The April 2016 issue of Mennonite Family History published a story about three different groups of Mennonite Augsburger Orphans who lived from 1824 to 1850. Recent discoveries reveal the existence of four more children who belonged to the middle 1837 group, descending from Noah Augsburger III. Some review is necessary to clarify these findings.

The Third Noah Augsburger

Noah Augsburger IIl was born about 1792 on the Canardiere Estate at Strasbourg in Alsace. He was the only son of four children born to Noah Augsburger II and Anna Muller.

Noah III (d. Apr. 1837) married Elizabeth Eyer/Eierin (d. Mar. 30, 1837). Noah III and Elizabeth (Eyer) Augsburger lived on several different Bavarian farms over the years when their children were born. For that reason, it has been difficult to trace how many children they had and where the birthplaces of their children were located. Part of the family’s historical data remains incomplete at this time.

What we knew previously was that after leaving Strasbourg in Alsace, Noah III’s family first lived at the Hanfeld estate in Bavaria, near Starnberg. The family is next found at the Hertleshof estate near Mindelheim, Bavaria. On October 31, 1818, Noah III of Hanfeld purchased the Hertleshof estate for 7,000 florins. (Bavarian genealogist Herbert Holly found a deed which reveals this transaction.) These Bavarian locations mentioned are clustered together in an area south of Augsburg and southwest of Munich, as seen on the above map.

Seven years after Noah III purchased Hertleshof, evidence shows that Noah III and Elizabeth and their seven children had encountered hard times on their farm. Herbert Holly found a voucher dated April 17, 1825, which indicates that Noah III may have had some debts which a Jacob Holly was helping him pay. In addition to this, Herbert Holly uncovered evidence of a real estate settlement (foreclosure) which occurred on December 7, 1825. The lengthy list of creditors on the auction document included the names of “Noe Augsburger Junior,” Christian Augsburger, and the “Mennnonite” Steinman, who signed for the daughter of Noah Augsburger. Each of the co-signers had loaned him 15 guilders.

In 1826, Daniel Unzicker bought Hertleshof estate from a person who had purchased it from a creditor of Noah Augsburger II. At that time, the value of the property had dropped to 3,900 florins. With no place to live, Noah III and his wife and seven children most likely continued to stay at Hertleshof with the Daniel Unzicker family until his father Noah II died in 1828.

Noah III then moved with his family to Perlach, Bavaria, where their eighth child, Peter, was born in 1828. In 1830, we find them in Penzing at Landsberg, where they lived in house number 57. Their ninth child, Daniel, is recorded born there in 1830. A recent discovery indicates that, in 1831, the family was living in house number 7 on the Huber farm, at Gimmenhausen, near Lindenhausen. It was not a big farm. The picture on the next page was taken in 1937. It was here that their first daughter, Katharina, was born on June 30, 1831. By August 1, 1833, another daughter, Barbara, was born at Gimmenhausen.

By 1834, the Noah Augsburger III family had settled at Penzing near Landsberg, where yet another daughter, Elizabeth/Elise was born. Their thirteenth child, and last daughter, Magdalena, was born at Penzing in 1837. Unfortunately, both parents, Noah III and Elizabeth (Eyer) Augsburger, died that same year.

Elizabeth (Eyer) died March 30, 1837, from apoplexy (sudden death from stroke). Noah Augsburger III died a few days later in April 1837 of tuberculosis. Noah III was buried on April 8, 1837, ministered by Andreas Eyer, whose family lived nearby at Stillerhof.

Approximately ten of Noah III and Elizabeth’s children were left orphans. In the MFH Augsburger Orphan Story, they are identified as the middle group of three inter-related Augsburger orphans. What happened to each of them as they were growing-up, continues to be researched.

Genealogist Helmut Gingerich of Bavaria has compiled the following birth list which shows that a total of 13 children were born to Noah Augsburger III and Elisabeth (Eyer). One can see that the first nine children were boys and the last four were girls. Some of these children immigrated to America. The updated birth list is as follows:

