Gen 1: Mary Jane Beal - Hypothesized Parentage - Cont'd

What are the origins of Johann Nicholas Biehl?

 

We continued our Biehl research project with the end goal of identifying the German origins of Johann Nicholas Biehl. I continued research on the first generation, which is Mary Jane Beal. You can find that post here.

 

Hypothesized Parentage of Mary Jane Beal

Last week we discussed Mary Jane Beal’s hypothesized parentage from the evidence gathered to date. Continuing with that research, if Peter & Elizabeth (Painter) Beal were Mary Jane’s parents, then Peter Beal’s households in 1830 and 1840 would include a female of the right age. When Eliza Henry—Mary Jane’s likely younger sister—died in 1893, her obituary stated she was born in Hawkins [County] Tennessee in 1837 and noted that her father moved to Arkansas when she was a young girl.[1] With that information, I located the 1830 and 1840 censuses for Peter Beal in Hawkins County, Tennessee as noted below.

 

1830 U.S. Census

1 JUNE 1830 [OFFICIAL DATE]

Names of Heads of Families	Age Category & Born Between Years	Potential Identification
Peter Beal[2]	FWM, 5 & Under (0–4) [1826–1830]
	FWM, 5 & Under 10 (5–9) [1821–1825]
	FWM, 10 & Under 15 (10–14) [1816–1820]
	FWM, 15 & Under 20 (15–19) [1811–1815]
	FWM, 20 & Under 30 (20–29) [1801–1810]	1 – Peter Beal (b. 1801–4)
	FWM, 30 & Under 40 (30–39) [1791–1800]
	FWM, 40 & Under 50 (40–49) [1781–1790]
	FWM, 50 & Under 60 (50–59) [1771–1780]
	FWM, 60 & Under 70 (60–69) [1761–1770]
	FWM, 70 & Under 80 (70–79) [1751–1760]
	FWM, 80 & Under 90 (80­–89) [1741–1750]
	FWM, 90 & Under 100 (90–99) [1731–1740]
	FWM, 100+ [1730 & before]
	FWF, 5 & Under (0–4) [1826–1830]	2 – [Unknown & Mary Jane Beal (b. 1828)]
	FWF, 5 & Under 10 (5–9) [1821–1825]
	FWF, 10 & Under 15 (10–14) [1816–1820]
	FWF, 15 & Under 20 (15–19) [1811–1815]
	FWF, 20 & Under 30 (20–29) [1801–1810]	1 – [Elizabeth (Painter) Beal]
	FWF, 30 & Under 40 (30–39) [1791–1800]
	FWF, 40 & Under 50 (40–49) [1781–1790]
	FWF, 50 & Under 60 (50–59) [1771–1780]
	FWF, 60 & Under 70 (60–69) [1761–1770]
	FWF, 70 & Under 80 (70–79) [1751–1760]
	FWF, 80 & Under 90 (80­–89) [1741–1750]
	FWF, 90 & Under 100 (90–99) [1731–1740]
	FWF, 100+ [1730 & before]
	TOTAL IN HOUSEHOLD	4

 

Analysis: Peter Beal is aged 20 to 29 years old and is head of a young household; containing 4 people. Peter’s age is consistent with other census entries which provide a calculated birth year range from 1801 to 1804. There is a female of the right age to be his wife Elizabeth Painter and there are two young girls under 5 that are likely their children and one would be the right age to be Mary Jane Beal, who was born in 1828. Looking at the neighbors, Martin Beal is enumerated adjacent to Peter. Jacob Beal is 7 households down and Frederick Beal is 16 households down at the bottom of the page. All these Beal households need to be analyzed and correlated. There are no Painter households on this page. Peter Beal owned no slaves and had no free colored persons in his household. No one was noted as being deaf, dumb, and blind, nor an alien (foreigners not naturalized).

 

1840 U.S. Census

Peter Beal was also found in Hawkins County, Tennessee, in 1840.

 

