July 1992 Newsletter
I received a research report from Jim Petty which is the bulk of this newsletter. A financial summary is enclosed to give an update on Mr. Petty's account. The results he has found have shed new light on the descendants of Charles Geissinger. I can now trace some of them and I am helping him search various county records which need to be searched. His help has been very valuable. His knowledge of indenture records, for example, established the birthdate of Charles Geissinger Jr. His research has uncovered the birthyear (1740) of Charles Geissinger Sr. He has confirmed my suspicions that Charles Sr. may have been Catholic and this opens a whole lot of research to be done to locate a marriage record for Charles and additional christenings of his children. We have many clues as to where the family moved after leaving Bedford County. I should have a research report from Germany in August if things go as planned. I have more to report on the research of Tedi Jeen and I, but that will also have to wait.
Research Report From Jim Petty on the GEISSINGER Family
"Dear Jerry: Date: May 13, 1992
I completed the time allotted for research on this problem. More importantly I felt it was time to sit down and digest, analyze, and make a progress report. You asked me to allot three days to research on the Geisingers, and search for the family and descendants of Carl (Charles) Geisinger. I did that in part, but this project spreads over to so many different spellings, and different families, and our knowledge about Charles after his arrival in America is so limited, I felt that this is actually a project more suited for working on periodically, and stopping often to review, ponder, analyze and push on. So far I have worked on this line on eight separate occasions. Two were concentrated on searching for Charles Geisinger/Kessinger Jr., two were on searching for Charles Sr. in Pennsylvania records to try to learn more about him and his family between 1767 and 1810, and the remaining four were on other families, more or less in general research.
There seem to be three principal groups of Geissinger/Kissinger families that appear in early Pennsylvania and Maryland records; The group that settled in Northampton/Bucks County area of Eastern Pennsylvania; The John Geissinger group in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; and the several Geissing families that settled in Frederick County Maryland. Clear up into the mid nineteenth century these seem to be the groups most other Geissinger and Kissinger families came from. Never-the-less, there were separate individuals who came into this country that were not connected to any of these groups. I believe that your Charles was in that catagory. As much as we want to lean toward the concept of immigrants being drawn to other immigrant relatives, the facts are that the concept is a broad generalization. The facts that you and I have been able to gather concerning Charles Geissinger show that he came into this country separate from family, settled separate from family, remained apart from any apparent family at least up through the 1770's. His settling in the Frederick County Maryland area in the 1780's, may have been the first indication of being drawn toward other Geissinger families, but we have no proof that that is the case. He may have settled in that area coincidental of any other Geissinger family that might already have been there. Some of the Geissingers that settled in Maryland may have been part of the Eastern PA group in Northampton and Bucks Counties, and came into the area as part of the large migration of German settlers from that part of Pennsylvania, as we found with the Maurers and others. Most seemed to be Evangelical Reformed or Lutheran by religion. I don't think that Charles Geissinger was. I think he was Catholic, and that some of his children began the break from Catholicism to Protestant. The reason I am going on like this, is that, as I researched the family, I felt the need to try to identify and separate your Geisingers from other families. Charles Geissinger Jr. for instance seems to have also remained separate throughout his adult life from other members of his family. Catherine Maurer, [Mower] the wife of Michael Maurer, [meaning Michael Mower the father of Henry Mower Sr.] doesn't seem to have had very much interaction with members of her family, so far as we have been able to find in records, and her children who joined the church didn't provide very much in terms of information about that family except that Catherine was the daughter of Charles and Catherine. This perception may be wrong, since we really do not know very much about this family. But compared to other families that I have worked on I do not see very much of a closeness or interaction that a researcher looks for.
My research on Charles Geissinger Sr., as mentioned was done because I felt there must have been something more than what we had. What we knew before was that he had arrived with seven other men on a ship from Lisbon, Portugal in October 1766, and that he was almost immediately indentured to work on the estate of Martin Halter of Salem, New Jersey. He worked there and ran off; was recaptured and worked for George Miller of the same area. After that we had almost nothing, until the 1790 census placed Charles in Frederick County, Maryland. Then we have the record of his two sons being apprenticed out to learn trades. This is often indicative of a poor family that was unable to support older children. In 1800 Charles was still in Frederick County, but by 1804, he was living in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, from where he obtained a bounty land certificate for service in the American Revolution. That record did not specify what his service was, or where he resided during the war. We had previously identified a Charles Geissinger with a John Geissinger, who served in Von Ottendorff's Company in the Continental line.) Charles appeared in the Tax lists in Colerain Twp. in Bedford County, Pennsylvania in 1807 and 1810, but was not in the 1810 census. That was the last known of him.
