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JOSEPH BOEHLES/BAYLESS b. 1833? in Alsace-Lorraine, France
Joseph Bayless is the great great grandfather of my husband. I have been searching for information about him and his family for over a year now, but without much success. I should clarify, I have found information about his wife and seven children, just not Joseph himself. I am sure part of my problem is my inexperience in the world of genealogy and knowing where I should be looking.
My 'brick walls' with Joseph come in the beginning of his life (I have no information about where he was born, who his parents were, if he had any siblings, or other extended family in America, before his marriage to great great grandmother Clara) and at the end. I have no idea when he died, how he died, or where.
This is what I do know. My first 'paper trail' with Joseph begins with his marriage to Clara Josephine Scherer on May 31, 1854 in Hamilton County, Ohio. Trying to piece together the puzzle with the bits and pieces of information that I have has led to some speculation on my part. I don't know that Joseph and Clara were living in Cincinnati at the time of their marriage, but their first two children were born in Cincinnati in 1857 and 1859. My husband comes through their oldest child, George Joseph born in 1857. By 1860 they were living in Evansville, Vanderburg, Indiana. On the 1860 census they are living with a family by the name of Dorff. I have not been able to determine if there is any family relationship between the two families. Joseph is listed as 'cook' and Mr. Dorff as steward, so I assume they were working together. I also assume that they were both employed working on a steamboat.(This assumption comes from the 1880 census where it states that Joseph is a steward on a steamboat.) During the 10 year span between 1860 and 1870 Joseph and Clara have three daughters. I contacted the Evansville Catholic Archives, but they were unable to locate any baptisimal records for any of the girls. That was a huge disappointment because I had high hopes of finding either Bayless or Scherer family members as god-parents. Sometime after 1870 the family moves to St. Louis, Missouri. They are on the 1880 census for St. Louis, but their last two children were born in St. Louis, 1874 and 1878, so they definitely arrived before 1880. This is where I lose all contact with Joseph. I have located where Clara, and several of their children and spouses are buried, but not Joseph. It's like he vanishes into thin air. I narrowed down the year of his death between 1880 and 1885. Clara is listed as a 'widow' on an 1885 city directory for St. Louis, but that is as close as I have been able to get it. Clara goes on to remarry in 1888 and she dies in 1907.I have searched for steamboat accidents during the years of 1880-1885, but came up empty. I contacted the Catholic Archives in St. Louis months ago, trying to determine if they might have a death record for him, but I never heard back. I have made contact with decendents from three of their children, but they knew nothing that could help or shed any light on what became of Joseph (two of the seven children had no children of their own, and I have been unable to determine if the middle daughter's son had any children of his own. None are listed in his obituary. So I have pretty much 'exhausted' trying to find information from the decendents of Joseph and Clara's children. My only hope is in finding extended family members of Joseph and Clara, haven't had any success so far.)
I forgot to mention a couple of things. I have been unable to locate Joseph on a ship's manifest. I am not completely sure how to spell the name or which way it would have been spelled when he first came to America. On the marriage record his name is spelled Boehles (pronounced the same as Bayless). I believe he came from Alsace-Lorraine, France as that is what is listed on one of the census records. I have been able to determine that the name Boehles comes from that part of France, just haven't been able to tie Joseph with a particular family.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Jennifer
My 'brick walls' with Joseph come in the beginning of his life (I have no information about where he was born, who his parents were, if he had any siblings, or other extended family in America, before his marriage to great great grandmother Clara) and at the end. I have no idea when he died, how he died, or where.
This is what I do know. My first 'paper trail' with Joseph begins with his marriage to Clara Josephine Scherer on May 31, 1854 in Hamilton County, Ohio. Trying to piece together the puzzle with the bits and pieces of information that I have has led to some speculation on my part. I don't know that Joseph and Clara were living in Cincinnati at the time of their marriage, but their first two children were born in Cincinnati in 1857 and 1859. My husband comes through their oldest child, George Joseph born in 1857. By 1860 they were living in Evansville, Vanderburg, Indiana. On the 1860 census they are living with a family by the name of Dorff. I have not been able to determine if there is any family relationship between the two families. Joseph is listed as 'cook' and Mr. Dorff as steward, so I assume they were working together. I also assume that they were both employed working on a steamboat.(This assumption comes from the 1880 census where it states that Joseph is a steward on a steamboat.) During the 10 year span between 1860 and 1870 Joseph and Clara have three daughters. I contacted the Evansville Catholic Archives, but they were unable to locate any baptisimal records for any of the girls. That was a huge disappointment because I had high hopes of finding either Bayless or Scherer family members as god-parents. Sometime after 1870 the family moves to St. Louis, Missouri. They are on the 1880 census for St. Louis, but their last two children were born in St. Louis, 1874 and 1878, so they definitely arrived before 1880. This is where I lose all contact with Joseph. I have located where Clara, and several of their children and spouses are buried, but not Joseph. It's like he vanishes into thin air. I narrowed down the year of his death between 1880 and 1885. Clara is listed as a 'widow' on an 1885 city directory for St. Louis, but that is as close as I have been able to get it. Clara goes on to remarry in 1888 and she dies in 1907.I have searched for steamboat accidents during the years of 1880-1885, but came up empty. I contacted the Catholic Archives in St. Louis months ago, trying to determine if they might have a death record for him, but I never heard back. I have made contact with decendents from three of their children, but they knew nothing that could help or shed any light on what became of Joseph (two of the seven children had no children of their own, and I have been unable to determine if the middle daughter's son had any children of his own. None are listed in his obituary. So I have pretty much 'exhausted' trying to find information from the decendents of Joseph and Clara's children. My only hope is in finding extended family members of Joseph and Clara, haven't had any success so far.)
