Alwin Feuerbacher arrived in New York in 1883 and made his way to Austin, Texas where he worked and saved until he could bring his wife and children over from Germany. Alwin & Emma had 7 children born in Germany and 5 children born in America. Edmund was the first to be born in America in December of 1886. Six of the children stayed in the Austin area: Paul, Otto, Annie, Ed, Willie and Rosa. Gus settled in Dallas; Hugo went to San Antonio; Max settled in Oklahoma; Carl lived in Fredericksburg and Frank ended up in Nevada. Minna lived in San Patricio County, Texas (near Rockport) following her marriage. As you will see as you explore the site, there were lots of grandchildren-52 in fact: Paul had 12, Max, 11; Gus, 10; Ed, 7; Otto, 3; Rosa & Minna, 2 each; Annie, Willie & Carl 1 each; and Frank left no children.
It is pretty certain that the family came from Saxony, a region in eastern Germany that encompasses the cities of Dresden & Meissen and borders what is now The Czech Republic. It was pretty clear from the Hernsdorf lineage sent from Germany, that Emma's family from the Dresden area and has since been confirmed with documentation found in newly digitized German records. Recent discoveries confirm that Alwin and his family lived in Saxony, near Dresden in the small town Laubegast where Alwin was born. However, the family has now been found just prior to their emmigration in what is now The Czech Republic. Alwin's parents are named in birth records for some of Alwin and Emma's children. So the long mystery of Alwin's parentage is finally solved. Unfortunately Alwin was the only one of his immediate family still alive when he left Germany in 1883. His father had died in about 1872, possibly during a Cholera epidemic. His mother died shortly after. Alwin's middle brother was killed in the Austro-Franco War fought in the early 1870s. His oldest brother, Gustave Adolph, his wife and 3 daughters died of Cholera in the span of one week in August of 1873.
In 1976/77, Chester Feuerbacher, grandson of Alwin and Emma, self-published a family history book entitled The Family of Alvin Feuerbacher and Wife Emma Feuerbacher (nee Hernsdorf). And he distributed several pages of updates in 1981. With permission of Chester's daughters I entered the data & biographies from the book and updates, verbatim into my database and cited the book as my source. I did not attempt to verify all the data as I entered it. But later, as my own research progressed and I found discrepencies, corrections were made and sources cited. I know that Chester got most of his information from other grandchildren or the living children of Alwin and Emma. Often he got conflicting information from siblings and cousins.
Please notify me of errors and corrections so that I can make the history as accurate as possible. It would help to have as much documentation as possible.