The couple raised seven children, including a steelworker, a grocer, and a Sister of St. Francis. Peter first made a living as a coal miner and later as an engineer for the Freedom Oil Company. He eventually owned a dozen lots in the Lower St. Clair area of Pittsburgh, and lived in the house shown here at 2900 Arlington Avenue (courtesy of Google Maps).
Probate records show that Peter died at the age of 67 on April 14, 1892, presumably from injuries received on the job six months earlier from a boiler explosion in Freedom, Beaver County. The Pittsburgh Dispatch reported that he "was standing in front of the boiler when it exploded and was blown to an adjoining field, a distance of 80 feet."
I still have a lot to learn about Peter & Barbara Klein. I don't know the names of their parents and have no idea where in Germany they lived before coming to America. My genealogy research continues...
Contact the Archives of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. If you know where they lived there was most likely a German Catholic Church that they attended. I got lot of information for my family from them.
ReplyDeletehttp://diopitt.org/office-archives-and-record-center/information-genealogists
Thanks, Claudia! I have obtained some great records from the Diocese in the past, but this is a good reminder. They searched burial records for Peter & Barbara and found Peter in the records for St. Peter's Church but no mention of his parents or German town. They couldn't find Barbara but said no death records existed at that church for May 1899 through March 1920. At the time, I didn't know if they were married in Germany or Pittsburgh but, now that I found their immigration record and they were unmarried, I really should go back to the Dioceses to see if they can locate their marriage record.
ReplyDeleteIf they were living on Pittsburgh South Side they might have gone to St. Michael on Pius Street. But the usual problem is that traditionally a couple gets married in the church of the bride; a lot of the time we do not know where she was living. Then they would move to the parish close to where the husband worked, there you will usually find the Baptism of the children.
ReplyDeleteSt.Mary's on the North Side (Allegheny City) had a lot of good records too. I was able to find my husbands great great grandparents and the town in Switzerland, which was a surprise. The LDS had records from the town in Switzerland back to the 1500. That was a stroke of luck.
Wow, how great to find that information. Contacting the Diocese is on my to-do list, so I'll post an update when I hear back from them.
DeleteIt would also be a good idea to go through the city directories to determine all the neighborhoods they lived in, as your best bet for finding their village or villages of origin would be in the records of the earliest parish they attended.
ReplyDeleteGood thinking. I like to give the Diocese as much information as possible and then they're very good at determining which churches are the most likely based on geography and ethnicity. What I know is that Peter & Barbara arrived in 1854 (unmarried) and their first son was born in 1855 in McKeesport (according to his death certificate). The 1860 Census shows them in Versailles borough, which is in the same area. So that's probably the best place for the Diocese to begin their search.
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