Fourteen ancestor charts — Robert Earl Wildermuth's finished pedigree, printed

After the courthouses and the town halls and the parish registers, this is what he had: fourteen printed pedigree charts, one per subject, generated from whatever database he was keeping by the early 1990s. They are the closest thing in the papers to a finished statement of the work.

Chart	Reaches back to
Ancestors of Johann Michael Wildermuth	Andreas Wildermuth and the Wolf, Schmidgall and Landai families of Württemberg
Ancestors of Andreus Wildermuth	Hans Adam Wildermuth and Rosina
Ancestors of Margaretha Lammle	Johann Michael Lammle and Catherina
Ancestors of Catherina Boeshar	Christian Boeshar and Maria Margaretha Jung, Rhineland-Pfalz
Ancestors of Theobald David Schlicher	Johann Peter Schlicher and Maria Magdalina Weyrich, Adenbach — the one genuinely new branch
Ancestors of Eva Barbara Schmidt	Johann Jacob Schmidt and Eva Bourtine, Bavaria
Ancestors of Lewis D. Fleming	John Fleming and Clarissa Roe, and the Roe/Meeks families of New Jersey
Ancestors of Thomas Bailey Fleming	the same, plus the Baileys
Ancestors of Synthia Bailey	J.B.Y. Bailey and Hannah Thornberry
Ancestors of Martha Turner	John Turner
Ancestors of Seth Dunbar	John V. Dunbar and Ann, Maine
Ancestors of Martha Kelley	Johnson Kelley, Ebenezer Kelley, Rachel Johnson, Sarah Yoke
Ancestors of Norma Jean and Betty Joan Wildermuth	his two sisters’ full pedigrees

(The second sister’s sheet is headed Betty Joan, not Betty Jean — this archive had it as Jean on this page until the sheet was read at full resolution.)

What a better photograph changed

The sheets were first read here from small, washed-out photographs, and several of the entries below turn on a single numeral or a short word. Re-read at full resolution, four things that this page previously recorded as unknown or unresolved are now legible — and one thing it asserted turns out to have been a misreading of its own.

The Schlicher sheet carries exact dates, and answers two open questions

The “Ancestors of Theobald David Schlicher” sheet is the one this archive leans on hardest, because Johann Peter Schlicher has no other source at all. It gives more than was previously read off it:

	Previously read here	On the sheet
Johann Peter Schlicher born	“1797”	29 November 1797, Adenbach
Johann Peter married	(not recorded)	28 February 1827, at “Marth,” Rhineland Pfalz
Johann Peter died	“1861”	11 March 1861, Marietta
Maria Magdalina Weyrich born	“1807”, place unresolved	27 December 1807 at “Marth,” Rhineland Pfalz
Maria Magdalina died	(nothing — not placed in America at all)	28 November 1879, Marietta

Two consequences. Johann Peter’s page asked whether he lived to see his son’s wedding of 20 January 1861: he did, by seven weeks, and he died in the same year. And Maria Magdalina — of whom this archive could previously say only that nothing placed her in America — died in Marietta, Ohio in 1879, eighteen years after her husband. She crossed too.

“Marth” survives the better photograph, so it is not a misreading of a smudge: it is written twice, as her birthplace and as the place of their 1827 marriage, and this time with a region attached — Rhineland Pfalz. That narrows the search for it to the Palatinate, which is where her husband’s Adenbach is.

All of this is still chart authority and nothing more. No register, no burial record, no passenger list. But an exact birth date is a thing a parish register can be searched against, which “1797” was not.

Correction: the Sadye chart never gave Lewis Fleming a death of 1849

This page previously said that “the Sadye Irene Fleming chart in the same batch gave 1849” for Lewis Fleming’s death, and reasoned that the 1849 must be Synthia Bailey’s death year, misplaced.

The reasoning was right and the reading was wrong. On the sheet itself, Lewis D. Fleming is “d: Abt. 1862 in Taylor County, West Virginia” — the same as every other chart in the batch — and 1849 is printed in the box directly below his, as Synthia’s own death, in the Western Sector of Harrison County. There was never a conflict between the two charts. The 1849 was in the right box all along; the low-resolution photograph put it in the wrong one.

Two other things on this sheet are worth noting. Verona is entered under three surnames at once — “Verona Belle Kelley/Dunbar/Sheppard” — which is the maiden-name problem this archive later had to sort out, visible in his own database as unresolved. And Martha Turner’s death is given as 11 June 1904, the date the Wood County register gives, against the typescript’s 1903 — so his database had the register’s date and his narrative did not.

One branch the archive did not have

This section originally claimed the charts added four whole branches. That was wrong, and checking each name against the existing person pages is what showed it. On three of the four branches the archive was already ahead of the charts — it holds pages for those people, with better dates, from better sources. Only the Schlicher line is genuinely new. The corrected account follows.

The Schlichers — genuinely new, and it closes an open question

Flora’s father Theobald David Schlicher (1835–1912) came from Adenbach, son of Johann Peter Schlicher (b. 1797 Adenbach, d. 1861 Marietta) and Maria Magdalina Weyrich (b. 1807 “Marth”), with Johann Friedrich Schlicher, Maria Elizabeth Burgarth, Theobald Weyrich and Magdalina Burgey behind them.