I searched for some record of Charles around the time of the American Revolution. Our information from the apprenticeship documents tell us that Charles Geissinger Jr., being over 14 years of age, consented to be apprenticed to Henry Durkey until Dec. 1, 1799, which I would interrpret to be the day that Charles Jr. turned 20, making his birthdate Dec. 1, 1779. His brother John was apprenticed by his father to Frederick Unkefer, was specified as being age 10 as of March 5, 1794, and would remain apprenticed for nine years five months, which would be through February, 1803, at which time he would become 20 years old. Between 1779 and 1784, Charles Sr. also had a daughter Catherine born to him and his wife, presumably about 1781/2. Since Charles Sr. claimed to have served from 1776 to 1783, his two children were born during that time period, and he may also have married after he enlisted.
The bounty land record stated that Charles enlisted Nov. 25, 1776, and was discharged August 9, 1783. We have to assume that the discharge date was correct because it was the date of the document that was produced in court in 1804. The enlistment date may have been the beginning of one long service period, or it might have been the date of first enlistment, or even the date of a specific enlistment. I make this point because the dates don't match with any other evidence that we have found. If Charles had two children during his service, and a third was conceived two months before his discharge, it would seem likely that the service wasn't continuous, and may have occurred near his family.
The Charles Geissinger who served with Von Ottendorf would not have enlisted in November 1776, unless he was part of a previously enlisted group that were raised before Von Ottendorf received his orders to form an army. His orders were given as of December 1776, and his troops raised by March 1777. As this was with the Continental line, this may have been the same as Charles Kissinger who served in the 6th Regiment Continental line in 1782, then the 4th Regiment until Jan. 1783, and then in the 3rd Regiment until Nov. 3, 1783. Perhaps the release in August was the actual release, and the date of November 1783 was only the projected date of release.
In the 6th series of PENNSYLVANIA ARCHIVES, I found a Carl, or Charles Geissinger (also spelled Guscager, Gyfinger), a stonecutter, age 36, of Paradise Twp., York County, Pennsylvania, who enlisted in Capt. David Grier's Company, under command of Colonel William Irvine in the Sixth Pennsylvania Battalion. His enlistment date was Feb. 14, 1776. He marched with the troops to Northern New York, and up the St. Lawrence to the area of Three Rivers (Trois Riviere) near Montreal, where one of the major battles of the early war was fought. On June 8th, the forces engaged, with the British in the dominant position, and the American forces were demolished. Charles Geisinger was captured with many others, and later released. The troops reformed in October 1776 at Fort Ticonderoga in New York. It may have been upon return that Charles reenlisted in November 1776, which would then fit with the enlistment/discharge record. A later record for York County shows that a Kurat (or Kural) [Karl?] Kiesinger served in the county militia apprehending British deserters and prisoners.
This doesn't prove that this is your Charles Geissinger, but he is near the area of Frederick County, Maryland, Paradise Twp., being just up the Conowaga River at the present border of York County and Adams County. He was resident there at the beginning of the War, but doesn't appear there in a published tax listed dated 1779. [He does in 1780.] I searched church records for that ara, checking on all of the Evangelical and Reformed, and Lutheran Churches, as I have done in other areas. I also searched the published records of Conewago Chapel, the Catholic Church that was established in Conewago township York County, (now Adams County, in 1743. The records begin in 1790, earlier records having been lost. Here I found the christening of Michael Geissin, born Aug. 9, 1793, and christened Mar. 14, 1794. He was the son of Charles and Catherine Geissin. The sponsors were Michael and Elizabeth Ritelmoser. I was attracted to this because I knew that "ger" was a portion of the name that could be left off in an abbreviated name. The "g" is usually not pronounced except in American dialect. In the records, I have been looking at some of the spellings of the name eliminate the "g" altogether, leaving us with Kessener, or Kissiner, or Geissner.
