The River Running
"Immigrants: we get the job done" -- Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
The Reck Family of Freinsheim After 1815
I found it almost impossible to make any connections between Recks resident in Freinsheim after the French revolutionary occupation and those resident before. Between 1816 and 1828, there were only three children christened in Freinsheim with the last name Reck. None of these christening records include a father's name.
Charlotta Reck, named after her mother, was christened 21 Jan 1822.
Heinrich Reck, the son of Christina Elisabetha Reck, was born 26 Apr 1822 and christened 27 Apr 1822. However, he died and was buried six months later on 18 Oct 1822. His younger brother Reichardt Reck was born 28 Oct 1824 and christened 29 Oct 1824.
I have no further information on any of these children.
There were also four marriages that took place in Freinsheim after 1815. In fact, they all took place 1824-1835:
Finally there were nine people with the last name Reck for whom I have death records after 1815. Seven of these I can explain. Here are the other two:
Sophia Schmidt and Conrad (or Georg?) Reck
As mentioned above, Sophia Schmidt and Conrad Reck were married 28 Nov 1830. Two weeks after the wedding, the bride was delivered of the couple's second child. In fact, all twelve of the children christened with the last name Reck in Freinsheim after 1828 were the children of Sophia and Conrad. Five of them died young:
Conrad died and was buried in Freinsheim 27 Feb 1857.
Three years before Conrad's death, his oldest daughter Christina emigrated to the States. The Tabellarische Übersicht ber Auswanderungen nach überseeischen Ländern aus der Gemeinde Freinsheim (Tabular Summary of Emigration to Overseas Lands from the Freinsheim Community) includes records from 1853 to 1884. (Many, many thanks to Claire Gebben for making this document available.) The 1854 records include listings for Christina Reck, travelling alone, and Magdalena Vogt, travelling with six children. On 05 Dec 1854 the SS Heidelberg sailed from Le Havre, heading for New Orleans. The passenger manifest includes listings for Christiana Reck from Bavaria, age 25, and then immediately following, Madeleine Vogt and six children, all from Bavaria.
Once in New Orleans Christina apparently travelled up the Mississippi River to St Louis, Missouri. "Christiana Rick" and Richard Michel, also a German immigrant, were married in St Louis 18 Nov 1855. Their first child was born in October 1856. Christina died 14 Dec 1875 and was buried at St Marcus Cemetery. Her burial record there identifies her as being from Freinsheim.
It's not surprising that after Conrad's death, Sophia decided to take her three surviving children - Sophia, Magdalena and Maria Eva - and follow Christina's lead. Among the entries for 1856/57 in the Tabellarische Übersicht, there's one for Reck, Sophia, an adult accompanied by three children. The SS R L Gillchrist sailed from Le Havre for New Orleans on 04 Nov 1857. The passenger manifest includes Sophie Reck, 48, accompanied by Sophie, 15, Magdalena, 9, and Eva, 6. The Recks are said to be from Prussia, but the names and ages make it fairly clear that these are "our" Recks.
(As a sidenote, it's interesting that the Tabellarische Übersicht specifies whether emigrants were Catholic, Protestant or Jewish - and Sophia and her children are recorded as being Jewish. Of the 11 Jewish emigrants recorded in the Tabellarische Übersicht, Sophia and her children represent four of them. The others are an adult and a child named Adler, a young man named Fränkel and an adult and two children named Löb, all of whom emigrated in 1854, plus a young man named Kaufman who emigrated in 1868. However, I have to wonder whether or not this is an error. All of Sophia and Conrad's children were christened as Protestants, and some of their names are extremely Christian: Christina, Magdalena, Maria, Johannes.)
There were no deaths during the voyage of the Gillchrist. However, I lost track of the older Sophia and her daughter Magdalena after its arrival in New Orleans, nor can I find the younger Sophia and her sister Eva in the 1860 census. Certainly they were not living with Christina and Richard, although they may well have been living elsewhere in St Louis.
Sophia married a German immigrant named John Anton Braun in St Louis on 10 Jun 1861. They raised their family in St Louis.
Eva married a Swiss immigrant named John Wolff or Wolf in St Louis on 05 Jan 1875. (I can't find her in the 1870 census, and I can't find Christina and Richard either. I know that Eva wasn't living with Sophia and Anton.) Eva and John moved to Carroll County, Missouri, to raise their family.