a volume of "Germans to America" which are a series of books that documented immigration of Germans to the United States in the later half of the 19th century.

Otto Junghans' was 17 at the time of his arrival. (The name was misspelled as "Junghauns".)

Otto Junghans is in the 2nd column, 30th down. The ship left Bremen, Germany and arrived in New York on March 3, 1879. Otto would turn 18 less than 6 months later.

PRV indicates where the passenger came from - GR represents Germany.
VIL indicates what village the passenger came from - ZZZ represents unknown.
DES indicates the destination - USA represents the United States of America.

I know of two immigration documents online for a Paul Junghans, one indicates his age was 12 and the passengers with him were clearly not our relatives. The other document states his arrival was in 1887, one year AFTER his 1886 marriage to Wilhelminia in Milwaukee and traveling with a "Mgda Junghans; definitely not his wife.

It's easy to fall into the trap that you have found a record that belongs with your ancestor, so it helps to have confirming documentation and facts to weed out those that do not belong. Also, Paul, Otto, Karl (or Carl) are very common German names.

Württembergers - 1885

This is a photo of the military company in which my great grandfather, Paul Richard Junghans served from 1882 - 1885.





I was able to locate a website that helped explain more about the photo and received the following response to my email inquiry:


Those soldiers, including your great-grandfather, are all Württembergers.
You can clearly make out the Württemberg Wappen on the Pickelhaubes. The men are all wearing M1871 Pickelhaubes and wearing the Württemberg Model 1871 Mannschaften (Other Ranks) Waffenrock. Both are show in detail on my web site.

......... the photo was taken in Stuttgart, we can assume he was from one of the two regiments garrisoned there. The units that were in Stuttgart were:

Grenadier-Regt. Königin Olga (1.Württembergisches) Nr.119 (Stuttgart) XIII
Armee Korps, and

Infanterie-Regt. Kaiser Friedrich, König von Preußen (7.Württembergisches)
Nr.125 (Stuttgart) XIII Armee Korps.

Attached is a photo of the uniform and Pickelhaube........ If he was from IR119, the helmet fittings are silver as in the photo, if he was from IR 125, the helmet fittings were gilt. But otherwise the same.

Getting started

My intentions were to start this blog over a year ago, but I was spending a lot of time on my other blog; I kept letting this one percolate on the back burner.