A year and a half ago Richelle Murray, a member of the Luxembourg Genealogy group on Facebook, asked for help with one of her families in Luxembourg. She was interested in John MONNER who married Anna HAUPERT on 10 February 1836. The conversation kind of fizzled out as the marriage I found for the date and place queried was for an Anna HAUPERT and Peter HAUPERT, a bride and groom with the same surname.1
Fast forward six months later Richelle asked about a record of a child born to Johann MONNER and Catharina HAUPERT. She found birth record No. 36 for her 3rd great-grandmother Marianna. A clerk had filled the left margin of both pages of the book with a court record. She needed help figuring out it is had anything to do with the record she was interested in. It pertained to birth record No. 35 correcting information in a record by court order and was of no importance to Marianna’s record.
While looking into this I checked the Luxracines site to see if the indexing project for marriages, a work-in-progress at the time, would include the wedding date of the MONNER-HAUPERT couple as she had previously asked about the marriage which she thought took place on 10 February 1836.
The search turned up two marriages for the same names in the same place but different dates. What could this mean? Had there been two marriages for two, three, or four different people? The actual marriage records needed to be consulted.
NEW! Marriage Database for Luxembourg 1796-1923
As of this May 2019, indexing is finally complete for the marriages in Luxembourg per the Tables Décennales (10-year lists for births, marriages, and deaths) for the years 1796-1923. This very important database for researchers with Luxembourg ancestry is available online to members of Luxracines.
• 170 communities (communes, Gemeinde) are included!
• 171,688 marriages for the period 1796-1923
• 108,642 marriages for the period 1610-1797
• A total of 280,330 marriages in Luxembourg
Luxracines is grateful to all members who worked on this project.
The Indexing Project for Luxembourg Marriages
Before going any further I need to say a few words about this project. A group of dedicated members of my genealogy society Luxracines worked on this project to index all of the marriages in the Luxembourg civil records using the Tables Décennales.
The indexing is complete and this new database is turning out to be a real time-saver. Researchers no longer need to search through town after town of the 10-year lists to find the marriage of a person who married in a place other than his place of birth or last known residence. Although many families remained in one town for generations there were times when children left home to find work or when entire families moved around seeking work and marriages took place in towns one would not think to look.
Marriages of Luxembourgers abroad are also being added and presently include Paris, Chiry-Ourscamp (a commune in the Oise department in northern France), and the city of Brussels (Bruxelles). Arlon (Belgium) is in the works and plans are to work on Attert (Belgium) next.
Getting back to the MONNER and HAUPERT marriages
Before looking up the marriage records I checked to see if any of our Luxracines members had worked on this particular family. Claude Bettendroffer, who has inputted baptisms, births, marriages, deaths, and burials for the parish and commune of Sandweiler from the church and civil records into his database, had Johann MONNER listed with two wives: Catharina HAUPERT and Catharina HAUPERT, both with the same parents but with different dates of birth. It’s work like Claude’s which makes it easier to find connections in Luxembourg families.
Lëtz look at the marriage records
Luxembourg (Lëtzebuerg) marriage records can be divided into four parts. Following the date, place, and names of authorities present for the marriage ceremony, the record contains:
• Groom’s information
• Bride’s information
• Dates of the publication of banns and the declaration that the bride and groom are joined in marriage by law
• Witnesses, usually four, to the marriage and signatures of all person’s present
The marriage record dated 5 April 18372 included this section on the groom:
Johann Monner, carpenter, 27 years of, born in Pulfermuhl, in the commune of Sandweiler on 8 March 1810, a resident of Pulfermuhl, in the commune of Sandweiler, of age son of Peter Monner, carpenter, and Margaretha Cornely, no occupation, a married couple residing in Pulfermuhl, present and consenting to the marriage. Militia service was rendered per certificate of the Hamm police dated 28 March 1837.