I forgot to mention a couple of things. I have been unable to locate Joseph on a ship's manifest. I am not completely sure how to spell the name or which way it would have been spelled when he first came to America. On the marriage record his name is spelled Boehles (pronounced the same as Bayless). I believe he came from Alsace-Lorraine, France as that is what is listed on one of the census records. I have been able to determine that the name Boehles comes from that part of France, just haven't been able to tie Joseph with a particular family.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Jennifer
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer G. Bayless on
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I wrote out a lengthy reply to your message yesterday, but my computer wouldn't load it, so I will try again today.
First, I want to thank you for taking the time to respond to my 'problem'. As I read through your response I was able to see a lot of gaps in my investigations. THANK YOU. Just seeing what I need to do is very helpful!
I must confess that I hadn't noticed that Joseph Bayless was listed as a citizen on the 1870 census! Now that I know he was naturalized I will pursue finding his records. You asked if I had looked in Evansville for his naturalization records. Without seeming to be completely ignorant, can I ask why I should look there?
As to how I know that Joseph was a Catholic, I don't actually know for certain, but his entire family, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren are all Catholic. A lot of the family are buried in Catholic cemeteries and their obituaries have them listed as upstanding Catholics. In fact, there isn't any mention of any other denomination in any records. There are also priests and nuns in the immediate family.
The marriage record between Joseph and Clara only has the name of the groom, the bride, and the Justice of the Peace that performed the ceremony.I do not know if they also had a priest perform a ceremony, thus having a marriage record with the Catholic church. The hard part is figuring out what church they could have possibly attended while in Cincinnati, Ohio. There are A LOT of Catholic churches, even way back then. In order to request a record I need to have it narrowed down to which church they attended. I am pretty much stuck right now and don't really know how to narrow it down.
As to the Catholic Archives in St. Louis, I was under the impression that all genealogy requests/information had to be dealt with through the mail. That was the reason I hadn't called them. I did send off another letter to them last week, but I think ??I will go take another look at their policies to see if I understood correctly.
I have always wondered about Joseph and whether he might have served during the Civil War. It never got past wondering with me because I really had no idea what I should look under to find whether he had served or not. Now that you mention it, I think I will try to find some kind of record in Evansville. The record you found on foot-note stated that particular Joseph Bayless was in the Navy. That's a place to start.
I am afraid I don't have a lot of extra information on Clara, just a little more than on her husband. I believe I found her on a ship's manifest on the Castle Garden site. If I have the correct one then she came over with her mother, a brother, and a sister in 1851. That seems close as I have seen it listed on the 1900 census as having come to America in 1850. Her mother's name was Anna (for which Clara named one of her daughter's) and she was 46 on the ship's manifest. Her sister would have been Elizabeth and she is listed as 19. Her brother was Friederic and he was listed as 16. They came over from Germany on the ship Monmouth, arriving in New York on July 5, 1851. I do not know what became of the family between 1851 and 1854 when Clara gets married. I have tried looking up the name Friederic Scherer, but the possibilities are very numerous and I don't know how to narrow it down. I do not know if the family came to America to be with family already here, or if they came on their own. All I know is that Clara was in Hamilton County, Ohio getting married when she was 17.
