Untangling the Chicago KONSOER Families
WARNING: This is very much a work in progress, so that information may change with the next update.

I am NOT a descendant of the Konsoer families of Chicago. But the immigrant mother of one of the families was Wilhelmine Caroline STAACK, sister of my ancestor Fred STAACK. (They were two of ten siblings, of whom at least six came from Spantekow to Chicago.) There were at least three related KONSOER families in Chicago, all of whom came from Beseritz in Mecklenburg Strelitz. And one Konsoer daughter married a Konsoer and then when he died she married another Konsoer to complicate things further. And another Konsoer son from one family was, in the 1900 Census, just a few doors down the street from another of the families. So this web page is intended to present my findings on untangling these different Chicago Konsoer families. Click on the head of one of the two families to go to that family.

Do not get hung up about the CONSOER vs. KONSOER spellings. Almost every one of these people appear both ways in different records. People were not very particular about spelling surnames in the 1800's. So just because you are looking for CONSOER, do not think you can ignore any KONSOERs, and vice versa. As a result, I have not been precise with the spellings either; so look at the referenced documents if you want to see how the names were spelled in any particular reference.

All of three of these families come from Beseritz in Mecklenburg-Streulitz.

The church books of Beseritz from 1876 to 1918 can be searched on Ancestry.com (if you have an account). Go to http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1627 and choose Subcollection "Evangelisch-lutherische Gemeinden Mecklenburg-Strelitz". Then choose City "Dahlen mit Birkhof und Beseritz und Dishley". Then choose whichever year you want to search. Note that to American eyes, the German handwritten location "Beseritz" appears to be something like "Lemperitz", but it really is "Beseritz". Schwanbeck is also nearby and does contain "Consör" entries. Friedland is also nearby. Parishes slightly further away are Eichhorst, Jatzke, Kotelow, Staven, Roga and a bit further away Neddemin, Neuenkirchen, Schönbeck, Gehren, and Schwichtenberg. Spantekow, where Carl's wife Lena Staack came from, was also close by, but it was in Prussia and not in Mecklenburg-Strelitz, so that the Spantekow church books are, alas, not included in this collection.

For the interactive Maplandia map of this area, with the regional boundaries shown, click here. Mecklenburg-Strelitz is outlined in red. In the magenta, you can clearly see that the Ostvorpommern district included Anklam and Spantekow. You can also see the nearby district of Demmin (not to be confused with the town of Dennin, which is immediately northwest of Spantekow).

It very well may be that Carl, Joachim and Johann were brothers. But since the online Besertiz records do not cover the 1830's and 1840's, I cannot determine whether or not they are.

There were other CONSOER/KONSOER families in Chicago at this time. Here are some of the other ones, roughly in order of arrival:

At this time, my main focus is on the Carl & Lena KONSOER family, so that I am only including that family and the definitely-related family of Johann & Friederike KONSOER/CONSOER. So this web page is not definitive for all Chicago KONSOER/CONSOER families. But it does go a long way toward figuring them out.

Carl KONSOER - Wilhelmine Caroline Friederike STAACK Family - Arrived about 1885

In the following chronology of the events and records of this family, where an event is deduced from a record of a different time, there is a pointer to that record. Where there is a record image thumbnail, if you click on the thumbnail, you will be able to see the full-size image of the record in a new tab, where you can download the image. The events are for Carl & Lena and their children, up to the deaths of the last of the children and the spouses. The events do not include the grandchildren of Carl & Lena, unless they are significant to establishing information about one of Carl & Lena's children. In the following, the children (and spouses of children) of Carl & Lena are in blue. And Carl's first wife Dorothea the children (and spouses of children) of Carl & Dorothea are in magenta.

The source for some of the dates and places is Amber Warren's "Warren Family Tree" on Ancestry.com. Attempts to contact her through Ancestry have been unsuccessful, since she has not used Ancestry in over 6 months. I would like to find out the source for the date and place information.