1 JUNE 1840 [OFFICIAL DATE]

Names of Heads of Families	Age Category & Born Between Years	Potential Identification
Peter Beal[3]	FWM, 5 & Under (0–4) [1836–1840]
	FWM, 5 & Under 10 (5–9) [1831–1835]	1 – [Unknown]
	FWM, 10 & Under 15 (10–14) [1826–1830]
	FWM, 15 & Under 20 (15–19) [1821–1825]
	FWM, 20 & Under 30 (20–29) [1811–1820]
	FWM, 30 & Under 40 (30–39) [1801–1810]	1 – Peter Beal (b. 1801–4)
	FWM, 40 & Under 50 (40–49) [1791–1800]
	FWM, 50 & Under 60 (50–59) [1781–1790]
	FWM, 60 & Under 70 (60–69) [1771–1780]
	FWM, 70 & Under 80 (70–79) [1761–1770]
	FWM, 80 & Under 90 (80­–89) [1751–1760]
	FWM, 90 & Under 100 (90–99) [1741–1750]
	FWM, 100+ [1740 & before]
	FWF, 5 & Under (0–4) [1836–1840]	3 – [Unknown]
	FWF, 5 & Under 10 (5–9) [1831–1835]
	FWF, 10 & Under 15 (10–14) [1826–1830]	2 – [Unknown & Mary Jane Beal (b. 1828)]
	FWF, 15 & Under 20 (15–19) [1821–1825]
	FWF, 20 & Under 30 (20–29) [1811–1820]	1 – [Elizabeth (Painter) Beal]
	FWF, 30 & Under 40 (30–39) [1801–1810]
	FWF, 40 & Under 50 (40–49) [1791–1800]
	FWF, 50 & Under 60 (50–59) [1781–1790]
	FWF, 60 & Under 70 (60–69) [1771–1780]
	FWF, 70 & Under 80 (70–79) [1761–1770]
	FWF 80 & Under 90 (80­–89) [1751–1760]
	FWF, 90 & Under 100 (90–99) [1741–1750]
	FWF, 100+ [1740 & before]
	No. Persons Employed in Mining; Agriculture; Commerce; Manufacture & Trade; Navigation of the Ocean; Navigation of Canals, Lakes, and Rivers; and Learned Professional Engineers	1 - Agriculture
	WP, 20+ [1820 & Before], Could Not Read & Write	1
	TOTAL IN HOUSEHOLD	8

 

Analysis: Peter Beal is aged 30 to 39 years old and is head of the household; containing 8 people. Peter’s age is consistent with other census entries which provide a calculated birth year range from 1801 to 1804. There is a female of the right age to be his wife Elizabeth Painter and there are five young girls under 14 that are likely their children and one would be the right age to be Mary Jane Beal, who was born in 1828. There is one male aged 5 through 9. Looking at the neighbors, Peter Beal is the only Beal enumerated on this page. There are no Painter households on this page. Peter Beal owned no slaves and had no free colored persons in his household. No one was noted as being deaf, dumb, and blind, nor an alien (foreigners not naturalized). There were no Rev War pensioners enumerated in the household. No persons were noted as deaf, dumb, blind, insane, or idiots.

 

These censuses will be further analyzed, and a more in-depth review of the neighbors will be completed to get an idea of the neighborhood in Hawkins County, Tennessee. However, it answered the question that Peter Beal had a female of the right age in his 1830 and 1840 household to be Mary Jane Beal providing further support for the hypothesized parentage.

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[1] Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 2025), memorial 44977126, Eliza Henry (15 Jun 1837–16 Jul 1893), maintained by contributor 46510018, Rosa Cline; citing Friendship Cemetery, Springdale, Washington County, Arkansas, USA.

[2] 1830 U.S. census, Hawkins County, Tennessee, population schedule, Taney Town, p. 17 (penned & stamped), line 9, Peter Beal; digital image, Ancestry(https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 2 March 2026).

[3] 1840 U.S. census, Hawkins County, Tennessee, population schedule, p. 255 (stamped), line 5, Peter Beal; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 2 March 2026).

Land Records - Samples From Prior Trips

From German Girls Genealogy (Teresa Steinkamp McMillin & Debra A. Hoffman):

 

Our last series of posts outlined preparation for a German trip to research beyond church records. We now want to highlight some of our findings to demonstrate how your hard work can pay off. 

 

Beraine – Land Records

 

The Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe holds a large collection of land records in 66-Beraine. It has no online finding aid, rather a large set of index cards held in a filing cabinet. The index cards are alphabetically arranged by place name and they point to microfilms, which ultimately contain images of the records.

  

I was focused on my Huber family who lived in Butschbach. The “land” records I found for that location were more akin to tax assessment lists. I’ll show you an example. Unfortunately, the images are very faint, but they are legible.

 

This example is from 1825 for Butschbach.[1] Each page describes a Gut [farm] and its annual taxes. The taxes fall into two categories: money and grain. The currency for Baden at the time were Florin, subdivided into Kreuzer. The measurement for grains, from largest to smallest, were Fiertel, Sester, and Meßlein. Every region had its own units of measure. Sometimes they had the same or similar names, but they might equate to different amounts. One of the archivists alerted us to a great book for weights and measures in Baden: Wolfgang and Hippel, Maß und Gewicht im Gebiet des Großherzogtums Baden um 1800 [Measurements and weight in the area of the Grandduchy of Baden around 1800] (Mannheim: Institut für Landeskunde und Regionalforschung der Universität Mannheim, 1996). 

 

The description of the farm was interesting. It lists the types of buildings on the property and names of adjacent neighbors. For example, the first Gut belonged to Joseph Braun. His neighbors included Doctor Bauhöfer, Michael Spinner, Anton Huber, and Joseph Huber. On Braun’s property there a house, yard or garden, barn/stable, agricultural land, meadow, vineyard, forest, and Wildfeld [I believe this to be fallow ground.]

 

At a first glance, these records might not tell you a lot. But if you really study them, you can see what a typical farm might look like. You can determine who the neighbors are. You can get clues about your ancestor’s wealth compared to their neighbors. It adds more to the information that you get from the church records. 

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[1] Butschbach und Hesselbach Beraine, 1825, Vol. VI, no. 1, Joseph Braun; Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, microfilm, 66-Beraine, Nr. 1542, third image.