Since childhood, I always heard that two Gisriel brothers, Jacob and Frederick, came to America from the German speaking area Alsace, France and started the two branches of the family.
We have since learned that Jacob and Frederick had an older sister named Magdalen with them in Baltimore. She started a third branch of the family. Their mother, Sophia, was also in Baltimore, at least at the time of the 1850 census. It looks likely that she brought the children to America in the early 1830s and there is some evidence that their father, Georg, was with them too. There is a Georg buried in the Jacob Gisriel family plot in Baltimore’s New Cathedral Cemetery but he was a reburial from another cemetery. There is no other information to identify when Georg died or what the relationship is. He doesn’t appear to be a child of Jacob though.
Uncle Carroll, the genealogist for our branch of the family, was the one that told me that Gisriel wasn’t the real family name. The name they were born with – Gießenregen – was a little too hard on the ears of Americans. In the decades after they arrived, most of the family changed the name to Gisriel.
It wasn’t quite that simple though. The families obviously tried out other options, such as Giesrehn, but the misspellings of the various names were too numerous to count. A few that I have seen include Geisenrick, Griswold, Gissell, Grieviel, Gilirel, Gieswell, Giserile, etc.
All this “what’s our name?” leads to the current find. I have been able to identify and tie together almost all of the Gisriel descendants who have had their DNA tested on Ancestry. There is one small cluster though that I could not figure out. A woman from Hagerstown, “Bonnie” who died in 2020 was tested on Ancestry and we share 23cM of DNA which points her to be about a 3rd or 4th cousin of mine. All of our shared DNA relatives were descendants of Georg and Sophia Gießenregen so I was pretty sure that this woman was a descendant or theirs too. Two of her grandchildren are also DNA matches to me but that makes obvious sense. I thought I had pretty well figured out most of the descendants of Jacob, Frederick and Magdalen so I tried to match my information to the family trees that was put together for Bonnie and her relatives.
If Bonnie was my 3rd cousin, we would share a pair of great-great-grandparents. If she was a 4th cousin, one of each of our great-great-grandparents would be siblings and share a last birth-name. That’s why I started looking at Bonnie’s 16 great-great-grandparents. All of them were born between 1797 and 1844 with the mean year of birth being 1817. Since Magdalen was born in 1820, Frederick about 1826, and Jacob in 1827, I fully expected to see one of them among Bonnie’s 16 great-great-grandparents. Just to be sure, I double checked the parents of the only one of the 16 who was born after 1835 and she wasn’t the child of one of the three siblings either.
It’s possible that Bonnie and I are 5th or 6th cousins but that is less than a 10% chance. I looked closer at the group of 16. Could one of them be a sibling of Magdalen, Frederick and Jacob? I only had a little bit of work to do but one of the 16 looked like it had the best chance of being in our family. In Baltimore, on 27 June 1850, a 23 year-old Alfred Borgealt married an 18 year-old Catherine M Crishrile. Actually, one marriage record had the name spelled as Crishrile and another had it as Krisrile. Is this another misspelling of Gisriel or one of the attempted Anglicizations of the name? Could Catherine be a younger sister to Magdalen, Frederick and Jacob?
The problems I have with this theory are that census records show that Catherine reported to having been born in New York State. Wouldn’t she be born in Alsace like the three Gisriel siblings? In the 1880 census, she said her father was born in France and her mother in Prussia. Those locations might actually be expected but by the 1900 and 1910 censuses, Catherine was quite old and in the care of a daughter. The daughter reported that Catherine was born in New York but Catherine’s parents were from Maryland. That would be odd if true but unexplainable other than the daughter didn’t know or didn’t care what she reported.
How is it possible that Catherine could be a Gisriel born in New York? We have never found the immigrant ship that the family came to America on. Jacob’s death certificate says that he was a resident of Baltimore since about 1834. Magdalen’s said she was a Baltimore resident since about 1833. I had assumed that was when the family emigrated. Was it possible that the Gisriel family came to New York first, around 1830, added Catherine there in 1831 and then moved to Baltimore in 1833 or 1834? That would change where I looked for a port of arrival and a possible death location of Georg. It would also show that George likely made it to America.
So, what is next? How do I prove or disprove this theory? Here is what I have to do next. I still haven’t figured out Catherine’s date of death. It turns out that Borgealt has as many spelling variations as Gisriel. Once I find that, I should be able to find a death certificate which should show her parents’ names. That would be the best proof. It’s also possible that there is a birth or baptism record for Catherine in New York. It’s unlikely but possible to include her parents’ names. Alfred and Catherine also had five children. The death certificate of their son mentions “unknown” for the names of his parents but by the time he died, he was in Spring Grove Sanitorium. I know the death certificate numbers for two of their daughters but I’ll have to check their death certificates when I next visit Maryland and the state archives. Hopefully I find a mother’s maiden name there that looks more like Gießenregen or Gisriel. I have not been able yet to find out who the other two daughters married or when they died but I will soon have access to a database to help me find that information and improve my chances of finding their mother’s maiden name.
In summary….. there is more work to be done. … to be continued.
Update #1 - I found Catherine's death certificate. Her son-in-law who helped care for her in his house in her old age was the informant on the certificate. He reported that Catherine was born in New York and both her parents were from Germany but, alas, he did not know Catherine's parents' names. The German ancestry supports the theory that Catherine was a Gisriel but the lack of names doesn't help either way.
Update #2 - With the help of Bonnie's daughter, I determined that I was a DNA match to a second cousin of hers who is a grandson of Bonnie's father's sister. That means that I only have to be looking at Bonnie's father side of the family and half of Bonnie's 16 great-great-grandparents. Catherine is still in the correct half to support the theory.
Update #3 - On my visit to the Maryland State Archives in June, I was able to find the death certificates of Mary Virginia Borgealt Mentzel and Emma C Borgealt Hill. Both certificates clearly name their mother as Catherine Gisriel. That's concrete documentation to back up the DNA evidence. Catherine was a younger, American-born sister to Magdalen, Frederick and Jacob.