Suspecting that this could be your Charles Geissinger, I searched the county for the name Geissin in the 1790 and 1800 census. Nothing. I also searched the German passenger lists by Strassburger & Hinke. No Geissin or variations at all. Nor did the name appear in the wills or deeds indexes. Only in the Catholic Church records. In that record I also found a christening in 1805 of John Geissen, son of John Geissen and Barbara Bern. The only other possibility of the name was Anna Maria Grissinger or Crissiner, who was the wife of James Driskel, and had daughters Anna and Theresia christened in 1802 and 1804. In the History of Frederick County, Maryland, I learned that prior to the establishment of the St. John's Catholic Church after 1800 in Frederick, the needs of the Catholic Community there were ministered to by the clergy from the Conewago Church. This makes it likely that if Charles and Catherine were living in Frederick county, that they would still have appeared in the Conewago records. It would also explain why we haven't found Charles and Catherine and their children in any of the Lutheran and Reformed Church records in Maryland or Pennsylvania. If this is the right family, it fits because we knew that Charles had sons born after 1790. Also we find record of the name Michael Kessinger in Washington County records in the 1800's, although we also know that George Geissinger of Frederick also had a son Michael. The fact that the Catholic records prior to 1790 would further explain why we have found no record of Charles and his family in any church records prior to 1793.
As I searched the tax lists of Bedford County again as well. I found Charles from 1806 to 1810, and then he was gone. This timehowever, I noted that what little property Charles had from 1806 to 1809, dissappeared in 1810. Also, two lists were made each year. One was taken in the Spring or late Winter, and the other in the Fall. In 1810, Charles was on the Spring list but not on the fall list. The census was taken in August 1810, but he was not listed in the Township, county, state or anywhere else in the country. So I believe that he must have died in the Spring or Summer of 1810. In nearby Cumberland Valley Township, I also found George Gysinger, from 1806 to 1811. He appeared as a single taxable male in every year except 1811, when he appeared on the regular rolls. He was in the census but disappeared after that. I believe that George was a son of Charles, and was the George Gysinger who married Barbara Roach on Aug. 13, 1810 in Washington County, Maryland.
On the family of Charles Geissinger Jr., I found this a good line to follow because the name Charles is so less common than John, or even some of the other names. There were only one or two possibilities that appeared in the census records after 1800. The marriages of Washington County, Maryland revealed the marriage of Charles Kysinger to Elizabeth Eakel on Feb. 25, 1804. And in 1806, Charles and Elizabeth Kysinger, sold the land which she had from her father Henry to Charles's brother, John Kysinger. At which point Charles disappears from the records.
I searched the census and tax lists of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio and the who country for that matter. I found Charles Kissinger in a tax list for Muskingum County, Ohio in 1808, and in Jefferson County in 1810. In 1820, Charles was listed as Kisinger in Cross Creek Township. He was 26 to 45, as was his wife, and they had an older woman living with them. Also they had 2 sons and three daughters. In 1830, Charles Kysinger and his wife were both 40 to 50 years old. Charles in fact would have been exactly 50 years old and would have turned 51 in December 1830. Their three daughters were now over 10, and two more sons who were born between 1820 and 1825 were added to the list. In 1840, Charles was 50-60 as was his wife, and the children were their appropriate ages; however, a girl under age 5 was in the household. This might have been a granddaughter, or a last child for Charles and Elizabeth. In the 1850 Census, I found Charles Keysinger, age 70, farmer, birthplace: Maryland, living with his daughter Margaret, age 28, and son Hirum, 26. This establishes that Charles Geissinger Sr. had settled in Maryland by 1779, and further supports the determination that Charles Jr. was born Dec. 1, 1779, which made him 70 years old going on 71 in 1850.
In the Spencer Ledger, a record of the mercantile business of John Galbraith, that was handed down in the Spencer family, which was dated from 1804 to 1811, it was noted that Charles Kisinger bought a place of Samuel Patterson's, lives about 2 1/2 miles from town (Steubenville).
The cemetery records of New Alexandria Cemetery in Cross Creek Township, shows the inscription for Charles Kissinger who died in 1856, age 76. His wife Elizabeth died in 1846 at the age of 56. Either her age was a little low, or she married at about age 14 or 15. Possible. Other names on the same stone include: Rachel Gray 1885, age 78 (born 1807); Charles Brown 1856, age ?; Mary Kissinger 1844, age 30 (born 1814).
I would guess that Rachel and Mary are daughters of Charles, and that Charles Brown was a grandson. In the same cemetery I found the stones for Hiram Kissinger, who died in 1863, age 42, his wife Ella who died 1902, age 75, and their daughter Amy, who died in 1867, age 6.
