Lena Hellena Funk Family: 52 Ancestors Prompt "Brick Wall"

               Lena Hellena Funk is my maternal great-grandmother, and her family is my ultimate “brick wall”. As I wrote in a previous blog, I have little information about my grandmother’s mother. I have potential parent names that I have added to my Ancestry tree, but these relationships are far from confirmed.

                Before my great-grandmother’s marriage to my great grandfather William Hoffman, I have only one possible census record from 1870. The record misspells the family surname—transcriptionists recorded it as Frenk rather than Funk. The parents are listed as John and Catherine, and there are six children listed: William, Sophia, Mary, Charles, Amelia and baby Lena, only one year old in 1870. This birthdate coincides with post-marriage records, and the family’s location seems appropriate for her meeting her future husband. However, I have no confirmation that these people truly are my Lena Funk Hoffman’s family.

 If I accept that this record is correct, then what can I learn from it that may help my research?  I see that Lena’s father was an immigrant from Prussia and that her mother was born in Ohio. The first four children were born in Iowa between the years 1858 and 1864. Does that mean Charles and Catherine met and married in Iowa, or in Ohio? Where did they live in Iowa? Why did they leave? Are there any Iowa birth records for the four children somewhere?

The family relocated to Blue Earth County, Minnesota sometime between 1864, the year of son Charles’ birth in Iowa, and 1867 when daughter Amelia was born in Minnesota.

I also see on the census form that Charles Funk was a cabinet maker. That leads me to another record from Iowa, an 1863 Civil War draft registration document listing Charles Funk, German immigrant and cabinet maker. He lived in Oskaloosa, Iowa at that time.

I have been unable to find birth records in Iowa. Counties were not required to record births until the 1880s. I found no Iowa census records that match the family.

Minnesota records for Catherine Funk and the three oldest children end with that 1870 census. I can find no death records, further census records, or any sign that they moved, married or died. There are a few records for son Charles, who seems to have become a bartender, for Amelia who married, and of course for Lena. Charles the father appears once more, then also disappears.

I have found no DNA links to the Funks either. So until I have a chance to travel to Mankato Minnesota to search records and newspapers for death records and obituaries and for land records, or until a descendant of someone in the family takes a DNA test, I am left staring at this very solid, very thick brick wall.