Johann KONSOER - Friederike STADE Family - Arrived 1890

In the following chronology of the events and records of this family, where an event is deduced from a record of a different time, there is a pointer to that record. Where there is a record image thumbnail, if you click on the thumbnail, you will be able to see the full-size image of the record in a new tab, where you can download the image. The events are for Johann & Friederike and their children, up to the deaths of the last of the children and the spouses. The events do not include the grandchildren of Johann & Friederike, unless they are significant to establishing information about one of Johann & Friederike's children. I will show both children (and their spouses) in blue in the text below.

Note that while the family of Carl & Lena almost always appear in the records as KONSOER, the family of Johann & Friederike while mainly appearing as KONSOER often appeared as CONSOER.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In the 1900 Census, Friederike is shown as the mother of 2 children, of whom 1 is still living. This is very significant, and it is impossible thus far for me to evaluate whether it is correct or whether there was some misunderstanding by these native German speakers about what was being asked by the census taker. On that 1900 census page of Elm Street in Blue Island, Illinois, Johann & Friederike are living at #575, as is the family of Bertha (CONSOER) and her husband Herman WODERICH. Next door, on the lines immediately after Johann & Friedrike, the family at 577 Elm Street is that of Franz & Minnie (daughter of Carl & Lena above) CONSOER. And a short way further down the street at 595 Elm Street is the family of August & Emma (PETERS) CONSOER. Bertha and all of the immigrant CONSOERs on this page (excpet Minnie) all arrived in the US in 1890, presumably coming together. In particular, Bertha (Sep 1869), August (Jan 1870), and Franz (Mar 1876) are all of the right ages to be the children of Johann and Friederike -- except that Bertha and August are born too close together to be from the same mother, if their 1900 Census-specified birth month and year are correct. The Census also shows that Johann & Friederike had been married for 32 years (thus 1868), which would rule out the possiblity that Friederike was a later wife of Johann who only bore his later children.

Based only on the evidence of the 1900 Census page, I had originally decided that the statement that Friederike had only 1 child still living was correct and that because she & Johann were living with Bertha, then the one child must have been Bertha. However, I then discovered that Franz's birth & baptism are in Ancestry.com's online records of the parish of Beseritz and that he is definitely shown as a son of Johann & Friederike. I also discovered that Bertha's 1886 confirmation is also in the Beseritz records and shows her born 1 Dec 1871 and not Sep 1869, as the 1900 census showed. And the death of Ernst, son of Johann is also in the Beseritz records.

So after weighing all of the evidence on the 1900 Census page and the Beseritz records, I have concluded that

  1. The 1900 Census statement that Friederike was the mother of 2 children, only 1 of whom was still living is wrong, since it conflicts with the German records and the fact that both Bertha and Franz are children of Johann & Friederike. In fact, I think that she was saying that she had 2 children then living (Bertha & Franz) and one (Ernst) who had died.
  2. The 1900 Census statement that Bertha was born Sep 1869 is wrong, since her birth record and all other records show her born 1871.
  3. Bertha and Franz are definitely the children of Johann & Friederike, per the Beseritz birth record of Franz and confirmation record of Bertha.
  4. In the 1900 Census, Joachim & Friederike's son August is living just a few doors down from Johann & Friederike's family, which had initially led me to guess that August was a member of that family. But he is Joachim's son and not Johann's, as is shown in the Beseritz church records.

Joachim KONSOER - Friederike MICHAEL Family - Arrived 1890

In the following chronology of the events and records of this family, where an event is deduced from a record of a different time, there is a pointer to that record. Where there is a record image thumbnail, if you click on the thumbnail, you will be able to see the full-size image of the record in a new tab, where you can download the image. The events are for Joachim & Friederike and their children, up to the deaths of the last of the children and the spouses. The events do not include the grandchildren of Joachim & Friederike, unless they are significant to establishing information about one of Johann & Friederike's children. I will show the children (and their spouses) in blue in the text below.

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Copyright © 2010 by Wesley Johnston
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Last updated January 26, 2010
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