The Fritz and Brossart Families

Besides the Wolf and Taphorn families, I'm related to the Fritz and Brossart families through the marriage of Anna Taphorn to John Fritz after the death of her first husband, Henry Wolf. These two families were among the early Germans who emigrated to America and settled in Cincinnati. I haven't found records for when they actually arrived in America.

John Fritz

Fritz Family

John Fritz was born on 6 Jan 1883 in Cincinnati. John married Anna Taphorn Wolf on 22 Feb 1922. They had one child, Anna Mae. John worked as a farm laborer in his early life, then farmed on his own account in his adult years.

John Fritz's parents were William Fritz (b. about 1848) and Caroline Brossart (b. about 1855). They married on 25 Sep 1871 in Cincinnati. William worked as a laborer until his untimely death in 1891. They had six children besides John.

William's parents were Nicholous Fritz or Fritsch (b. about 1807) and Barbara (b. about 1810). Caroline's parents were Franz Martin Brossart (b. about 1820) and Margaret Harman (b. about 1819).

Nicholas Fritsch was born about 1807 in Baden. was listed in the 1840 and 1850 Censuses, and the Cincinnati city directories as a tobacconist and confectioner. His wife, Barbara, was born about 1810 in Baden. They had nine children, three of whom we're born before coming to America. Nicholas doesn't appear in any records after the 1850 Census.

Brossart Family

Franz Martin Brossart was born in about 1820 in Germany, possibly Bavaria. He served in the Army in the war with Mexico in 1846-48. He worked primarily as a hackman or driver, and lived for years at 97 West Canal in Cincinnati. He married Margaret Harman, born about 1819 in Germany, possibly Alsace, on 19 May 1842 in Hamilton County. They had four children, Josephine, Frederick, Caroline, and a female whose name I haven't discovered. Josephine married Charles Wortman about 1869. Frederick married Margaret about 1875. Caroline married William Fritz in 1871.

Like most of the German immigrants, they were working men and women. The Census and city directories told their occupations, which were shop owners, painters, laborers, or transit workers. They lived mostly in the area north of downtown, part of which became known as Over the Rhine (because it was north of the Miami and Erie Canal, and an early German neighborhood). They were primarily Catholic, although some were Protestant.

Researching these families was made somewhat difficult because of the lack of records. Fires, floods, and riots in Cincinnati destroyed a lot of the records you'd normally find. Fortunately, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has done a lot to help, including digitizing many of the city directories for that period. I also used the birth and death records at the University of Cincinnati.

The research presented here will be followed by more as I continue to trace these families toward the present. I also hope to find more about where they came from in Germany.

Following are register reports for these two families. The Fritz report is here, while the Brossart report is here.

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This file was last updated on 4/08/2021.