Who are these people?

Do you recognize any of the Gottsackers on this page? If so, you can help! The Gottsacker names on this page have been discovered during research on the Gottsacker family genealogy. Some of them come from relatives who are having difficulty in tracking ancestors, some come from references uncovered during searches, others come from government sources like census records, birth, marriage or death records, or social security records. All of them are mysteries and cannot be directly linked to any other Gottsacker in the family tree. If you are familiar with any of them, it would help lots if you would e-mail me at gottsackerj@yahoo.com.

Mathias and Louisa Gruenberg Gottsacker

Mathias and Louisa (above) were married on Nov. 27th, 1829, apparently settled around Houston, Minnesota and had a large family. The children include John (or possibly named Joseph), Anna, Mary, Edward, Niekol, Agatha, Francisca, and Louisa. The children were born between the years 1883 and 1899. Sometime after the last child was born, both Mathias and Louisa died and at least some of the children were placed in an orphanage. While in the orphanage, their surname was changed to ‘Meyer’. One genealogy researcher has speculated that since Gottsackers in Sheboygan were close to a Meyer family in Sheboygan that it may have been this Meyer family who eventually adopted the children whose names were changed to Meyer. This family is of particular interest because there are several descendants who are very interested in learning about their heritage, but have run into many dead-ends in their efforts to research this family. The photo was provided by Mary Dye, one of those descendants.

2022 Update: Most of the above information is correct. Mathias died in Medford, WI in 1914. Mathias was found dead in his home by children playing nearby. Two of Mathias’ children, Niekol (Nick) and Joseph (Joe) did grow up in the Meyer family as stated above but apparently were never formally adopted. The orphanage information above appears to be correct. Some reports say that the two Meyer children were simply taken in by the Meyers. Two additional children were formally adopted by other families. The information on Mathias’ death was in the Medford, WI newspaper on April 5, 1914. More information is available by searching ‘Mathias Gottsacker’ on findagrave.com. The author has a complete family tree for this family. Most of the information on this family was provided by Mary Dye and Michelle Martin.

Mystery Marriages

The following marriages are also a mystery. Typically, the information for each marriage appears in only one source and is found nowhere else, so it has been difficult to determine where they fit in the Gottsacker family tree.

Christina Gottsacker who married Leonard Hess on Oct 20, 1903.

John Gottsacker who married Margaretha Ackerman on Apr. 9, 1883 in Medford, WI.