This week I am going to highlight someone who is not really related to me, but I am fascinated by the name. Maria Sara Knieriemen was the wife of my first cousin five times removed. (My computer program, TMG, figured that out for me). I had never heard of this name before, so when her marriage to David Horneff on January 7, 1845 showed up in my genealogy this week, I thought I would look into it.

Like many names, Knieriemen has many variant spellings. The Knierman DNA Surname project includes these variants in their project: Knearem, Knerien, Kniereman, Knieriemen, Knierim, Knierinm, Knierman, Knireman, Nearman, Niermann. In their description of the origin they state: “The German word Knerem is defined as a shoemakers’ strap or stirrup, a cobbler, Knieriemen.”

A search on Knieriemen also brought up the Ancestry surname page. They didn’t have a meaning for Knieriemen, but they did have some other statistics. In 1920, there weren’t very many Knieriemen households in the United States, with 3 each in Ohio and Indiana, 2 in New Jersey and 1 in Maryland. Places of origin gathered from the New York Passengers Lists shows they were from Germany. In the United States in 1880 they were farmers, and there was one Cobanus Knieriemen who fought for the Union in the Civil War.

Maria Sara Knieriemen was born about 1818 and was the daughter of Conrad Knieriemen and Katharina Albrecht. She married David Horneff in Otterberg, Bavaria.

One of my New Year’s resolutions this year is to post more to this poor neglected blog. So I’ve decided to start a weekly post, This Week in my Genealogy, highlighting some of the people in my Conrad-Todd-Garrison-Carman database.

And to show how far behind I am in updating the web version of that database, I am going to start with two people who are not even on that site, along with their brother whose information is way out of date. Georg Peter & Johannes Hornef were born December 28, 1824 in Otterberg, Germany and are one of the few pairs of twins that I have in my database. They were born to Georg Peter Hornef & Katharina Cherdron. I found them through the FamilySearch Record Search pilot. Their older brother, Jacob Hornef, was my Great-great-great grandfather who emigrated to Philadelphia in the 1840’s. He was born on January 2, 1819 in Otterberg. I’ve already posted about my Hornef discoveries through Record Search, which is also where I found Jacob’s birth information, so I won’t go into it much here.

From some of my newest finds, to one of my earliest. Actually this wasn’t my find at all, but my grandfather’s. When I first became interested in genealogy, my grandmother brought out some papers of my late grandfather’s research into the family history. Included were the Civil War pension file records of his grandfather James B. Garrison. One hundred fifty years ago this week, on Jan 1, 1859, James B. Garrison married Emma M. Ireland in Bridgeton, NJ. The image below is from those pension file documents. Click on it to see the full-sized scan.

I came across Katharina Horneff’s obituary by accident. I wasn’t expecting to find it. Horneff¹ is one of the few unique surnames I have and I search it on any new database I find. In this case it was in GenealogyBank which has the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1834-1922. In my results was an obituary for Katharina Horneff from 1911. It stated that the funeral would be at her grandson, Jacob Carman’s house. Seems cut and dry, but I still had to check to make sure it was my Jacob Carman since there were two of the same age in Philadelphia at the time. It took me awhile to be convinced, too, despite the unique name and the grandson being named. The truth was I thought I would never find Katharina Horneff. Indeed, I didn’t even know that was her name.

My grandmother’s grandmother was Catherine² Horneff Carman and she passed away in 1913. I had no luck in finding her on the Census records³ before she married and only her father was listed on her death certificate. I thought her mother had therefore passed away long before and Catherine’s family had either not met her or had forgotten her name. Not only had they known her, she had passed away only two years before her daughter!

Another new genealogy site, FamilySearch’s Record Search Pilot, brought me more on Katharina Horneff. I found her death certificate which listed her birth date and her parents’ names (Leonhard Faber & Eva Huber). And then, I hit a gold mine. The family I thought I would never get anywhere with, led me straight back to Europe for the first time in my genealogical research.

Record Search has indexed church records from Otterberg, Germany and like a clichéd plot device, that is exactly where my Horneffs happened to be from. I found the Marriage record for Jacob and Katharina Faber Horneff which listed both of their parents. I found Katharina’s christening record with the same birth date as on her death certificate. I found Catherine Horneff’s christening record listing her parents Jacob and Katharina, as well as her full birth date. I had had only the month and year before. I was certain that these were my ancestors.

The Fabers were a bit of a dead end, but the Horneffs were all over the place. I found Jacob’s parents (Georg Peter Horneff and Catherine Cherdron) and grandparents (David Horneff & Susanne Weber and Johann Philipp Cherdron & Margarethe Port). And I found siblings of them all as well.

