Hornberger ancestors of my Grandmother (Clara Margaret Hornberger Sammons)

As I try to sort out the clues to the photograph in my last post I decided that it would be good to make that post less complicated by starting a new post.

Alsace Lorraine consists of 3 departments:

Haut-Rhin (68 – Colmar) – Bas-Rhin ( 67 – Strasbourg) and Territoire de Belfort (90 – Belfort).

Its capital, Strasbourg, holds prominence as the seat of the Council of Europe, European Parliament, and European Court of Human Rights. Strasbourg’s city center sprawls along the left bank of the Rhine River, encompassing iconic landmarks like the Notre-Dame Cathedral and the UNESCO-listed Petite France district.

In 1354, Alsace was organized into the Decapolis, a confederation of ten free cities within the Holy Roman Empire, which enjoyed economic and military unity until 1679. Alsace’s strategic location between German emperors and French kings led to frequent conflicts and incursions until the 17th century when parts of Alsace were integrated into the Kingdom of France.

Alsace was annexed by Germany following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.

The region returned to French control in 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, only to be annexed once again during the Nazi occupation from 1940 to 1944.

Its rich history has contributed to its unique cultural identity, characterized by a blend of French and German influences. While French is the official language, Alsatian, a Germanic dialect, remains spoken in many households.

First thing that I want to add are a few maps.  First is the map of Obersteinbach  a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. 

Second is the map of  Baden-Wurttemberg.  It is about 40 miles from Obersteinbach to Karlsruhe in Baden-Wurttemberg.

Next is a map of the Bas-Rhin department in France.  

Belfort is approximately 132 miles from Obersteinbach.  Belfort is due south of Obersteinbach.

Photo of relatives of Clara Hornberger Sammons

 I am terribly overcommitted this summer, yet my ancestors never leave me alone.  I don't know why I decided yesterday to pull out a photo that I had found in my grandmother's papers.  

My grandmother’s maiden name was Hornberger.  Her father was Frederick Hornberger born c.1865 and died in 1959 Ironton, Ohio.  This small town on the Ohio River was full of German and Alsace Lorraine born citizen’s who had moved to the area on the Ohio River from Cinncinnati, Ohio eastward on the Ohio River.  Ironton is a short distance from where I live now In Huntington, WV.

My thought was that I should find someone who might want this photo.  I believe that the father of Clara Hornberger Sammons (my grandmother) had either received a letter from relatives who still lived in the Alsace Lorraine area of Europe or he had written to a relative.  Either way, he seemed to have appealed to his son-in-law to send a gift of money to the family in the photo.  What I have that alludes to this story is a photo and a thank you note.  

My grandfather, Forest Charles Sammons, was always generous to his own family.  He was a self made man and was quite successful and happy to spread his wealth to the people he loved.

You will see the photo above.  The thank you note was written in French.  The address to which it was sent is one that I recognize as being where Clara and Forest lived while they were raising their children and both died while the home was still their home.  There is no date on the Thank you note.  But there are several clues about who is in the photo.

The note is signed by Anna Hornberger.

Anna thanks my grandmother profusely for the money that was sent.  She makes it clear that she has need of the money.  I offer the following theory:

The woman named Anna Hornberger is the young female adult in the photo on the left hand in the photo….and the three children in the photo are her children while the two adults in the middle of the photo are the grandparents of the children.  In the letter in one of the last paragraphs Anna Hornberger says:  My little boys are growing….Lucian is 10 years, Rene 8 yrs. and Marthe will be 16.  It is very hard to raise a family when the father is gone.  ….is she old enough to have a 16 year old daughter?  Not sure.....but she could have been as young as 35 and still have had a 16 year old daughter.....That seems the most likely scenario to me.  

Robert Behra offered the following information:

Arthur Hornberger (b. Lutterbach, Haut-Rhin, 13 May 1893, son of Georges Hornberger and Marie Hurter) married in Belfort 20 Apr 1916

Jeanne Isabelle Tisserand (b. Couthenans, Haute-Saône, 11 Jun 1892, daughter of Marie Tisserand)

No children born to this couple in Belfort 1916-1919 (no birth records available online past 1919 for Belfort).

