The Proeger Family · Migration

Migration

Every birth and death the record can place, decade by decade. Each dot is a person; each hop is a life, or a child born somewhere new.

Map of births and deaths, decade by decade.

Read the dashes. A dashed dot is drawn at the centre of a state or country because the record names nothing smaller; a dashed hop starts from the nearest earlier birth in the same line because no parent with a known birthplace is linked. A life's own hop is drawn in the year of death, since the record holds no year of emigration. Selland & Lone has no placed event yet and is absent.

The linesThe timelineFind a person

Where the family went

Four routes into two American families

The Proeger line — a glassworker's map

Germany→Pittsburgh→Greensburg & Beaver Co., PA→ Cincinnati→Chicago→Dunkirk, NY→ Los Angeles→San Diego

Read cold, the residence trail looks like a random list of cities, and FamilySearch offers it only as an unverified event list Probable confirm or correct → S12. Read alongside the patents, it stops being random. Pittsburgh and Greensburg were the American glass belt. Cincinnati sits directly across the Ohio River from Covington, Kentucky, where Robert Hemingray's glassworks took the assignment of the 1876 design patent. Dunkirk, New York had its own window-glass works. This is a career, not a wander.

The Coffman line — West Texas to the capital

Page Co., VA & Owsley Co., KY→Callahan Co., TX→ Pasadena, TX→Abilene→Tulsa, OK→ Austin

Fully sourced, every link. David Emily Coffman came out of Page County, Virginia and died at Merkel, Taylor County and is buried at Dudley in Callahan County S20; his son James David was born at Buffalo Gap in 1881 and married Lydia Mae Bowles at Potosi in 1901 S18S16. Their son Robert William Coffman spent his career inside the Pasadena Independent School District, Harris County: the 1950 census enters his line of work as school administration S10 without naming the post, and the Texas press supplies the posts themselves — assistant superintendent on his election in 1945, still assistant superintendent in 1951, business manager by 1956, and deputy superintendent in 1961, one of two men named as candidates for acting superintendent S78. No record found places him in the top job. His daughter Nancy took a teaching degree at Abilene Christian in three years, married, and the family moved on to Tulsa and then Austin S1.

The Silva and Rose lines — out of the Azores

Faial, the Azores — confirmed→Washington Township, Alameda Co., CA→ Niles & Mission San Jose→Los Angeles→San Diego

The shortest route on this page and the newest. Frank Silva Sr arrived in 1888 and never moved again: the 1940 census still has him in the same house, at Niles S47S50. Antone Rose had arrived in 1870, into the same township S55. Their grandchildren married, and it is their granddaughter Aileane who carries the line south — Los Angeles by 1941, San Diego County by the end S13. The first stop on that route is Faial, Confirmed — named in his own 1946 obituary S67 and, before that, by the 1896 lodge registers S64S65; no census ever named it.

The Caffey and Kretschmar lines — Kristin's side

Alabama & Georgia→Salado, Bell Co., TX→Austin
Germany→New Ulm, Austin Co., TX→Austin→Wimberley, Hays Co.

Two routes into the same city. The Caffeys came up from Alabama and Georgia into Bell County: Hooper Van Caffey was born in Alabama, his wife in Georgia, and their son Thomas Walton Caffey Sr. died at Salado in 1930 S34. The Kretschmars and Ladusches are Texas-German, out of New Ulm in Austin County S34. Lucille Kretschmar was born in Austin, which is why the family was there for her son to grow up in — and she and T.W. retired to Wimberley, where both died S33.

Two German lines, arriving a continent apart

Earl's Proeger line begins with Julius Karl Proeger, born at Kirchberg an der Jagst, Oberamt Gerabronn, Württemberg in 1844 S69 and buried at Smithfield East End Cemetery in Pittsburgh S19. Kristin's Kretschmar line is German too, but it arrived at the other end of the country and stayed rural: Hattie "Liessi" Ladusch was born at New Ulm, Austin County, Texas in 1898, into a settlement of Ladusches, Landrocks and Steins S34.

The Proeger crossing is on record — Hamburg, 14 October 1865, the HAPAG steamer Saxonia, arriving New York on 1 November. The Kretschmar and Ladusch crossings are still Not found, so for that line nothing here says when it crossed — only where it had got to. The two met in Austin, five generations after the first of them landed.

One footnote worth recording, because the guess ran the wrong way: the Texas-German line in this family is on Kristin's side, not Earl's. The Proegers were assumed to have one and do not — they went to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and Los Angeles, and never to a German-Texan county.

A church that runs through the whole Texas side

Lydia Mae Bowles Coffman's funeral was held at Elliott's Chapel of Memories and officiated by the minister of the Dudley Church of Christ S16. Her eldest surviving son was Dr. James Burton Coffman (1905–2006), the well-known Church of Christ Bible commentator — Earl's great-uncle, and the elder brother of his grandfather Robert William Coffman S16S30. In June 1939 he performed his brother's wedding S28. Two generations later Nancy was raised Church of Christ and sent to Abilene Christian College S1, and spent forty years at Hope Chapel in Austin. The thread runs unbroken from a Callahan County farming congregation to a commentary set still in print.

Know something this page doesn't? Send it to Earl — corrections, names, dates, documents. Nothing appears here until he has reviewed it.

Compiled for the Proeger family

Living adults appear in full, on the same terms as everyone else here: what the records say, each claim cited. Minors appear by name only — no date of birth, no birth year, no age, no school, no place, no address, no other identifying detail. A minor may be named and may appear in a family photograph; nothing further about them is published. Where it is not established whether someone is an adult or a minor, the minor rule applies.

Know something this record doesn't? Send it to Earl.

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