After doing some googling, I found a book called 300 Jahre Auswanderung aus Otterberg which I was able to get through Interlibrary Loan and which informed me rather mysteriously that Jacob Horneff and his wife and daughter, and later Eva Faber and her son Carl, had emigrated “secretly” from Otterberg in 1846 and 1850 respectively.

This gives me some hope my other dead ends as well: Nicholas & Catharine (Emmering/Emmerling?) Conrad, Joseph & Frances Funston, Charles & Caroline (Brill) Carman, Samuel & Lydia (Burch) Garrison, and more. There will always be dead ends. May they all be temporary.

1. Horneff was also found as Hornef
2. Mother and daughter, Katharina and Catherine, were found as Katharina, Katherina, Kathrina, Katherine, Catherine, etc. I settled on Katharina and Catherine to help keep them straight.
3. I have since found the Horneffs on all the applicable censuses.

Civil War Pension file: Elon Carman, Private, Co. K, 5th Reg’t, Penna. Cav.
Abstracted and Transcribed from photocopies obtained from National Archives and Records Administration

From Declaration for Pension
(Act of Feb. 6, 1907)
State of Penna.
County of Philada.
On this 24 Day of September, A.D. one thousand nine hundred and ten (1910) personally appeared before me, a Notary Public within and for the county and State aforesaid, Elon Carman who, being duly sworn according to law, declares that he is 70 years of age, and a resident of Philada. county of Philada., State of Penna.; and that he is the identical person who was enrolled at Philada., Penna. under the name of Elon Carman, on the 19th day of September 1864 as a Private, in Co. K, 5th Reg’t Penna. Cavly Vols. (Full service has been stated) in the service of the United States in the Civil war and was honorably discharged at Richmond, Va., on the 19th day of May 1865.
…That his personal description was as follows: Height 5 feet 4 inches; complexion Light; color of eyes, Blue; color of hair, Brown; that his occupation was Bricklayer; that he was born on the 20 day of September, 1840 at Philadelphia, State of Pennsylvania.

From form 3-389 Dept. of
the Interior, Bureau of Pensions.
Sir: Please answer, at your earliest convenience, the questions enumerated below.
…
No. 1. Date and place of birth?
Philadelphia September 20, 1840.
The name of organizations in which you served?
Bricklayers Union No 1, Phila.
No. 2. What was your post office at enlistment?
Kensington post office
No. 3. State your wife’s full name and her maiden name.
Catherine Carman ne Horneff [second f crossed out]
Bo. 4. When, where and by whom were you married?
Philadelphia, Twenty-first day of October 1862 by Minister John Wilson.
No. 5. Is there any official or church record of your marriage?
don’t know
…
No. 8. Are you now living with your wife, or has there been a separation?
death, dead
No. 9. State the names and dates of birth of all your children, living or dead.
Jacob Carman born May 26, 1863 Phila. living
Joseph Elon Carman born April 6, 1872 Phila living
Carolina Carman born August 26, 1869 Phila. dead.

March 31, 1915
(signature) X Elon Carman

From Application for Reimbursement
State of Pennsylvania
County of Philadelphia
On this 13th day of Oct, A.D. one thousand nine hundred and nineteen (1919) personally appeared before me a Notary Public within and for the County and State aforesaid, Mary J. Hoy, aged 77 years, a resident of Phila., County of Philadelphia, State of Pennsylvania, who being duly sworn according to law, makes the following declaration in order to obtain reimbursement from the accrued pension for expenses paid (or obligation incurred) in the last sickness and burial of Elon Carman, who was a pensioner of the United States by certificate No. 1083859 on account of the service of Elon Carman in Private Co. K 5th Reg
Penna. Calvary.
…
6. Were any sick or death benefits paid on pensioner’s account?
Bricklayers Union #300.
[Schuyler] Post G.A.R. #30
…
19. What was your relation to the deceased pensioner?
Sister
20. Are you married?
Widow
…
24. Give the name and post-office address of each physician who attended the
pensioner during last sickness.
Howard M. [Shriner] Cumberland St. near Jasper St.
…
28. When did the pensioner die?
Sept. 8, 1919.
29. Where was the pensioner buried?
Mt. Moriah Cemetery, Phila. Pa.
…
Also appeared Anna Doyle and Rose Henry.
…We knew pensioner 21 years.
…
Give name of each person who rendered service as nurse, and who has made or will make a charge for such service.
Sister Mrs. Mary J. Hoy 338 E. Somerset St.
Nephew John P. Hoy 338 E. Somerset St.