Hiram appeared to have died in the Civil War, so I searched the Union Army Pension index and found a pension application by his widow Ellen in 1863. He was in Company C, 2nd Battalion, 15th U.S. Infantry. I went to the marriage records and found that Hiram Kysinger had married Ellen Hogan on July 29, 1852. I also found the marriage of his sister Margaret Kysinger to Henry Spruins on Nov. 18, 1852. In another volume of marriages I found John Kisinger to Martha Hamilton married Aug. 7, 1846. I also found the marriage of a Margaret Kisinger to Adam Lowry on April 4, 1822. I don't know just who this Margaret is, as Charles's daughter was born about 1820. In the 1870 census I found Hiram's family listed in the census. His widow Ellen was 43, and his daughters were Rachel age 15, and Eliza age 8. As mentioned, his daughter Amy had died in 1867.
Deed and probate records failed to show any information pertaining to Charles or his family. Daughter-in-law, Ellen, widow of Hiram, sold a piece of property in 1864, presumably to support her family. A published record of death records from 1888 to 1898, lists the deaths of Daniel W. Geisinger who died in Steubenville Jan. 2, 1893, age 45 years, 10 months. He was born about 1847. Also I found the death of a John Geisinger who died in Steubenville on Jan. 6, 1891, at the age of 83. He was born in Pennsylvania about 1808. He could have been a son of Charles, but I don't know at this point.
As I tried to formulate a plan to seek out the other children of Charles and Catherine Geissinger, I found that I couldn't pinpoint many of the individuals or determine with accuracy who was a son of Charles. In the early tax lists of Ohio where I found Charles Jr., I also found an Andrew Geissinger, or Kessinger listed. He was in Highland County from 1808 on. In your notes on Washington County, Andrew Kessinger sold his share of a piece of property in Maryland to Jacob Rugh in 1806. This would fit with the Andrew in Ohio. Plus the fact that Andrew no longer appears in Maryland census records. Andrew and his wife Maria Barbara appear in the deeds of Highland County in 1812 they sold land to Philip Wilkin. The Wilkin family ties in closely with the Kessingers. George W. KIessinger married Leah Wilkins in 1835. I found the marriage of John Kessinger to Anna Keys in 1813, and Catharine Kessinger to Absalom Brown in 1816. The deeds show that after Andrew Kessinger, John Kessinger was most prevalent in the deeds. He was married to Sarah, Widow of John White. They appear in the cemetery records of Clark Cemetery in Union township. John K. Kessinger was born in 1795 and died in 1868. His wife Sarah was born in 1789 and died in 1861. They had at least one daughter, Rachel Jackson Kessinger, and perhaps another, Elizabeth, wife of Dorsey Fenner. For a time I had this John Sr. mixed up with the John who married Anna Keys. His children included a son John A. who was born in 1819, and died in 1878, a son George W., a daughter Catherine who married Cyrus Crawford, and a daughter Mary Ann, wife of George W. Hultz. Their father John was deceased by 1838, and the deeds refer to some of them as heirs of John Keys, and also of John Kessinger, deceased.
I searched the census records for these families in the 1820 and 1830 census, and discovered that Andrew Kessinger was listed in Union township in the 1830 census. I am speculating that he might have been John Andrew and might have been the elder John that was identified in the deeds. But in any case, he was born about 1760 to 1770, because he was 60 to 70 in the 1830 census. He would have been contemporary with your Charles Sr. He may have been in Virginia in 1790 or 1800, or already in Ohio by 1800. He may also have originally come into Maryland in the 1770's. While searching in Highland County, I found a biographical sketch of the descendants of Theobald Shaffer and his wife Catherine Kissinger. Theobald immigrated to Pennsylvania in the 1760's with his father Theobald Sr. The sketch suggests that he and Catherine's family were on the same ship, but I found no record of the two families on the same ship. Upon arrival, the Shaffers settled near Antitam Creek in Frederick county, Maryland. This would place her in Maryland earlier than your Charles. My guess is that she might have been associated with the family of George Geissinger who was an early settler there. In any case I could see no way to tie her in with any of your family.
