Ancestry Saturday: Five-Generation Chart Confirmed

My Aunt's email sparked a flood gate opening.  She shared that she had found a marriage certificate for my great grandparents, Andrew Alfred Baker and Beatrice Merz Baker, with the names of Andrew Alfred's parents--Michael and Barbara Baker.

Now, those names weren't particularly new.  They were, however, more definitive in this document than the anecdotal information passed down previously.

That motivated me to look back at my notes.

A couple months ago, I had found an Elizabeth Baker in Cleveland with parents Michael and Barbara (Fries) Baker. I, even, went so far as to leave a voice mail with a living step great grandson of hers a few weeks ago.

These folks were my top suspects.  Family stories had a sister Elizabeth in the mix.  This Elizabeth was close in age to Alfred, also imigrated from Germany, and lived on the West Side of Cleveland.  It sure seemed more than coincidental that her parents were named Michael and Barbara too.

But I could not find what happened to Barbara Fries or link her or Elizabeth to Alfred.

Then it occurred to me to look for the first name Barbara with the last name Fries for the father in the Ohio Death Index on FamilySearch.org.  Pay dirt.

This death record gives a married name Albert that I didn't have before.  It stood to reason that she remarried as every family story had Alfred's father dying before the family came to America.  

The married name gave me the clue that linked them to Alfred.  In the 1900 Census, Barbara (Fries) Albert is living at 1054 Lorain St in Cleveland with her husband, Jacob.  Further, living next door is Elizabeth Luebke.  That's Alfred's presumed sister. 

1054 Lorain is significant because that's the same address Andrew Alfred Baker gave for next of kin in his Spanish-American War physical record.  Though the record gave Jacob Baker as the person, it's fair to say it was actually his step father Jacob to which it referred. 

The Censuses had clues to immigration and marriage years.  Soon, a naturalization record for Jacob Albert gave way to verifying that Jacob immigrated in 1883 and Barbara and the kids came over in 1884.

Though a tear in the stewarge list covers the 8 year old boy's name who came over with Barb, showing Elisa and Johannes (step brother John) on the same ship tells us this is the arrival record for my Great Grandfather.

Sorry for a long post, but this one has been a long mystery.  Even though some more records would perfect this find, I declare the names solved.

But now that I've filled in all of the names for my five-generation chart, it's time to tackle the sixth!