Clara's second marriage was to a Mr. Patrick Finn. I only have one of the transcribed sheets from Ancestry, so I don't know if the original might have other information. This states that both Patrick and Clara were living in Topeka, Kansas at the time of their marriage on April 21, 1888. They were married in Jackson, Independence, Missouri. Clara's last name is listed as Schewer on the record. It took me awhile to find it because of that. Clara would still have had children at home when she married Patrick, at least the last two who would have been 10 and 14. In the intermittent years I find that Clara and Patrick live with a couple of her children. On the 1900 census they are living with the youngest daughter, Theresa Lynch in Kansas City, Missouri. After Clara dies in 1907 Patrick continues to live with the family for awhile. I believe I saw him still with the Lynch family on the 1910 census. Sometime after that he moves in with Clara's oldest daughter, Anna Bermingham, and remains with her until his death in 1926. Both Clara and Patrick are buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. Clara is under the last name of Finn. I do not have an obituary or death certificate for Clara, but I have both for Patrick Finn.
As to the children, I will list what I have for each. The oldest was George Joseph Bayless, born on Feb. 14, 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He married Anna Elizabeth Rennick in 1881 and they went on to have three children. George died on Feb. 17, 1940. I have a copy of his death certificate and an obituary. He is buried in the Holy Hope Cemetery in Tucson, Arizona.
John Francis Bayless was born on Oct. 13, 1859 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He married Johanna Bryan/Bryant and they went on to have five children, three of whom never married. Of their youngest two daughters, Loretta and Marie, only one Loretta's daughter is still alive. We have communicated back and forth, but she was unable to tell me anything about Joseph or Clara. John died May 18, 1923 and is buried in Fort Scott, Kansas where the family lived for many, many years. I have obituaries on John, his wife, and their five children, but no death certificates.
Anna C. was born on Oct. 8, 1862 in Evansville, Indiana. She married William M. Bermingham and they had no children. William died in 1911, so Anna was a widow for a long time. I could not find that she ever remarried. Anna died on Dec. 1, 1928, two years after her step-father who had been living with her. She is buried in the same cemetery as her mother. (As a side note, it was on the 1920 census for Anna that I saw it written that Joseph was from Lorraine, France.) I have a death certificate for Anna and an obituary.
Carrie B. ( I am thinking her name was probably Clara, but haven't been able to verify this yet) was born sometime after 1862, but before 1869 in Evansville, Indiana. She married Eugene F. Donzelot and they had no children. I do not know exactly when she died, but she was buried on June 23, 1932 in the same cemetery as her mother. I have not been able to find a death certificate for her or an obituary.
Elizabeth was born on Jan. 8, 1869 in Evansville, Indiana. She married Ernest Goehring and they had one son, William Goehring. I was able to get an obituary for William, but it didn't have any children listed for him. Elizabeth died on Dec. 6, 1949. She was cremated and is not listed as being in the cemetery with her mother. I have her death certificate, but no obituary.
Joseph George Bayless was born on March 7, 1874 in St. Louis, Missouri. He married Florence Tuchschmidt and they had one son, Paul. Paul married a Mary Helen and they had four children. I have communicated with their son, Paul Jr., but once again, he was unable to give me any information about Joseph and Clara.( The notation you had from Mrs. Yount was the obituary for this Joseph Bayless, not his father who I am trying to find.) Joseph died on May 30, 1931 and is buried in the same cemetery as his mother, as is his wife, her second husband, his son, and his son's wife. I have a death certificate and an obituary for Joseph.
Theresa Marie was born on Feb. 2, 1878 in St. Louis, Missouri. She married John T. Lynch (he became the Fire Chief for Kansas City, Missouri and I have a big write up on him) and they had five children, Richard J. (I have his obituary-he died in rather scandalous circumstances), James P., John T., Josephine, and Lawrence. I have been able to communicate with Josephine's daughter, but again, she was unable to provide me with any information about Joseph and Clara. I feel like I have had my three strikes, and I definitely struck out! It has been said that Theresa sang for the St. Louis Opera, so I need to check that out. Theresa died on Nov. 30, 1948 in Kansas City, Missouri. She is buried in the Calvary Cemetery with her husband and son, Richard. I have a death certificate and an obituary for her.
I can see by your questions that I have several areas that I need to do further research in. I noticed that I don't have any marriage records for any of the children and that could prove to be helpful. I guess I am a little stumped as to where I should look for those, through the state or through the church?! If it is through the church I am going to be in trouble. There are even more Catholic churches in St. Louis than there are in Cincinnati!
As to what sites I looked under for steamboat accidents, I am afraid I was looking before I realized the importance of keeping records. Basically all I did was google steamboat accidents for the time period I was interested in and then looked at every listing for several pages. I was unable to find anything that even looked close to what I was looking for. Any other suggestions that you might have would be greatly appreciated! I was told by the St. Louis library that if Joseph died in a steamboat accident then there was a good chance that there wouldn't be any kind of record for his death. My only hope would be to find it written up in a paper.
I know this has gotten lengthy. I appreciate you reading it and giving me your opinion on what/where I should look next?!
Jennifer -
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