I spent some time extracting as many possibilities from the 1790 census and 1800 census of Virginia, Maryland and a limited few from Pennsylvania. Then I extracted the same mix from the 1820 and 1830 census, including also those in Ohio. Hopefully, this will serve as a base as I learn more about the various families. In 1790, a Solomon Cretzinger was located in Washington County, Maryland with his small family. This may be the Solomon Kessinger in Hart County, Kentucky, who was settled there by 1810 and had a very large and prominent family. Solomon Jr. and his brother Joseph, were born in Pennsylvania in the 1770's, and were still in Hart Co., Kentucky in 1850.
The family of George Kessinger in Washington County, in 1790, and 1800, are apparently the George that died in 1809. His son Andrew may have been the Andrew who went to Highland County, Ohio. He also had sons Jacob, Michael, and George Jr. Jacob, George Sr. and Andrew were all listed together in the 1800 census, and George Sr. had three more sons at home or else a son and a couple of grandsons.
Of Course Francis Gissinger was also in Frederick County in the 1790 and 1800 census. You have his information.
Charles Geissinger's son John, is one of the most confusing to follow. He might be the John Geissen who married Barbara Bern prior to 1805. A John Kessinger shows up in the Washington County deeds, actively filing bonds with the state from 1800 to 1810, but the early references are not likely him because he wouldn't have been legal age until 1804. A John Kissinger was in Washington County in 1800 in the census, with a daughter 10 and a son under 10, which doesn't fit with your John at all. The one individual that I feel certain about is the John Kysinger who purchased land from Charles Kysinger in 1806 in Washington County. John then turned around and sold the land to Henry Eakel. John appears to have appeared in the deeds up through 1811, but then was gone. He may have been the John Gysinger of Bedford County in 1810. His age and the ages of the children would fit. In the 1820 census I found a John Kisinger in Berkeley County, Virginia who had four sons under 10, a daughter under 10 and a daughter over 10. This could fit the John of Bedford County. Berkeley was bordering Washington County on the South, and at that time almost bordered Bedford County, Pennsylvania. He was gone from there in 1830, but a John Kutzinger in Hardy County, not far away, looks like he might fit. No other John Kysinger, Gysinger, Kissinger, etc. anywhere in the country seems to fit as well. I haven't gotten into the records of Berkeley or Hardy County to find out what information may be on hand.
I searched the War of 1812 pension applications and found a pension on file for Jacob Kessinger of Maryland, under the name of his wife Margaret. I don't know which Jacob this was and it might be worthwhile sending for the file to see what it might add. There were no other pension files for any other Geisingers or Kissingers, or pertinent possibilities. I also searched the Maryland land patents, which were indexed volume by volume. However I found that after volumn 135 (1785) the records were not indexed in the books. To find out if Charles or any of his children obtained property from the state, we need to write to the Maryland State Archives and have the card file index there examined for the Geissinger/Kissinger name. I also searched for Charles in the Pennsylvania land grants for York and Adams Counties. Nothing.
I suspect that some of Charles's children died between 1790 and 1800. There were two older sons not counting Charles Jr., George, or John, and I can't account for them after 1790. They might be right in front of me, but I believe that there may have been circumstances in the family, perhaps such as death, that precipitated the two sons being apprenticed out when they were. It is also possible that Charles's wife died about that time and he had to consider what to do about his family. I don't know at this point.
I also don't know quite what to think about the Catherine Kysinger of Washington County, who together with Elizabeth Kysinger of Richland County, Ohio, and Sally Kysinger settled the estate of Jacob Kysinger. Is this the Catherine who left the will in 1839? I wondered if that Catherine had been the widow of Charles, but she appears to have been too young in 1830. This may be Catherine the widow of Jacob, and if so, then there is a second Jacob who married after they did, who fits heaven knows where.
There is still alot of work that needs to be done here. I have mostly skimmed off cream, and looked for easy answers. I need to do some serious research in court records in Maryland and Pennsylvania, some of which I will have done back there. I need to do a more thorough search of deeds in Maryland, and a number of other state records, as well as getting into records in Virginia, to see if they drifted off down there.
One question I have for you, is the origin of the information or theory that Charles Geissinger's wife was Catherine Russell. Where does the Russell name come from? I haven't even looked into the possibility to see if it might lead somewhere. What can you tell me about it?
Sorry if I have rambled on some of this material. We're still at a rambling state. But more of it is definitly coming together. Maybe we can find church records or obituaries in Jefferson County, Ohio that can tell us more about Charles Jr. and his family and their cousins. Well, we can always hope.
Sincerely,
James W. Petty, Genealogist