My great grandfather, Frederick Eberlein, spent some time in Waterloo, Monroe county, Illinois. His oldest son — well, the oldest child that lived to adulthood — John Valentine was born there on 13 March 1861. And Frederick Eberlein was naturalized in Waterloo on 5 October 1860.

I’d never figured out what the Waterloo connection was until I started working with church records from Züttlingen, Frederick Eberlein’s place of birth in Germany. The youngest child of George Malthes Eberlein (Frederick Eberlein’s grandfather) was Gottlieb Ludwig, born 31 July 1808.
As soon as I’d input his information into Family Tree Maker and synced to the online tree, I saw an animated leaf indicating that I had hints to review. Now, for older German records, usually the hints are worthless — but that wasn’t true in this case.

A bonanza, a jackpot, a goldmine — census records from Waterloo, Illinois; marriage records; land claims; IRS tax assessment lists; US federal census non-population schedules …

The gem was a marriage record from St. Louis, Missouri, 10 January 1843, which indicated Gottlieb’s place of birth as “Zittlingen, Württemberg.”

Based on the records, here’s what I have pieced together about the trajectory of Gottlieb Eberlein’s life:

• Date unknown: Immigrates from Züttlingen, Württemberg to the USA. Locates in Illinois.
• 11 Jul 1837: Purchases public land in St. Clair county, Illinois. St. Clair is adjacent to Monroe county. A Johann M Eberlein also purchases land in St. Clair county in 1839 and 1843; is there a connection? See Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales
• 10 March 1843: Marries Louisa Weitkamp in St. Louis, Missouri
• 1860, 1870, and 1880: Living in Waterloo, Illinois; occupation is farmer
• Has five children: Wilhemina, Henry, Unknown, Johann Friedrich, and Carolina
• Attends Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Wartburg, Monroe county, Illinois; his name and those of his children show up in a database of info extracted from the church records:
• Wilhelmina Eberlein dies Jan. 7, 1862 and is buried in the Waterloo City Cemetery. Her gravestone is still legible:
• There is a Monroe County Genealogical Society: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ilmcghs/ Its Web site contains links to lots of information about Monroe County resources and indexes of court records.
• The Monroe County estate files contains materials relevant to Gottlieb Eberlein and his family: There are other references to Gottlieb in the Chancery Court records. See Chancery Index 1852-1859, Section A Box 70: Eberlein, Gotleib 6; as far as I can tell, this is the only listing for Eberlein in these records.

This raises another question: Who is Charles or Carl Eberlein, and is he related to Gottlieb Eberlein? Charles Eberlein, born 1830 or 1838, in Württemberg, Germany served in the Civil War and shows up in the 1870 and 1880 census. In the 1880 census, his entry is adjacent to that of Gottlieb Eberlein.

So, what are my research priorities here? 1) Getting photocopies of the Estate files, and 2) Tracking down the naturalization record for Gottlieb Eberlein