Back in early 2014, I requested from the state of Wisconsin, the marriage record of my great grandparents Nelson and Mary (Lutz) Woodward, the marriage record of Mary's parents, John and Olive Etta (Roth) Lutz, and the marriage record of Etta's parents, John Peter and Mary Louise Roth. Prior to receiving these marriage records, I had no information about the parents of either John Peter or Mary Louise Roth.
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| John Peter and Louisa Roth |
The marriage record of John and Mary Roth listed Mary's parents as Caroline and Frederick Voght. This provided me with Mary's maiden name and the first names of her parents. As of May 2015, I have not found any additional information about the Voght family. Mary's mother Caroline's maiden name would be required in order to find Caroline's parents and move forward with what is now a dead end.
John's trade was listed as Blacksmith on the marriage record.
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| Excerpt from the marriage record on John and Mary Roth |
Instead, I turned to John's side of the tree, the Roth family. The Roth marriage license listed John Peter's parents as John N. Roth and Elizabeth Roth. I did not have Elizabeth's maiden name, so exploring her family tree would not be possible. John and Mary Roth have a grave site at Buckwheat Ridge Cemetery in Ellenboro Township, Grant County Wisconsin near their farm.
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| Grave Marker at Buckwheat Ridge Cemetery |
I easily found John Peter and his family on the U.S Census records in 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910. Given that John Peter's birthdate on the marker says Nov 11, 1845, I searched the census looking for John Peter, living with his parents John N and Elizabeth. It turned out that John Roth is a fairly common name, at least in the state of Wisconsin. I found many possible matches, but for one reason or another, elements eventually did not match up and I had to start over, multiple times over the course of a year.
Something that I had noted on each of the census records between 1880 and 1910 was that John's birthdate ranged from 1846 to 1849 with none of them being consistent, although one record did mention November. With John Peter's grave marker showing a birthdate of 1845, I now had 4 different birth years. I would have to find another way to locate the Roth family.
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| Excerpt from Marriage Record on John and Mary Roth. John's birthplace says "Ditto" meaning Town of Cottage Grove. |
Returning to John Peter's marriage record, I noticed something interesting. John Peter did not marry in Grant County, he married in Dane County. Furthermore, John's residence and his birthplace were listed as Town of Cottage Grove, Dane County, Wisconsin. Their marriage was conducted in Mazomanie, just west of Madison. The town of Cottage Grove lies just east of Madison. It is possible that Louisa's parents were from Mazomanie, since they were listed as the witnesses on the marriage record. This will need to be looked into further at a later date.
Armed with John Peter's birthplace and home town of Cottage Grove, I searched the U.S. Census records for John Roth in 1870, the last Census prior to his marriage to Louisa. At first, I found nothing. Then, I found a family that had been listed with the lastname of Rothe. The Rothe family lived in Cottage Grove in 1870. The father, John was a farmer. There was a son whose name was also John and was born in about 1849. 1849 is close to the dates found previously, although 4 years later than the grave marker in Ellenboro.
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| 1870 U.S Census for the Rothe family in Cottage Grove, Dane County, Wisconsin |
Looking at the rest of the Rothe family census record, I saw that the senior John's wife's name was listed as Betsey. Betsey is a common nickname for Elizabeth. Could Rothe actually be Roth? Searching further, I found the Dane County Atlas from 1873, just 3 years after the 1870 census, which included the farm of J. N. Roth. Who else could this farm belong to but John N. Roth? Even today, Cottage Grove has a population of only about 4,000 people. After looking over the 2015 maps of the area, I believe that the land just off of Sigglekow road is still being used as a farm today, it is split in half by Big Door Creek (now just called Door Creek) north of where the river branches to Little Door creek.
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| Dane County Atlas Cottage Grove Wisconsin 1873. |
The 1870 census included 3 other children of John N Roth, Phillip, David and Minnie. I began searching the 1880 census. I knew that by 1880 John Peter was married and living in Ellenboro. I found John N living with his two sons, Phillip and David on the farm in Cottage Grove. John was even listed with his middle initial "N". Elizabeth and Minnie were not listed at all on the Census. Where had they gone?
Additional research on the findagrave.com website uncovered a grave marker in the Liberty Prairie Cemetery in Dane County which included the names Johann N. Roth, Elisabeth Roth, David Roth and Wilheminne E Roth. Johanne is often shortened to John, and Wilhemine often became Minnie as I have seen in other areas of my family tree. It appeared that Elisabeth (now likely the correct spelling) had passed away in 1879 and that John Peter's sister Minnie (Wilhelmine) had died only a year before at age 28. I do not know at this point how Wilhelmine died. This is something worth looking into at a later date.
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| Roth grave marker at Liberty Prairie Cemetery in Da |
David never married or had children. Phillip married Maria "Mary" Schlomgen on January 20, 1882, three years after his mother's death. Phillip and Mary had two daughters named Emma and Mary.
Phillip and Mary are buried in Farview-Hake Cemetery in Grant county Wisconsin, not far from where John Peter and Louisa lived and are buried. I still do not know John Peter Roth's birthdate, the state does not have any birth records for the family. Phillip's headstone lists his birth year as 1846. The 1870 census showed Phillip as being 2 years older than John Peter. Brother, David was born four years after Phillip in 1850. This would make John Peters most reasonable birth year 1848, three years later than the date on his grave marker.
Johann N Roth's birth year is listed as 1809 on his grave marker, however, the Census of 1870 says 1816 and the Census of 1880 says that he was born in 1811. This gives me a 7 year range to work with. Johann's wife Elisabeth, however has a birth year of 1806 on the grave marker, while the 1870 Census shows her as having been born in 1820. It seems clear to me that this family did not celebrate birthdays. In every census, Johann and Elisabeth listed their birthplace as Prussia (modern day Germany). Looking at John Peter's 1900 and 1910 report to the census, I found that John Peter's father was listed as being born in Germany, but his mother was listed as being born in Pennsylvania.