This matters more than any other line on the fourteen sheets. Robert Earl’s 1989 memoir ends by hoping to find “the home towns of grandma Catherina Boeshar and hopefully that of Johann Peter Schlicher” — and until these charts surfaced, this archive did not even know who Johann Peter Schlicher was, recording the relationship as unresolved. The charts make him Theobald’s father.

With the caveat that cuts against everything else on this page. On the three branches below, the charts lose to documents. Here there is no document — no register, no passenger list, no Marietta burial — so the charts win by default rather than on merit. That is a much weaker position, and the two new pages say so on their face. The Adenbach parish registers, or the Evangelical books of the mother parish at Odenbach, are what would settle it.

Nor is the appealing version of the story supported: the charts are undated beyond “c. early 1990s,” so whether Robert Earl cracked this after the 1989 memoir, or had it all along from a correspondent, cannot be told from the sheet.

If it holds: Adenbach is in the Landkreis Kusel — the same district as Catharina Boeshar’s Breitenbach, at the far end of it. The two home towns in that one memoir sentence would be in one district.

Two new person pages come from this sheet, and only this sheet.

The Boeshars — the archive was already further along

Every person on this chart already has a page: Christian Boeshar, Maria Margaretha Jung, Abraham Boeshar, Maria Lehman, and — under their fuller forms — Johannes Jung and Maria Catharina Hoffmann. The archive’s dates come from FamilySearch and from the German-script birth certificate Robert Earl had translated for the Little Histories, which is a primary record. The chart is a secondary summary and loses to it.

	Chart	Archive
Birthplace	“Brontenbach”	Breitenbach, Kusel district — a real village, confirmed by the christening entry “Breitenbach, BA. Homburg”
Christian Boeshar born	30 Nov 1810	27 Oct 1810
Christian Boeshar died	8 Dec 1846	5 May 1843, buried 7 May

Note the last row: the chart’s “8 Dec 1846” sits one digit away from the couple’s marriage date, 8 December 1836. A marriage date that migrated into the death field is the most economical explanation.

The Schmidts — corroboration, with two small conflicts

Eva Barbara Schmidt (b. 29 Dec 1837 Bavaria, d. 24 Oct 1915) as daughter of John Jacob Schmidt and Eva Bourtine — all already held, and the charts agree on Eva’s dates exactly.

One oddity on the sheet: Johann Jacob’s own marriage is entered as 26 January 1861 — six days after his daughter’s, and twenty-four years after her birth. Either it is a second marriage the archive does not hold, or the date is a stray. Recorded, not adopted. Worth something — though both the charts and the family-history sheet come out of the same Wildermuth research corpus, so this is agreement rather than genuinely independent confirmation. The chart’s John Jacob b. June 1818 (archive: 1817) and Eva Bourtine d. 1888 (archive: c. 1898, from the obituary’s “preceded him by one year”) are recorded on those pages as variants, not adopted.

The Dunbars and Kelleys — the archive was already further along

All six already have pages, sourced to the Wildermuth & Bain book and its census transcriptions, which are more detailed than the chart:

	Chart	Archive
Seth Dunbar’s Maine home	“Readyville, Kennebec”	Readfield, Kennebec County — the real town, from the 1850 census
Seth Dunbar born	1837	carries both — the page leads with 1837 and notes the GEDCOM’s 7 Oct 1836. Not a chart error
Ebenezer Kelley married	1790 “Allegheny Co.”	2 Dec 1790, Allegany County, Maryland
Johnson Kelley’s wife	“Sarah Yoke”	Sarah Yoak, m. 17 Jan 1830
Rachel Johnson’s mother	“Mary”	Mary Vannoy

John V. Dunbar b. 1804 Maine, Johnson Kelley 1810–1886 and Ebenezer Kelley b. 1763 Somerset County all match. The archive additionally carries this line back well past the chart — to John Patrick Kelley of County Wicklow (b. 1725) and beyond him to John Aaron Kelley (b. 1702, County Kildare), the deepest documented Kelley ancestor.

The lesson for the rest of the charts: they are Robert Earl’s database output, not his sources. Where they meet a document, the document wins.

One conflict resolved, one opened

Resolved: Lewis Fleming died about 1862, not 1849. The Sadye Irene Fleming chart in the same batch gave 1849, which the 1854 deed disproves outright, since Lewis was conveying land that year. This chart says “Abt. 1862 in Taylor County, West Virginia” — matching the archive. The 1849 was Synthia’s death year misplaced.

Opened: who was Lewis’s father? These charts say John Fleming, born 11 October 1781 in Hampshire County, Virginia, died 3 November 1853 at Arnold’s Creek. Lewis’s page says Edward Fleming, of the Simpson Creek farm in Harrison County, a Revolutionary soldier per Joy Gilchrist’s The Squires Family. Those are two different men, and the archive cannot hold both. Unresolved.

