I posted a bio of Kate Frank last November that turns out to be wrong. The Kate Frank from Kirchenberg I found was not the same Kate Frank that was my 3x grandmother.
I have now DNA confirmed she was the daughter of Christian George Frank and Christine Katharina Hofstetter from Adelshofen, Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. She was born 8 Dec 1844. She was baptized in Adelshofen,Heidelberg,Baden, a small farming community 28 kilometers from Heilbronn. At the time of her birth Baden was a sovereign state within the German Confederation. It was part of the region of Heidelberg. The 1840s was part of the Vormärz (pre-march) era of rising political tension in Germany leading up to the 1848 March Revolution.
Kate, born Katharina Christina, was the fourth child of her parents. Her brother John Adam died in Germany in 1855 at the age of 20.
Her mother died when she was just 3 years old, in childbirth in June of 1848. The child, named Christina, died 2 months later. Her father remarried a year later in 1849 and they had a daughter together in 1850 which they also named Christina. The couple had four more children. Her father died in Germany in 1862.
I have DNA connections through her siblings Johann George and Margaret.
Her sisters Elizabeth and Margaret both married in Germany during the 1870s. Her sister Margaret married a widower, John Gauger. John was a carpenter despite losing one hand at an early age. He had 7 children with his first wife, and after having two more with Margaret they made they decision to move to America, as they were concerned about their children being pressed into military service. The family history states they sailed in the spring of 1873, the party consisted of 23 people. Margaret and John settled in Tremont by the spring of 1874.
Kate’s eldest sister, Elizabeth, married Carl Fischer in Germany in 1873 and their firstborn daughter was born there in 1874. So they were not part of the original party that came to America. It’s likely Kate travelled with them when they arrived in 1875. Their second daughter was born in Peoria in 1878. By 1900 they had settled in Richwoods, Peoria county.
Kate’s youngest full sibling, Johann George Frank, also immigrated to the Peoria area, living near his sister Margaret in 1880 and then marrying Annie Schmidt in Peoria in 1885. The family briefly moved to Kansas shortly after they were married, but returned to Tazewell county by 1895.
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