The River Running
"Immigrants: we get the job done" -- Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
Rosina Schaadt and Jacob Willi
Jacob Willi was christened in Freinsheim 03 Jun 1816, the son of Anna Maria Anton and Roland Willi. On 18 Jun 1844 he married Rosina Schaadt, the daughter of Georg Schaadt and Juliana Pausch. I wasn't able to find a birth record for her. According to a later census record, she was born in or about 1817.
Rosina and Jacob had five children, of whom two died young:
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.) In particular, it lists three records that might be related to Rosina, Jacob and their children. Jakob Willy emigrated in 1854, leading a group that included two adults and one child. Georg Willy, the 16-year-old son of Jakob emigrated in 1860/61. Finally Susanna Willy, a young single Protestant woman, emigrated in 1867. The entry immediately following hers is for Elisabetha Ehrlich, a young single Catholic woman, possibly Elisabetha Ehrlich, daughter of Elisabetha Ehrlich, baptized as a Catholic in Freinsheim 19 April 1842.
If Susanna and Georg are Jacob and Rosina's two oldest children, then the son who accompanied Jacob and, presumably, Rosina in 1854 must be Roland. Their youngest son, Jacob, had already died the year before. Their daughter Magdalena died in Freinsheim three years later. She must have been left behind - she was six years old - with Susanna (age 11) and Georg (age 9).
Sure enough, when I went looking for Roland outside of Germany he popped up in Liverpool as "Rowland Willey" in the 1861 Census of England and Wales. He had a sister named Eliza, born in or about 1857 in Liverpool, Lancashire County. They were living in the "Bertha Buildings" in "Old Torter Smith" with their mother "Rosana," who was 44, widowed and working as a charwoman. Both "Rosana" and "Rowland" are listed as having been born in Germany.
Rosina's husband Jacob may be the "Jacob Willees" who died in Liverpool July-September 1859. Rosina herself seems to have died not long after the census was taken, in October-December 1861. I'm not sure what happened to Roland and Eliza (ages 10 and 4), except that there's a "Rolland Willey" who married in Liverpool July-September 1874. The marriage records of two couples have gotten mixed together. Rolland's bride was either Rachel Bryce or Jane Smith.
Georg baffled me until I tripped over a headstone in a Pennsylvania cemetery for "George Willy born in Freinsheim Germany June 2, 1845."
"Suse" Willy, 25, and "Lisette" Ehrlich, 24, arrived in NYC 24 Aug 1867 aboard the SS Union out of Bremen and Southampton. These are almost certainly Susanna and Elisabetha from the Freinsheim emigration records. According to Germans to America, both "Susanne Willi" and "Lisette Ehrlig" were from Bavaria and were headed to Indiana. I was not able to find any additional information about either of them after their arrival.