His mother is given as Clarissa Roe (b. 18 June 1762, Essex Co., New Jersey), daughter of John Roe (b. c. 1758, Morris County, New Jersey; m. 27 March 1779 at Westfield, Essex County) and Susannah Meeks (b. c. 1759, Westfield). That arithmetic does not work — a father born in 1758 cannot have a daughter born in 1762 — so one of the two dates is wrong on the chart.

And the Thomas Bailey Fleming sheet settles Susannah Meeks’s date. Clarissa’s page records her mother’s birth as 1770 from the 1998 printed chart — “which would make her nine at her own marriage and twelve at Clarissa’s birth” — and guesses that “something nearer 1760 is meant.” This sheet, from the same corpus, gives abt. 1759 in Westfield. The guess was right, and the 1770 on the other chart is the outlier.

It also gives two death dates the archive did not hold: John Roe, 29 September 1829, in the Eastern Sector of Harrison County, and Susannah, “Abt. 1829” at Westfield, Essex County, New Jersey. Take the second with caution — the 1820 deed has Susannah in Harrison County, Virginia, examined privily by the justices in May 1821, so a New Jersey death eight years later would mean a return east. The likeliest reading is that her husband’s 1829 migrated into her death field, the same way Christian Boeshar’s marriage date migrated into his death field on the Boeshar sheet above. John Roe’s exact date is the useful new thing here; hers is not.

One impossible pair, printed twice. Both Bailey sheets give Hannah Thornsberry as born 1728 and dead in 1831 — a hundred and three years, and a woman of fifty-three at the birth of her son Thomas in 1781. The archive carries the dates as he printed them, flagged; they are two of the impossible dates the FamilySearch corrections list is meant to clear.

Where the charts back the archive

• Thomas Bailey married Nancy Bartlett on 21 October 1803 in Monongalia County — agreeing with Family Group Record 0019 against FamilySearch’s 11 October.
• Johann Christian married at Rietenau on 25 April 1819 — the corrected date, printed here, so he had absorbed Lachenmaier’s Ahnentafel into his database.

The two Württemberg sheets

The German end of the pedigree is where the charts are thinnest, and where the archive has since gone furthest past them.

The Andreus sheet prints an impossible death. It has him married on 19 July 1768 and dead on 1 June 1768 — seven weeks before his own wedding. His page carries 1 June 1771 from better sources, so the chart’s 1768 is a year keyed from the marriage line one row up. The sheet also gives his birth as 10 November 1745 where the archive has 30 November; a transposed numeral, and the archive’s date comes from the German work rather than from this database. Behind him the sheet has only two names and no dates at all: Hans Adam Wildermuth and a Rosina (?), both of Rielingshausen.

His wife’s sheet is cleaner and agrees with the archive on the death — 8 May 1778 — but dates her birth “7 March 1743/44”, the double year of old-style reckoning, where her page has 1746. The marriage date, 19 July 1768, is the one thing the two sheets agree on exactly.

The sisters’ sheets, and a marriage date that loses to a document

The last two charts are the fullest in the batch: complete four-generation pedigrees for his sisters Norma Jean (b. 14 September 1930, m. 2 February 1947) and Betty Joan (b. 17 July 1935, m. 18 May 1956), both at Marietta. Everything above them is the Wildermuth–Schlicher–Fleming–Kelley frame this archive is built on, and on the generations it can check independently the sheets hold up: Catharina Boeshar 15 June 1840 – 17 October 1933, William Clifford 17 September 1866 – 10 September 1943, Flora 24 August 1870 – 18 November 1919, Earl Adam 6 October 1899 – 6 December 1977, all exactly as the archive has them.

With one clear exception. Both sheets give Johann Michael Wildermuth’s marriage as 17 September 1864. The marriage certificate, Volume 3 page 505 of the Washington County record, certifies the wedding on 7 September 1862 — and his son William Clifford was born on 17 September 1866. A day from the son’s birth and a year of its own: the database has scrambled it, and the document wins. (He also enters Earl Adam’s death at Marietta where the archive has Newark, Licking County, with burial at Reno.)

• Hans Adam Wildermuth and Rosina as Andreas’s parents, and Johann Michael Lammle and Catherina as Margaretha’s — matching the Rielingshausen pastor’s annotations.
• Synthia Bailey died 1849, Flora Schlicher 18 November 1919, William Clifford 10 September 1943, Catharina Boeshar 17 October 1933 — all as held.

Discrepancies worth checking against better scans

These charts were photographed at a size where some digits are readable and some are not. Recorded, not adopted:

	Charts	Archive
Earl Adam m. Sadye	31 Dec 1921 (two charts)	31 Dec 1920
Margaretha Lammle born	7 March 1743/44	7 March 1746
Andreas Wildermuth born	1 September or 10 November 1745	30 November 1745
Hannah Thornberry	b. 1728, d. 1831 (age 103)	no dates

(Catharina Boeshar’s “Brontenbach” is dealt with above — it is a misreading of Breitenbach, and the archive’s form stands.)

Source: fourteen printed pedigree charts from Robert Earl Wildermuth’s research papers, c. early 1990s; photographed 2026.