And this section on the bride:
The young lady Catharina Haupert age 25 years born in Sandweiler in the Canton of Sandweiler, without occupation, born on 22 November 1811 and a resident of Sandweiler, the of age daughter of Nicolas Haupert and Catharina Stümper, a legally married couple of Sandweiler who are agreeable to the marriage.
The marriage record dated 10 November 18413 included this section on the groom:
Johann Monner, carpenter, 31 years of, born in Pulfermuhl, in the commune of Sandweiler on 8 March 1810, a resident of Pulfermuhl, in the commune of Sandweiler, of age son of Peter Monner, carpenter, and Margaretha Cornely, no occupation, a married couple residing in Pulfermuhl, present and consenting to the marriage.Widower of the deceased Catharina Haupert who died in Sandweiler on 7 May 1841.
And this section on the bride:
The young lady Catharina Haupert, without occupation, 18 years old, born in Sandweiler in the Canton of Luxembourg the 17 August 1823, a resident of said Sandweiler, and the underage daughter of Johann Nicolas Haupert and Catharina Stümper, a married couple, farmers, residents of Sandweiler, present and consenting to the marriage. [I have not been able to transcribe and translate the last three lines which appear to be a kind of special permission given for the marriage on 12 October 1841.]
The groom in both marriage records was the same person. The brides in the marriage records were sisters, both daughters of Nicolas HAUPERT and Catharina STÜMPER. The second marriage record clearly shows Johann was widowed from his first wife.
Why the interest in Johann MONNER?
When Richelle posted to the Luxembourg Genealogy group, I didn’t know we had a connection. Richelle and I share common ancestors. Johann MONNER was the grandson of my 5th great-grandparents Hubert CORNELY and MARGARETHA EVEN through their daughter Margaretha CORNELY and her husband Peter MONNER.
Margaretha and Peter married on 15 June 18054 in Sandweiler and started a family of eight children. Johann was born on 8 March 18105 in Pulvermühle on the outskirts of Luxembourg City.
At the time Pulvermühle was part of the commune of Sandweiler. It would become part of the commune of Hamm in 1874, and then later of Luxembourg City. These changes in the location of the records would make researching the descendants more difficult as the communes were more populated. Also the spelling of the surname would change for some of the children from MONNER to MONNEUR.
Johann was the second son and third child of Margaretha CORNELY and Peter MONNER. Following his birth, Margaretha had five more children: a daughter and four sons. The youngest two were twin boys.
As seen above Johann married twice. His first wife bore him two sons. His second wife gave him three sons and three daughters from 1842 to 1850. One of the daughters died at the age of five months.
In 1852 Johann, his second wife Catharina, their children, and Johann’s two older sons departed from Le Havre, France, for New York where they arrived on 31 May 1852. Catharina was carrying a child on the journey and gave birth to a son Hillary “Henry” on 23 October 1852 in Dubuque County, Iowa. He would be the first and only MONNER child of Johann and Catharina to be born in America. Catharina died two years later on 10 May 1854.
John, as he was now called, raised his children in Dubuque County and then Jackson County, Iowa, before dying in 1880.
John was not the only child of Peter MONNER and Margaretha CORNELY to leave Luxembourg. Their second youngest son Peter moved to Paris between 1854 and 1860. Pierre MONNEUR was found on the marriage index database of Paris as he remarried there in 1861 following the death of his wife in 1860. One of his sons married his second wife’s daughter in 1868. Two more marriages found with the help of the Luxracines Marriage Database.
Full circle
The marriage record dated 10 February 1836 for Anna HAUPERT and Peter HAUPERT turned out to be important to Richelle’s research. Peter, like the two Catharina’s above, was a child of Nicolas HAUPERT and Catharina STÜMPER. Peter and Anna also went to Dubuque County, Iowa, a year earlier than the MONNER family. They had a son Michael who married Marianne MONNER, daughter of John, in 1865. Michael and Marianna were first cousins and Richelle’s 3rd great-grandparents.