That Georges Hornberger was born in 11 Jan 1860 in Obersteinbach, Bas-Rhin, and died in Belfort 14 Apr 1908, son of Georges Hornberger and Magdalene Brunner. He and Marie Hurt(h)er were married in Pfastatt 3 Sep 1881.

Magdalene Brunner died in Obersteinbach 21 Jan 1860. She and her husband were married in Niedersteinbach 17 Aug 1858.

So, Georges (b. 1860) and Fréderic (b. 1865) were half-brothers, Arthur (b. 1893) was a first cousin of the Hornberger children in Ironton.

I am trying to follow up on this as well as look at an Ancestry tree that belongs to Wulf Kreumpelmann.  Wulf has taken what looks as if it could be my own Hornberger line back to the 1500s.  

Here is the information that AI gathered for me about the photo:

This image appears to be an old formal family portrait, likely taken in the early 20th century, possibly between the 1910s and 1930s based on the clothing, hairstyles, and photographic style. Here's what stands out:

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People & Composition

• Six individuals: Three adult women, one adult man, and two children.
• The man is standing in the back with a serious expression, which was common in early portrait photography.
• The central seated woman, likely the mother, has a formal but modest outfit and hairstyle.
• The children (a young boy and girl) are dressed in what looks like sailor-inspired clothing—popular in children’s fashion at the time.
• One of the girls is holding what appears to be a watering can, which is a curious and symbolic prop (possibly hinting at growth or childhood innocence).
• Another girl is holding a book, which may symbolize education or literacy.

👗 Fashion Clues

• The clothing suggests late 1920s to early 1930s:
• The women's fashion features dropped waists, longer hemlines, and conservative tailoring.
• The man’s three-piece suit and mustache are consistent with the era.
• The child’s sailor suit was a fashionable choice for both boys and girls during this time.
• One woman wears a cloche-style hat, very typical of the 1920s.

🏛 Setting

• The backdrop includes draped curtains, columns, and arches—indicative of a studio setting that aimed to suggest wealth or sophistication.
• The props and setting imply this was taken in a professional portrait studio, which was a common family tradition during that era, especially for special occasions or milestones.

📷 Photo Characteristics

• Sepia-toned or early black-and-white style, common before widespread color photography.
• Very posed and formal, with no one smiling (again, typical of the time due to long exposure times and cultural norms).

Are you able to narrow down the time period?  and the answer was yes:

Yes — based on the style, fashion, and photographic elements, I can help narrow down the date of this photo more precisely.

🕰 Estimated Date Range: 1926–1932

Here’s a breakdown of the clues that support this:

👗 Fashion & Hairstyling

• Women's Clothing:
• The seated woman on the left wears a cloche-style hat and a tailored coat with Art Deco-inspired seaming — both popular from the mid to late 1920s.
• The central woman wears a longer, more conservative dress with a check pattern and white collar — styles that carried into the early 1930s, especially among older women or for formal settings.
• Girls' Dresses:
• The girl on the far right has a pleated skirt and bow-tied collar, typical of girls’ fashion around 1930.
• Her structured hat with decoration is also very much in line with 1928–1932 trends.
• Boys’ Sailor Suits:
• Popular from the 1880s up to the 1930s, but the specific style of collar and short pants seen here points to the 1925–1932 era.
• Hairstyles:
• The bobbed hair of the young boy and the woman on the left reflects the late 1920s, when shorter hair became widely accepted.
• The clean, waved styles were popularized by the flapper movement and persisted into the 1930s with a more refined look.

🪞 Photographic Studio Context

• The painted backdrop with drapery and classical architecture was typical of the 1920s and early 1930s, before photography studios started modernizing their aesthetics.
• Lighting is very soft and diffused, with carefully arranged posing — a hallmark of professional portrait photography during this time.

📦 Props and Symbols

• The watering can held by the youngest child is unusual but likely symbolic — possibly related to innocence, growth, or education.
• The book held by the girl suggests values like literacy or learning, and could hint this was a commemorative photo (e.g., for school or a special occasion).

📅 Final Estimate

Taking all these clues together, the strongest indicators point to a circa 1928–1931 date. It could be as early as 1926 or as late as 1932, but based on clothing details and styling, 1929 or 1930 is very likely.

