It is not easy, sometimes, to find the paper trail of our ancestors.
Case in point — John Rapparlie and his brood appear on the 1850s Federal Census in neat, legible handwriting. But his brother-in-law Jakob Handrich? His wife’s parents, Heinrich and Catherine Handrich? They’re just not there. But we have letters that state that they were there, in fact, living in Cleveland nearby the Rapparlies, at “House Place”.
After innumerable searches under every misspelling of Handrich I could think of, I resorted to a time-consuming exercise, leafing through the U.S. Federal Census page by page, starting with Ward 1 of Cleveland. I think I found them.
Maybe it’s not so legible, but here’s what we’ve got — check out the entry 757/840, where it says Philip Henry, 68 years old of Germany. Beneath his name is Catherine Henry, 68, and beneath them, Ja”. Henry, 25, Male, Furnace man(?).
Here’s what I think. None of them could speak English — so the census taker wrote down Henry for Handrich, because that’s what it sounded like to him. Heinrich Handrich’s name was Philipp Heinrich Handrich, so it makes sense to me that if the Americans were calling him Henry Henry, he’d be inclined to switch to Philip. Wouldn’t you? And Jakob was working at a factory where they built steam engines for ships, so it fits that he’d be a “furnace man.”
According to the letters, my great-great-great Uncle Jakob lived with the “old people” and “spoiled them” until they died, around 1854 or 1855, then lit out for California to try his luck in the Gold Rush. What a guy.
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