I'm looking for Frederick Ritter (b. Germany) and his wife Caroline.  I have no immigration date, birthdate or death date.

 

I do know that his son was born in Detroit in 1867.  I am able to find son, Charles  from 1897 (date of his marriage) and follow him until his death.

His parents Frederick and Caroline are a different story.  The only place I've every found their names were on the marriage record of the son, Charles.  I have not found the family in any census.  Not to say there aren't plenty of Frederick & Caroline's, but none with a son Charles born in 1867.

 

I found 3 Frederick Ritter's listed in the 1866-1867 Clark & Co. City Directory.  My hope would be that one of them is the father of Charles.

Can anyone direct me to a resource that might tell me, if any of these Fredericks had a son Charles or a wife Caroline?

 

Ritter, Frederick, engineer Free Press office h. 131 Rivarl

Ritter, Frederick, saloon and brewery, 367 St. Antoine, h. same

Ritter, Frederick, baker, bds. 322 Gratiot

 

I should also say that in following the son Charles through his adult life I have never found evidence of a sibling, which  seems strange to me for this time period...perhaps he was orphaned...perhaps he lived with his mother who remarried, etc.

 

Right now it seems my best bet is eliminating the 3 Fredericks above...any thoughts?

 

g. Anderson

Gary, I tried my hand at finding something on familysearch.org but I think it's very confusing.  I did find Charles marriage record.  His mother is listed as Caroline Studt.  That is incorrect.  I believe it might be Statt or Stott of which there were some and one even had a Frederich Ritter listed as her father on the actual marriage record which didnt make sense if her maiden name was Stott....but this marriage was in 1870's.  If it was her second marriage and she didnt speak good english then the person recording could've made an error and recorded her husbands name.

I also found a 14 yr. old Charles Ritter in Detroit living with a family with a french name and he is listed as a boarder and he's a bottler.  Could this be your Charles.  Also found that Frederick Ritter the brewer died in 1868.  He was married and that's about all the information there was.  Frederick Ritter the Engineer died in 1877 he also was married but to whom it does not say.  The difficulty is that the people transcribing these records to the familysearch site make errors in doing it as they cant read last names so theyre doing their best but it's not always correct, plus the people recording the actual records also made mistakes and wrote out how names sounded.  Probably Caroline married again if it was one of those two that died and looking her up under her new married name on the census might find Charles living with her.  Good luck.

Frances:  Thank you for your input...you found the same things I did and none of them were  conclusive enough for me to say it was the correct Charles or Frederick. 

 

The information regarding the name Studt is new for me however, I will spend sometime on Stott or Statt.  I appreciate you taking the time to do some research, and it certainly is nice to have my own work validated...I was really starting to think there was something staring me in the face and I wasn't seeing it!

 

 

Gary,

I have found your Frederick! I have screen shots of each of the following City Directory records. You will need to send me your email address for me to send those to you. 1878 & 1879 connect Charles, Frederick, and Caroline. 

 

Ready ... Here we go ...

 

1866 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Frederick, engineer, Free Press office, h 131 Rivard

 

1867 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Frederick, engineer, h 131 Rivard

 

1868 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Frederick, engineer Free Press h Clinton bet Russell & Rivard

 

1869 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Frederick, engineer h 215 Clinton

 

1870 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Frederick, engineer h 215 Clinton

 

1871 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Frederick, engineer h 215 Clinton

 

1872 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Frederick, engineer h 215 Clinton

 

1873 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Friedrich h 215 Clinton

 

1874 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Emma, book binder, h 215 Clinton

Ritter, Frederick Jr, printer bds 215 Clinton

 

1875 Detroit City Directory

Not Listed

 

1876 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Frederick, engineer, h 215 Clinton

Ritter, Frederick Jr, printer, bds 215 Clinton

 

1877 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Frederick, printer, h 215 Clinton

Ritter, George, lithographer, h 215 Clinton

 

1878 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Frederick, pressman Wm A Scripps, bds 215 Clinton

Ritter, Charles, wks Calvert Lith Co, bds 215 Clinton

 

1879 Detroit City Directory

Ritter, Caroline (wid Frederick) h 215 Clinton

Ritter, Charles, wks Calvert Lith Co, bds 215 Clinton

 

 

Hi Karen,

thank you so much for your research...I sent an email with my concerns about this being the correct family, however at the same time, I'm  very excited that it maybe them and it gives me some siblings for son Charles (George, Fred Jr. & Emma).

Tonight I was preparing a letter to send to the Society for further help in researching which includes some other questions.

Should I send that via USMail or should I submit via this Forum?

 

g. Anderson

For specific inquiries to DSGR, you will want to address your request to askdsgr@dsgr.org.    This will go to our Research Chair.   Based on your request, she will let you know what can be done or whom to contact.

I did send a query to the ask@dsgr.org address and to date have not had a reply.  But I wanted to go on record as saying I have done further research and although not all of my questions have been answered, I have made some progress, using my own research and the info supplied by Karen Grizzard in the post to this forum.  As I get more specific requests I will snail mail for help in obtaining obits held at the Library.  Thanks!!!

gary