September 28, 2023

John Blees: Negative Findings

Johann “John” Blees (1856-1916) traveled to Baltimore, Maryland from Bremen, German Empire in May of 1882. His immigration paperwork did not provide a lot of details.

Persistent questions plague the descendants of Johann/John Blees:

In which town was he born?

Who were his parents?

Negative Findings

According to genealogist, researcher and educator Elizabeth Shown Mills, negative findings are “the absence of information we hoped to find.”¹

In my search for the parentage and birth location of Johann Blees, I have had no success.

Unless I count my negative findings.

Death Documents

John Blees died in St. Paul, Minnesota on March 30, 1916. Four days later, he was buried in Calvary Cemetery.² This document gives his birth date, his father’s name and the generic place of his birth: Germany.

John Blees, Minnesota Death Certificate

There were several other documents produced at/around the time of John’s death. None of these sources gave his birth location or his parents’ names:

Will and probate³
Death notices in St. Paul papers are brief mentions with no obituary
Calvary Cemetery records

The Church books for St. Francis de Sales parish are held by the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Their Archivist reported that burial records for that parish and that date are not available.

Census: State and Federal

For each census, place of birth was listed. The entries for John Blees did not give specific details.

1895 census: birthplace Germany⁴
1900 census: born April 1856 in Germany⁵
1905 census: birthplace Germany⁶
1910 census: birthplace Germany⁷

Naturalization Records

Citizenship paperwork would likely give John’s place of birth. Both the 1900 and the 1910 U. S. Census records indicated that John was a naturalized citizen.

Even though John Blees is listed as a citizen in the two census reports, I have found no paperwork to support that claim. This is list of the places where I have not found the naturalization of Johann/John Blees:

Baltimore District Court Naturalizations⁸
Barton County, Kansas Records
Reno County, Kansas Records⁹
Kansas Naturalization Index at ancestry.com
Missouri Naturalization Index
Saint Louis, Missouri Naturalization Index
Minnesota Naturalization Records

In Stevens County Minnesota, a man named John Henry Blees became a citizen. But this is a different individual.

Catharina Blees

According to family tradition, John’s sister Catherina came to America prior to his emigration. She settled in St. Louis, Missouri, married Heinrich/Henry Maneke, raised her family and died there. Perhaps her paperwork trail will provide clues to their parentage and birth locations.

She is enumerated on the 1880 census with her husband.¹⁰ In that document, her birthplace is listed as Hess. [Hessen/Hesse] (a German state).

Hesse.

This is the first, albeit indirect, clue to a more specific birth location for Johann.

Katherine (Blees) Maneke Death Certificate

Catharina/Katherine’s death certificate provides another hint to the birth and parentage of Johann/John Blees:

John (presumably Johann) Blees
Elisabeth Lohm/Lohn

Unfortunately, her newspaper death notices do not provide her specific birth location or her parents’ names.¹¹ ¹² ¹³

Questions and Conclusions

I have had a LOT of negative findings in my pursuit of Johann Blees’s specific birth location and his parents’ names.

With regard to Katherine Maneke (Blees), I must be careful. Do Katherine and John share the same parents? If so, were they born in the same place?

Hesse is a big place to search. (It is a bit smaller than New Jersey.)

More work is definitely needed to determine/confirm the birthplace and parentage of Johann Blees.

Next Steps

Does family lore provide any additional clues?
Next week we’ll look at a 1971 letter and determine what information is relevant.

Johann/John Blees, undated¹⁴

Edit/Update 12/11/2023: Naturalization list updated to include Reno County, Kansas.

SOURCES

1
Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained, 3d ed. (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2015), 25.
2
Minnesota Department of Health, Minneapolis MN. Minnesota Death Certificate. No. 22754 (John Blees, 1916).
3
Ramsey County MN Will Book 25, page 96-97. Will written 3 May 1907 entered into court 17 May 1916.
4
Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, Kansas; 1895 Kansas Territory Census; Roll: v115_7; Line: 18 John Blees.
5
1900 U. S. Census. St. Paul Ward 8, Ramsey, Minnesota; Roll: 785; Page: 8; Enumeration District: 0132. Line 40 John Blees Family.
6
Minnesota Historical Society. Minnesota State Population Census Schedules, 1895. St. Paul Ward 8, Ramsey, MN. Enumeration District 36, line 66, John Blees family.
7
1910 U. S. Census. St Paul Ward 8, Ramsey, Minnesota; Roll: T624_719; Page: 6a; Enumeration District: 0117; FHL microfilm: 1374732. Line 27 John Blees Family.
8
Baltimore District Court Naturalizations, 1856-1885, Volume 21; LDS film #1685541.
9
Cook, Jolene Mitzner. Index to Naturalization Records of Reno County, Kansas 1875 to 1955. Hutchinson, KA : Reno County Genealogical Society, 1983.
10
1880 U. S. Census. Saint Louis, St Louis (Independent City), Missouri; Roll: 728; Page: 132B; Enumeration District: 113. Line 31: Hry Manika [sic] family.
11
Death Notices. St. Louis (MO) Star and Times. June 19, 1926, page 6, col. 2.
12
Deaths. St. Louis (MO) Globe-Democrat. June 19, 1926, page 21, col. 1.
13
Deaths. St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch. June 19, 1926. page 40, col 1.
14
Tintype photograph belonged to Philomene (Beck) Miller (1924-1985). Digital copy made by Jeraldine (Beck) Ahrens for Karrie Blees in 2004. Edited to remove large, stray marks.

Author: Karrie Blees

Filed Under: Blees