If you know any family names or locations associated with this photo, I could potentially help cross-reference those details against census or immigration records for even more precision.

Would you like help with that?

📍 Bonus Clues You Could Use:

• If the photo was taken in Europe (France or Germany, based on names like Marthe and Lucian), focus on:
• Alsace-Lorraine, which had strong German/French overlap.
• Swiss/French-German border areas, where names like Rene, Marthe, and Anna were common.
• If taken in Canada, check the 1931 Canada Census (released recently).
• In France, access to census or état civil records can be found on departmental archives sites (by département, like Bas-Rhin or Moselle).

Marriage of Forest Charles Sammons and Clara Margaret Hornberger

 My Heritage sent an e-mail today that I could not resist.  I have upgraded to their Omni Plan in order to have a subscription to oldnews.com   

And here is the fun information that I found about this marriage.  Many years ago I went to Catlettsburg and obtained a copy of the marriage record.  That was fun as well.  My grandmother was five years older than her husband.  So she was old enough to get married on her own.  However, Forest had to take a note from his father saying that he gave permission for the marriage.  And doggone if that note was not still stapled to the marriage record.  

But here is the newspaper account that fills in some more information found on the oldnews site:

The article appeared in the Big Sandy News  Nov 12 1915

Goblet belonging to August Konig

My cousin, Pat, sent me an article that I found to be of great interest.  Pat and I share our Beuhring ancestors.  Frederick George Louis Beuhring (FGL) was in Cabell County in what is now WV by 1819 when he is found serving on a jury.  He had moved to this area from Baltimore Maryland.  It is thought that he came to our shores from Germany in 1795 at the age of 14.  

After moving to Baltimore he was employed by Koenig and Company.  The Lambert papers at Marshall University's special collections say that Koenig and Company were the largest wholesale firm (shippers and importers) in Baltimore in that time period.  Augustus Koenig was the original immigrant who founded the company.  He had no children of his own.  However his sister, Dorothea Louisa Konig who had married Frederick William Dannenburg had died at age 30 and Frederick and his wife, took Frederick's niece, Frances Ellenor Dannenburg (Fannie) into their home to raise.  

FGL Beuhring and Fanny Danneburg married in Frederick Konigs country home, Chateau Blanche, in 1820.  Shortly after their marriage the couple moved to Barboursville, VA (now WV).  And later bought the Nathaniel Scales farm on the Ohio River that is now part of downtown Huntington, WV.  

So now the we have the background of why the article that Pat sent is of such interest to me (I a the 5-gr-grandaughter of August Koenig, I will share some of what the article says.  The information is found in 

This can be found at the Maryland State Archives with link below:

https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5800/sc5881/000001/000000/000185/pdf/msa_sc_5881_1_185.pdf

The information at the bottom of the photo above says:  "Konig goblet acquired by the Society 1952"

 

The information in the article is found on pages 3 and 4 in the issue.  There is information in the article about the German man who owned the glass company that made this goblet and the goblet itself. And the statement that it was acquired by the society from Ethel Luisa Dannenburg Morse who had inherited it from August Konig through her father Frederick Koenig Dannenburg who had in turn inherited it from his Frederick Koenig Dannenburg and in turn from his mother, Dorothea Konig Danenburg.  

Castle surname yDNA project

A couple of years ago I dreamed up a project to prove or disprove the folklore that says that Jacob Castle (the long hunter) was a descendant of one of the sons of Yelles Cassell who left the Palatinate to move to Pennsylvania in the late 1600s.  These men first live in Germantown, Pennsylvania and some of them continued to live there for generations.  

So I bought a kit for a man whose paper trail connected him to Jacob Castle (the long hunter) who moved to southwest Virginia c. 1747.  This man is an autosomal match to me, so I am fairly certain that he does indeed represent the Castle family from which I descend.  Then I searched Ancestry public trees until I found a man who had a good paper trail to Yelles Castle and whose family continues to live in Germantown even to this day.  Much to my disappointment the participants for whom I bought yDNA kits did not match.  But I am not yet convinced that this means that Jacob did not descend from Yelles Cassell.   And here is what I am thinking at this point of my project.

