06 May 2015

Pastor Klockemeyer Update

I received an email from the ELCA Archivist regarding pastor "Klorkemeyer," who baptized Anna Margaretha Dirks in the general area of Coatsburg, Illinois, in 1861.

Basically the archivist was able to tell me the general area where Klockemeyer was in the early 1860s.

There was not a good answer as to what specific church Klockemeyer was affiliated with during that year. Heinrich Klockemeyer appears to have been affiliated with several small congregations in the Hancock and Adams County area in the 1860s. The German native Klockemeyer was a member of the General Synod after immigrating in 1857 and later was a member of the Iowa Synod. His locations relative to the 1861 time period are as follows:

  • H. Glockenmeyer is listed in Nauvoo in 1860 (where Christ Lutheran was located)
  • In 1861 Klockemeyer is listed in Burton, Adams County, Illinois
  • In 1863 Klockemeyer is listed in Tioga, Hancock County, Illinois
Burton is reasonably close to Coatsburg and he may have been a "locally available Lutheran minister" who was able to perform the baptism of Anna Margaretha in 1861. The only record of her baptism may be the entry in the "family register" at the St. Peter Lutheran Church in Coatsburg. At this point, it may not be worth additional time in trying to track down the original record of the baptism--there simply may not be one and whatever record the family had of her baptism may have been lost forever. 

There is an interesting side note to Klockemeyer. 

He is listed as having been in Tioga, Hancock County, Illinois in 1863. There's only one Lutheran church in the Tioga area--the one that my Trautvetter family attended and the one where my great-great-grandparents were married in 1868. So it's possible that Klockemeyer interacted with two of my ancestral families. 

Sometimes more discoveries are made by happenstance than anything else. 

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Source:

Email from Joel Thoreson, ELCA Chief Archivist to Michael John Neill, 29 April 2015.