Richelle and I are 6C1R but she does not share DNA with my brother whose test I manage. He has several matches to descendants of John MONNER and his first wife as well as his second wife. The trees these matches have attached to their DNA mistakenly list only one wife for John MONNER and by writing this post I hope the error can be rectified.
Thank you to Richelle and Claude for giving me permission to use their names in this post.
© 2019, copyright Cathy Meder-Dempsey. All rights reserved.
- Luxembourg, Registres d’état civil, 1662-1941 (images), FamilySearch (original records at Luxembourg National Archives, Plateau du Saint-Esprit, Luxembourg), Sandweiler > Naissances 1865-1890 Mariages 1797-1890 Décès 1797-1822 > image 929 of 1493. 1836 Marriage Record No. 7. (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-X46J-1Y?cc=1709358&wc=9RYD-MNL%3A130336601%2C130552301 : accessed 19 May 2019). ↩
- Ibid., Sandweiler > Naissances 1865-1890 Mariages 1797-1890 Décès 1797-1822 > image 936 of 1493. 1837 Marriage Record No. 3. (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-X46C-DR?cc=1709358&wc=9RYD-MNL%3A130336601%2C130552301 : accessed 3 April 2019). ↩
- Ibid., Sandweiler > Naissances 1865-1890 Mariages 1797-1890 Décès 1797-1822 > image 963 of 1493. 1841 Marriage Record No. 7. (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-X46J-TY?cc=1709358&wc=9RYD-MNL%3A130336601%2C130552301 : accessed 3 April 2019). ↩
- Ibid., Sandweiler > Naissances 1797-1864 > image 75 of 932. 1805 Marriage Record (26 prairial an XIII) page 1 and 2. (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-61JN-R6?cc=1709358&wc=9RY8-C68%3A130336601%2C130448701 : accessed 17 April 2019) and (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-61JL-3T?cc=1709358&wc=9RY8-C68%3A130336601%2C130448701 : accessed 17 April 2019). ↩
- Ibid., Sandweiler > Naissances 1797-1864 > image 123 of 932. 1810 Birth Record No. 8. (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-61J2-JS?cc=1709358&wc=9RY8-C68%3A130336601%2C130448701 : accessed 17 April 2019). ↩
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Opening Doors in Brick Walls 
Is it as hard for you to read those records as I imagine it to be? Between the old script and the words squeezed so tightly on the page, I imagine it being so very arduous to read and then translate them.
Congratulations to your group for completing the indexing project!
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When I work exclusively with one commune’s or parish’s records I get used to the clerk’s handwriting and the repeated statements. Often I can go back and decipher something I couldn’t figure out the first time around. The quality of the scans often is the culprit when I can’t figure out a sentence like the one in this post.
Our president is the driving force for the project. The next part is more difficult as each record has to be viewed to find people born in Luxembourg and marrying abroad. Only the names and date of marriage are listed on the 10-year lists.
Thank you, Amy.
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My thought was the same as Amy’s, but I learned from a FHL friend that practice really does make perfect. I am envious, though, of all the terrific Luxembourg records.
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In the beginning it was overwhelming but now I am used to browsing the records, using the tables décennales, and now, happily, the marriage database to find the records. Thank you, Linda.
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You are so talented, Cathy. That is great about the indexing being done!
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Thank you, Luanne. The indexing being finished for Luxembourg is great! 🙂
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I saw on https://blog.findmypast.com/europe-2637162101.html that there are now continental European records added. But how would I know if there were Catholic records for Budesheim in Germany?
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Luanne, I never got back to you on this. I don’t have a subscription to FindMyPast and am not familiar with the site, i.e. what information I can access without a subscription. I searched for Germany in their A-Z of records sets and came up with three German sets but they don’t have a description of the sets.
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I am afraid it might just be a way to get people to sign up.
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You may be right about that, Luanne.
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Awesome post Cathy! This is why we do what we do, and don’t give up on brick walls and other discoveries, because we never know where they might lead! Brian
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Thank you, Brian. It’s always nice to help others with their brick walls – even when they aren’t aware they have built it themselves. 🙂
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