Phillipe Heydinger Birth Record in French

Created by Mike Heydinger on October 1, 2009      

Bet you didn't know that John Adam and Catherine Brun Heydinger had a sixth child, a son, born in 1845. Of Philippe we know absolutely nothing, except his name. He lived one year, for we have his death certificate from 1847.

What caused Philippe's early demise? Early death was the norm for the time. Indeed, any family of size from that time - and well up into the twetieth century - lost at least one child.

When she bore Philippe at age 44/45, Catherine would have been right on the far edge of her childbearing years. Her first was John Heydinger born in 1827, just short of Catherine’s 26th birthday. Her last recorded living child was Maria, born in 1837 when Catherine would have been age 35. Maria survived childhood and came to America with the family, marrying Frank Wechter and bearing him eight children. (Ironic that she died at age 46, leaving sons, three and barely seven year old, both of whom became priests (studying at the Pontifical College Josephinum, a seminary for poor orphans.)

But the fact remains that for some reason Philippe was not strong enough to survive. We don't know whether his birth was premature or whether he suffered from some weakening childhood or birth malady. For whatever reason, he just did not survive.

A more interesting line of questioning would be what effect Philippe's death had on the decision of the rest of the family to emigrate. The family emigrated in the fall of 1850, exactly three years after Philippe's death, arriving in America in January of 1851. One does not decide upon such a move over night, as one might plan a weekend excursion or family trip. Emigration requires detailed planning, disposition of property, collection of travel necessities, and procurement of surivival items needed at one's final destination. Others in this situation take years to plan before disembarkation.

Bottom line: planning for emigration could have begun as early as the fall of 1847 or early 1848 and culminated in the actual leaving in 1850. But other factors could have acted in concert with Philippe's death to spur leaving. The year 1848 politically and economically was the most explosive year in European modern history, comparable only to the US in the summer of 1968, of recent memory. Constant turmoil - revolutions - in all countries in 1848 made it easy to consider leaving. This alone, totally independent of the death of a child, could have initiated thoughs of leaving the homeland, a very serious step.

HELP!!! We need your HELP!!!

Posted by Mike Heydinger on October 15, 2009      

This is YOUR FAMILY WEBSITE. It will be successful only if YOU contribute. You do NOT have to be computer savy to help out. Contact us, and we'll git'er done!

We need Current Contact Information.

In order to keep all folks fully informed, we need CURRENT CONTACT INFORMATION: street addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses.

Contact your siblings, your children away from home, your folks - anyone in the relation - to email us their current contact information. Send it to me at Mike_Heydinger@HuronHS.com.

If you are more comfortable with snail-mail, send any information to me at Mike Heydinger Box 112 Huron, OH 44839.

We need Family History Data.

Also, we would like to do a full page here of information on each branch of the original John Heydinger family. We will post histories of each branch, pictures as far back as we can get them, and any other interesting data about the branches - whatever YOU think ought to be up on the site. We ask you to send us digital files if possible. If you are not computer savy and still wish to make a contribution of materials to this site, please email us and we can arrange to either come to you or have materials shipped to us for scanning and then return to you.

PLEASE - on all pictures, identify each person with a recognizable face. If known, indicate the year and place the picture was taken. Protect your valuable pictures and documents with cardboard stiffeners!

We need Current Family Tree Information.

If you go to the FAMILY GENEALOGY TREE in the column to the right, you can open it by clicking on the RED words This Family Tree and locate your immediate family's limbs, branches, and twigs on the family tree.

The further back you go, the more accurate the information actually is. What we need most is more MODERN up-to-date information.

Locate your part of the family's information and update it for us, PLEASE. Email to us the new and improved data. Don't worry about formating the data. Just give us the names and important dates, tell us what generation they are in and under whose name they should go. Generation numbers are included just to the LEFT of each name.

In order to have the NEW information included in the revised tree, you MUST get it to us. We will maintain the original document in order to guarantee security. Sorry!