Before looking at the Probate Record of William (Carl Wilheim) Cline, I want to cover his birthplace. Trying to determine the hometown of our ancestors is not an exact science, or easy. For example, in looking at five census records, representing over fifty years of William (Carl Wilhelm) Cline's life, his birthplace is listed as three different locations. They all list Germany, but I want a more specific locality. The 1840 and 1850 census records of New Madrid County, Missouri lists his place of birth as just "Germany." The 1860 and 1870 census records show "Hesse, Germany," and the 1880 Census record of New Madrid County, Missouri shows "Rhine-Hessen." This last census taker wrote "Darmstadt" in a blank space as well. Ah ha, the actual place of his birth and youth was Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany, and is located along the Rhine River just north of Heidelberg.
Hesse is one of the 16 Federal States of Germany. It is located in western-central Germany, bordered by the German states of Lower Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. I see it spelled as Hesse, Hessian, and Hessen but they are all the same location.
As background on the development of the Federal Republic of Germany, it is located in the heart of Europe. The nation-state now known as Germany was first unified in 1871 as a modern federal state and named the German Empire. In the first half of the 20th century two devastating World Wars, of which Germany was responsible for, left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers.
With the advent of the Cold War, two German states were formed in 1949: the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR). The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and security organizations, the European Union (EC) and NATO, while the communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the fall of Communism enabled Germany's unification in 1990.
In 1990, I remembered watching people from East Germany and other Communist countries fleeing in trains loaded to capacity into West Germany. For days, I watched history unfold on the television screen. People around the world viewed the event in amazement and excitement. Knowing this was a significant event in history, I saved a magazine and newspaper highlighting this great moment in history. It was a powerful moment in time that I will always remember. It may have been more important to me because of my German-American heritage.
Of course, William Cline would not recognize either Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany, or New Madrid, Missouri today, but I am sure he would be amazed and impressed. Sometime in the late 1980s, I visited the New Madrid Courthouse and located William Cline's probate records. I copied everything, and it cost about $25 to have the Clerk of Court make the copies. Holding those hundred-year-old pieces of papers in my hands was very special. We will look at some of the personal documents next week.
In 1990, I remembered watching people from East Germany and other Communist countries fleeing in trains loaded to capacity into West Germany. For days, I watched history unfold on the television screen. People around the world viewed the event in amazement and excitement. Knowing this was a significant event in history, I saved a magazine and newspaper highlighting this great moment in history. It was a powerful moment in time that I will always remember. It may have been more important to me because of my German-American heritage.
Of course, William Cline would not recognize either Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany, or New Madrid, Missouri today, but I am sure he would be amazed and impressed. Sometime in the late 1980s, I visited the New Madrid Courthouse and located William Cline's probate records. I copied everything, and it cost about $25 to have the Clerk of Court make the copies. Holding those hundred-year-old pieces of papers in my hands was very special. We will look at some of the personal documents next week.
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