As you can see from the record, of the same date his son-in-law Isidor Baumann and his son Nicholas also took the final oath. Nicholas arrived as a minor born Nov 5 1820, now age 26.

From this we learn a bit about the person of our ancestry. Isidor was a subject of the grand duke of Baden age 32 (1815), 5ft 4in, dark complexion, proved good character. Somewhere most of us evolved to a taller stature, but it also reflects the genes of cousins who are 5ft – nothing. Isidor and his family must have been living with his Father-in-law’s family at this time since Isidor did not buy the Baumann family farm until about 1850.

Peter Steffen’s son Nicholas was a subject of Frederick William, King of Prussia, age 26 (1820), light complexion.

It is documents such as these which put a real person to the names and dates of genealogical research. Peter had blue eyes and Isidor was 5ft 4in tall.

Peter Steffen died Oct. 30 1871, 63 years to the day before I was born in Newport, KY. Peter Steffen is recorded in various records as being the oldest person buried at Saint Joseph Cemetery on the very grounds he donated to the dioceses to begin this Catholic community in Four Mile. Peter was almost 89 years old when he died, 30 years after he and part of his family left Neiderlosheim and about 19 years after his remaining children and grandchildren came to America.

Some time ago, perhaps 30 or more years, someone broke into the Saint Joseph Church’s Parish Office and stole the safe containing the church records. As a result the cemetery lists available today are those written by various dedicated people who have set out to record every headstone. Since the stones were worn, broken, covered with lichen and almost illegible some names and dates have been misinterpreted and errors are recorded. We thank these folks who recorded this information and perhaps somewhere - sometime the Church records will be returned.

In this process the location of the graves of Peter and Anna Steffen were only a grassy spot in the cemetery where they should be. While Peter Steffen is recorded in the cemetery names, his wife Anna Bone Steffen is not listed in the four records that I have. In 2003 my Wagner cousins and I set out to find Peter Steffen’s grave site. We searched and probed the area and under about six inches of sod we found the headstone of Anna Bone Steffen. It was apparently lost for years since there was no record of her burial.

As we continued to search for Peter Steffen’s headstone we were unable to locate his grave. We returned again in 2004 to do additional research and Anna Bone Steffen’s stone had been removed from the horizontal position and there stacked against a nearby headstone was not only Anna’s stone but also Peter Steffen’s headstone. It was in excellent shape as though it had been removed and cleaned or restored. Thank you to whoever made this available for our future family members who might like to visit the grave of their G G G G grandparents.

We now have the location of the graves of the two Steffen parents who came to America and more specifically Four Mile or Camp Springs KY. Their descendants are too many to list but I will attempt to continue to write about the Steffen family members who were part of my family here in Campbell County KY.