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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Vienop Family History per Ancestry.com

I recently re-located information that I'd found over a year ago on Ancestry.com.  For whatever reason, I have a hard time finding it using the search on Ancestry itself.  Instead, I used a Google search with "Vienop Family Genealogy" and there's the link to Ancestry.com's page called "Vienop Family History".

As no surprise, the first noticeable diagram is a map indicating where the Vienop name was found in the 1920 U.S. Census.  It indicates, California and Nebraska.  That would be correct and pinpoint my family and their relations living in Nebraska.

If I click on the overall results for Vienop for all U.S. Census from 1860-1930, the results show them still living in Napa, California and Jefferson County, Nebraska in 1930.  If I look at 1910, I find the same locations of Napa, CA and in Nebraska but there's a Chas Vienop in Missouri.  Who is he?

Now, I've tried to track down this Chas, Charles, and/or Carl Vienop previously in Missouri.  I can't figure out who he is.  My uncle, who is an expert on our Vienop and Borchers line, does not know his connection to our family either.  We are stumped a bit over that right now.  St. Louis, Missouri is not out of the question at all for the Vienop name.  It's just that the vast majority did not stick around there after the 1890s.  It really is a shame that the 1890 U.S. Census did not survive.  It would fill in so many blanks.

Another very interesting category is the section with 141 Birth, Marriage, and Deaths.  When I peek at that section, there are so many Vienop's indicated there and I do not have them all on my family tree.  Mind you, many of the marriages took place in Napa, CA.  This may be a good project for me.  I could really sit down and figure out who all of the Napa Vienop's were.  I know the original 10.  I have also figured out that a few more showed up.  Everyone seems to have raised their family in Napa for at least the first generation born in that location, and for some, a second and third generation.

Next, I peeked at the Civil War Service Records.  There I found that Charles Vienop again.  His date of birth was about 1841 and he served our country in 1862 as a Union Soldier out of Missouri.

That's an interesting bit of Vienop history on Ancestry.com.  I can connect to it easily and identify my relatives, my ancestors.  I think the key to success here is that Vienop is an uncommon name in the U.S.  In fact, my family specifically and consistently changed the spelling of the name from Vinup to Vienop upon immigration to the U.S. 

I do wonder if Charles Vienop is a cousin.  I have not found any other definitive information about him that connects him to my Vienop family.  I can see clearly that Charles Fred Vienop married Caroline L. Meier in St. Louis, MO on 11 Oct 1864.  I have found him in Civil War records and he turns up time and time again in U.S. Census, IRS records, and with a number of children.  If I go off track at all on the spelling of the Vienop name when searching for Charles, I find a Carl in Ohio.  I think they are two different people.

So, when it comes to Vienop's, I can trace my direct line, the four original Vienop brother to come to the U.S. along with their mother all the way back to Börninghausen, Germany.  The question along the way is "Who is Charles Vienop?"   Is he the mystery Vienop Cousin?  At least for now. 

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