Unfortunately the man who was the administrator for the Castle surname yDNA project had not done much to organize the participants who had joined the project.  I sent him several messages over a years time and he never responded.  So I asked FTDNA if they would add me to the project as an administrator which they did just before Christmas this past year.  Beginning the new year I began to organize the participants into family groups.  It is not a large project.  FG#1 contains Jon Castle who is my participant who has excellent paper trail to Yelles and whose family still lives close to where the early Cassell brothers lived when the first came to our shores.  Jon only has one match who carries the Castle/Cassell surname.  Even at 67 markers there are only 3 matches.....2 of the matches carry a different surname.  Does this indicate a birth incident for Jon's line or just the fact that not many men who have ancestors who fit the description of connecting to Yelles Cassell have tested at this time?

Family group #2 is a larger group.  It is probably the largest group in the project.  All of the men in Family Group #2 claim connection to Jacob the Longhunter except for one participant who does not have information about his paternal line.  I have asked among the participants to see if there is any chance that any of them do NOT connect to Jacob but instead connect to another son of Yelles and no one has come forth with a yes to that query.

So I am not farther along with my project.  However yesterday I noticed something of interest. I was chatting with the man who doesn't know his paternal line to see if I could send him anything helpful.  And As I looked at this man's matches, I noticed that the first 10 matches (except for one) claimed connection to Jacob the longhunter OR carried the Harmon surname OR claim connection to ancestor with Harmon/Harman surname.  Then many of the participants who are slightly less close matches have VERY Scotch/Irish surnames...NOT GERMAN.  Could Jacob Castle have had Scotch-Irish heritage instead of German?  Did he change his name?  Could his Castle surname have had connections to Great Britain instead of Germany?  Will we be able to solve this puzzle with dna?   My participant who descends from Jacob the long hunter has haplogroup R-M479.  This haplogroup could be British or German .....this does not raise red flags.

I wanted to add a map to this post to show that Jacob Castle and Jacob Harmon were relative neighbors in the mid 1700s....

Gleanings of Virginia history. An historical and genealogical collection

 I had a bit of extra time last night and started reading Gleanings of Virginia History.  An historical and genealogical collection by William Fletcher Boogher.  It is available on archive.net.  His book is particularly easy to read and navigate and I found myself wanting to spend the entire weekend reading and using his material....it starts with the very earliest settling of Virginia and then goes on to the French and Indian War and then the next section is about men being paid to protect the western frontiers....all of these subjects of great interest to me because of my Farrar family, and my Castle and Morrison family, and even one small section was about early settlers in what is now Stafford and Prince William Counties....

However I am in the midst of preparing for my DAR meeting next weekend....so I decided to make notes and safe until later in the month.

Page 23 is the start of the money spent on protecting the frontier in 1756.  And it is names by county.  Valentine Castle is named on page 36.  He is said to be from Augusta County.  This year would have been when Augusta County was everything west of the Shenandoah Valley.  So if Valentine is a part of our Castle family group he could have been living almost anywhere..

The most helpful thing is that people are paid in groups which means you can get a feeling for if this is really your own ancestor by the neighbors and friends....for example, Andrew Hays and Robert Campbell are paid with a fairly large group on page 47

Page 113 begins Boogher's information about the Scotch-Irish of Augusta County.

https://archive.org/details/gleaningsvirgin00booggoog/page/n126/mode/2up

Then there is some information about the revolutionary war and some genealogies of a few families of Virginia....There IS an index.  

Miscellaneous

The photo of the athletic club that is featured in the next blog post made it hard to read my information on the right hand side of the blog.  And it is a rainy, gray day this morning.  So I decided to write perhaps a tempory blog post to move the one causing the problem down lower.

I think that I will just spend a bit of time brainstorming about the upcoming Revolutionary War celebration and some of the things I might like to do.  I will continue to write and present a monthly short presentation about what was happening 250 years ago in our country that particular month.  On slow months such as the winter months when we are just waiting for the weather to get better, I may talk about other facets of the times.  In October I want to continue to mention the ratification process taking place to follow up on the program that we presented October 2024 with Westmoreland.  Just talking about other colonies that had their own ratification process ....our first was about Virginia.

I loved the project that The WV Davisson Chapter of the WV DAR did....I would like to think of the best way to incorporate this into our upcoming celebration.