1. (The first) Noah Augsburger, born Feb. 24, 1817 at Hanfeld, Bavaria; died on July 5, 1817.
2. Christian Augsburger, born Apr. 29, 1818 at Hanfeld; new evidence reveals that he died in 1833 at Gimmenhausen, Bavaria, at the age of 15. A copy of the original Ludenhausen churchbooks listed Christian as, “Son of Noe Augsburger.” No further Augsburger births are registered at Hanfeld.
3. Noah Augsburger IV, born Nov. 30, 1819, in “Bavaria”, reportedly immigrated to America. At this time, facts are not completely clear that this Noah IV is the son of Noah III (1792), but circumstances strongly agree that he is. For example, a Noah Augsburger and his wife Magdalena Schrock/Schrag, both from Germany, are buried side-by-side in the Mennonite Cemetery in Hopedale, Illinois. Photos of their gravestones were taken by this writer in September 2018. (See below).
4. Joseph Augsburger, born Nov. 1, 1821, at Hertleshof; a marriage to Magdalena Unzicker is rumored only.
5. Jacob Augsburger, born July 29, 1823, at Hertleshof; died Feb. 21, 1869, in Tazewell County, Illinois. He immigrated to America, and on August 7, 1848, in Lancaster Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania, Jacob Augsburger married Barbara Steinman, born June 16, 1829. They had nine children: Magdaline, Noah, Christian, Elizabeth, Catherine, Andrew, Anna, Daniel, and Veronika. Widowed in her late 30s, Barbara (Steinman) Augsburger married Widower Christian Sutter on April 15, 1873. His first wife, Magdalena Nafziger, had died May 25, 1871. Jacob and Barbara (Steinman) Augsburger-Suttor are buried at the Landes Mennonite Cemetery in Elm Grove, Illinois.
   Their gravestone is pictured above, with markers for “Mother” and “Father” on each side. In their family Bible, Jacob’s birth date is written as July 25, 1824, a year and a few days different from his original birth date listed at Hertleshof, Bavaria. Documentation is pending to confirm without a doubt that Noah Augsburger IV (1821), Jacob Augsburger (1823), and Johann/John Augsburger (1826) of Illinois are all children of Noah Augsburger III. Circumstances do present a strong indication of this likelihood. One indication is the fact that their Augsburger spouses were from families who lived in the same Bavarian areas as Noah II and Noah III.
6. Andreas Augsburger was born January 3, 1825, at Hertleshof; and died January 18, 1825 at Hertleshof.
7. Johann/John Augsburger (a new discovery) was born January 1826 in “Germany.” His father Noah III’s Hertleshof farm was foreclosed that year. John married Katharina Ingold and emigrated to Illinois in 1861.
8. Petrus (Peter) Augsburger (a new discovery) was born February 16, 1828, in Perlach (near Munich). His name was not included on the original birth list, but was inserted later from documented data. This important finding by Herbert Holly, from the birth records at St. Michael’s Church in Perlach, indicates that Noe (Noah) Augsburger, with his wife Elizabeth (Eyer), lived in Perlach in 1828. New evidence reveals that Noe was employed as a “distillery master” at the distillery on the estate of Andreas Birky. Helmut Gingerich subsequently found that near Regensburg, Bavaria, in June 1864, an illegitimate son was born to a daughter of a Schanz family. The birthfather was Peter Augsburger of Perlach, then working at Triftelfing, the home of another Augsburger family. Subsequently, in 1870 in Illinois, a Peter Oxberger (Augsburger), then about 42 years old, lived in the Steinman household, where Daniel Augsburger Junior and his sister Lizzie Augsburger were living with their half-siblings and their mother Maria (Oesch) (Augsburger) Steinman and stepfather Jacob Steinman. (Maria and Jacob Steinman were this writer’s great-grandmother and step-great-grandfather.) In 1870, they lived in Allin Township in McLean County, Illinois, when about seven of their 11 children had been born. (This writer’s grandfather, Daniel Augsburger, was age eight and his full sister Lizzie was age nine at the time. It is fascinating to think that this lost Augsburger orphan, Peter, was found working on such a closely-related family’s farm. More data would be helpful to prove that these two Peter Augsburgers are the same person.)
9. Daniel Augsburger was born March 27, 1830, at Penzing, Bavaria.
10. Katharina Augsburger (a new discovery) was born June 30, 1831, at Gimmenhausen, Bavaria.
11. Barbara Augsburger (a new discovery) was born August 1, 1833 on the Huber farm at Gimmenhausen, Bavaria. Barbara gave birth to a son at the Stoffersberg estate near Landsberg at a time when an Unzicker and a Stähly were at the farm. Bavarian records indicate she emigrated to America in 1853.
12. Elizabeth/Elise Augsburger was born May 27, 1834, in Penzing, Bavaria, near Landsberg (not Stillerhof) and died on August 6, 1921, in Burgweinting near Regensburg, where she was buried. In 1868, Elise worked as a maid on the farm of Christian Gingerich in Pössing (near Penzing). According to a newspaper story, she received an award in 1868 for 20 years of faithful service as a maid on that farm. She never married and lived in Arnstorf in 1900 where she was a member of the Regensburg Mennonite Church. At that time, one Jacob Augsburger (descending from Noah Augsburger I’s brother Nicholas Augsburger) also lived in Arnstorf. In the 1960s, the Mennonites erected their assembly house in Burgweinting, but long before that, it was the home of the Hochstettler families who were related to the Augsburgers.
13. Magdalena Augsburger was born February 17, 1837, in Penzing, Bavaria. She became an orphan in less than two months. It is not known if she was adopted or fostered by families close by. It is possible that she married a Mennonite by the name of Steinman.

Noah Augsburger III and Elizabeth (Eyer) and their children had a life of struggle and tragedy, but were helped along the way by stable community connections. These Mennonite families of Augsburger, Eyer, Gingerich, Hochstettler, Holly, Ingold, Nafziger, Schrock, Stähly, Steinman, Sutter, Unzicker, etc., are found connected over and over again through the years, in various situations and localities, even spanning the Atlantic. It seems that, in spite of the passing of many decades, the same little miracles of community togetherness and love still manage to evolve.