- Family #242 in the 1834 Grimm census.
- Family #242 in the 1834 Grimm census.
- Family #194 in the 1857 Grimm census.
Maria Christina was born in 1808, after the 1798 census, and married before the 1834 census. This means she was not captured in a census with her biological parents. Unless we find a descendant who has detailed private records that connect her to her birth family, we will probably never know about her heritage, other than that she was Volga German.
Studying the maternal haplogroup of Maria Christina’s female descendants could help narrow down her maternal ancestry.
According to the 1857 Grimm census, Maria Christina was Johann Jakob Schneider’s second wife. It may be that Jakob Schneider was also her second husband. There are only two possible people from the 1834 census whom she could be:
- Family #206 Maria Christina 1808 1st Husband: Tobias Eberhardt
- Family #242 Maria Christina 1808 1st Husband: Jakob Alexander Schneider
Tobias Eberhardt was married to a different, much younger woman at the time of the 1857 census. Usually this indicates the death of a spouse or first wife. Divorce was uncommon in the Volga German community. This is not a likely match.
Jakob Alexander Schneider passed away in 1851 and his wife was no longer listed with his family in the 1857 census. That could mean she remarried or passed away. His wife in the 1834 census was named Maria Christina and her age is a match with the Maria Christina who was Johann Jakob Schneider’s wife in the 1857 census.
As of the 1834 Grimm census, Maria Christina and her first husband Alexander had three children:
- Anna Katharina, born 1827
- Johannes, born 1829
- Katharina Elisabeth, born 1832
In the 1857 census which shows the death of Alexander Schneider and no wife, there are five children listed:
- Charlotta, born 1838
- Christina, born 1841
- Margaretha, born 1844
- Georg Konrad, born 1845
- Johann Jakob, born, 1848, deceased 1851
None of the birth years overlap with the birth years of the children found in the 1834 census, a fact that helps support that she was the mother of all eight children. Her three oldest children were old enough to be married and living in other households in 1857. It appears that her younger children remained living with their biological father’s family after their mother remarried.
Because her youngest child with Alexander Schneider was born in 1848, she could not have married Johann Jakob Schneider until after that year. Since we know her first husband Alexander died in 1851, she probably remarried after his death.
In the 1857 census listing for Maria Christina Schneider, the oldest child was 39 years old compared to her 50 years of age. Since it would be highly unusual to give birth at the age of 11, she cannot be that child’s biological mother.
Most likely she was not the mother of any of those children listed with her in the 1857 census. If she married Johann Jakob Schneider in 1851-1852, the oldest any child of theirs could be in 1857 is 6 years of age. That does not match any child in the family. She was most likely the step-mother of the children listed in the 1857 census, and she and Johann Jakob Schneider had no biological children together.
One final note: Although her two husbands shared the surname Schneider, they were not from the same family line, therefore not related. It may be that some of their descendants are related through later marriages, but as of 1857, there was no biological connection between these two family lines.
Sources
- 1857 Census of Grimm in the District of Saratov, Russia, dated 5 November 1857; Translated by Brent Mai, Concordia University, Portland, Oregon; Published by Dynasty Publishing, Beaverton, OR, USA; Published 2005; page 73, family #194, line 3110, Maria Christina Schneider, age 50.
- 1834 Census of Grimm in the District of Saratov, Russia, dated 2 February 1835; Translated by Brent Mai, Concordia University, Portland, Oregon; Published by Dynasty Publishing, Beaverton, OR, USA; Published 2011; page 73, family #194, line 3110, Maria Christina Schneider, age 50; page 100, family #270, lines 4324 through 4329, Alexander Schneider, Charlotta, Christina, Margaretha, Georg Konrad and Johann Jakob Schneider, her deceased husband and biological children.
Grimm, Russia 