Charles & Iona Deets with children Walter, Ethel and Ester
Other children not in the photo were Lloyd William and Adam

William Wilson Deets and Annie Engel were married August 31, 1881. Early in their marriage, W.W., I believed, farmed Lewis Deets' farm in Hopkins Township later moving and taking over the Engel farm near Emerson. The farm is still in the family, worked by my cousin Willard C. H aberer and his wife Phyllis.

W.W. died at age 91 on November 13, 1947. Annie died much earlier, November 7, 1924 at the age of 61.

Lewis Deets was born in Gaugrehweiler, Germany in 1834 or 1836. His father was Johann Wilhelm Dietz and his mother Elizabeth (Wasem) Deets. Gaugrehweiler is a region known as the "Pfalz" and in the 1800s provided many immigrants to America. Gaugrehweiler is a small village, its population in 2006 consisted of only 558 inhabitants. The village is located near Bad Kreuznach, a larger town that is, as James Deets describes it, "near the Rhine".

Lewis had one older brother, William, four sisters, Rachel, Louisa, Caroline, and Catherine and two half-brothers and a half-sister, Melinda, Josiah and Levi.

In the 1850 Census, Louisa is living in the household of Frederick and Philipena (Gribble) Eckhard. The mother, Elizabeth, is living in the Jacob Deetz household with her daughter Malinda. Margaret Wetzel, Lewis's future wife, is living with her family in Stark County, Ohio. Though not all living under one roof, the family in 1850 was established in Ohio households in close proximity to one another.

Lewis moved to Whiteside County, Illinois sometime after the 1850 census, settling in Genesee Township, later selling the property and buying land east of Coleta. Lewis marries Margaret Wetzel on August 10, 1857 and by the time of the 1860 census has established a family. By the time of the 1870 census Lewis's older brother, William, has bought property in Coleta and is farming land nearby Lewis.

On October 31, 1861 Lewis Deets enlists to fight the Civil War. He becomes a soldier in the 55th Illinois Infantry under the command of General Sherman. Lewis signs on, he believes, for eight and a half months of service for which he receives a signing bonus. At the end of his eight and a half month tour of duty, he returns home only to find he really signed up for the duration of the war. Lewis is returned to duty and he and the 55thth Illinois participate in the Siege of Vicksburg, occupy Natchez, and finally follow Sherman and his "March to the Sea" burning down much of the South along the way.

General Robert E. Lee surrenders on April 9, 1865 and two months later, Lewis Deets deserts, this time for good. Because he deserted, Lewis does not receive the veterans bonus, a benefit later passed by Congress, which upsets him. The oral history says Lewis came home early because his unit was to march in a victory parade in Washington D.C., and he thought maybe he'd prefer to go home rather than march in a parade. I don't know if Lewis Deets fought at the Battle of Shiloh or not. If he did, I can understand his desire to desert afterwards. If he didn't, he was lucky since so many of the 55th Illinois Infantry died in that very bloody battle. Let me digress and talk about the Shiloh and Vicksburg campaigns.

At Shiloh in the two days of fighting from April 6-7, 1862 the combined number of casualties on both sides, killed and wounded, was 25,000. This was the first battle of the Civil War where an enormous number of soldiers died and it shocked the nation. Briefly, General Grant sent the Union troops under his command to Pittsburg Landing, a river port on the Tennessee River; his plan, to take the battle to teh South and invade Mississippi. The Union troops met no resistance, unloaded, and set up camp. The Confederates under General Johnson, had different plans and on April 6th surprised the Union troops and engaged them in battle. Johnson's plan was to sweep the left flank of the Union and force them out of Pittsburg Landing port and West into a swampy area where he could isolate and decimate them.

The problem for the 55th Illinois was that "they" were the left flank of the Union forces. In a fierce battle the Confederates overwhelmed the 55th Illinois and forced them back to Pittsburg Landing. General Johnson is back to Pittsburg Landing. General Johnson is killed in the fighting (near the 55th Illinois position) and General Beauregard takes command. Fortunately, Beauregard is incompetent, changes the plan to an across the board is incompetent, changes the plan to an across the board assault, diluting the thrust along the flank. At the end of the day, declining to push his advantage, Beauregard retires, planning on finishing the job the next morning. Unfortunately for him and the Confederate forces, during the night the Union re-enforcements arrive with fresh troops. The next day Beauregard meets a counter attack that overwhelms him and forces a Confederate retreat.

In the battle the 55th Illinois had 51 men killed, 190 wounded, and 27 men missing. If the family history is correct and Lewis waited and fulfilled his eight and a half month tour of duty, his enlistment being up June 15, 1862, the Battle Shiloh taking place April 6th and 7th, when Lewis was at Shiloh. If so, he could have been one of those missing soldiers. Whatever, Lewis Deets was at the Siege of Vicksburg.

The Vicksburg campaign went from December 26, 1862 to July 4, 1863. If you visit Vicksburg, Mississippi you'll find Lewis Deets' name on the Illinois Memorial. The park service has marked the positions of every soldier, where they were during the battle. Lewis Deets' position was, once again, on the flank, this time the south flank of Vicksburg. The Confederate position opposite Lewis' is just a stone's throw away. Lewis Deets returns from the war but couldn't settle down to farm again. Seventeen years after the Civil War he is burdered ina a "drunken brawl".

In searching for Lewis Deets' roots back to Germany, I was required to go to do some original research. I'm 95% sure that Lewis Deets (Ludwig Dietz) was born in Gaugrehweiler, Germany and that his parents were Johann Wilhelm Dietz and Elizabeth (Wasem) Dietz, but I never found a birth certificate or his church records. I did find William's baptism (Christening) records and from there relied on deduction. The evidence is that Lewis Deets, Catherine (Dietz) Gribble, Louisa (Dietz ) Winhold, and Rachel (Dietz) Crossgrove are one family group.
James Deets says Lewis came to Philadelphia with his mother at age six. That means, if true, Elizabeth (Wasem) Dietz came alone, without her husband, Johann Wilhelm Dietz, Lewis' father. I assume the father died and Elizabeth came with her children, but did she bring all of them together? The family farm wasn't sold until 1846. Was this just a bad real estate market? Did Lewis' older brother William stay behind with family to try and work the farm with the help of relatives (he had six uncles)? One thing that I wonder about, did Elizabeth bring the family not to Philadelphia in 1843 but to NEW Philadelphia in 1846 after the family farm was sold? New Philadelphia is a larger town a few miles from Ragersville, Ohio where we find the family settled in the 1850 census. It would make more sense of the history. Lots of questions. I'll let you try to find answers.

The Dietz's in Germany were farmers as were most Europeans in those days. This would have been 1643 to 1834. People didn't move far from where they were born. The Map Appendix is useful in order to get a feel for where the Dietz's lived. The towns of Gaugrehweiler, Gutenbacherhof, and Bad Kreuznach are places where the Dietz ancestors lived. The distance between the northern most town, Bad Kreuznach, and Gaugrehweiler to the south is about 15 miles (25 kilometers). In two hundred years, the family moved fifteen miles.

There are many Dietz families in this area of Germany many of which we are probably related in some way to. Johann Wilhelm Dietz, Lewis Deets' father, first married Johanne Phillippine Kirchner on September 2, 1827. They had one daughter, Elisabetha. Johanne died and Wilhelm married Elisabetha Wasem, Lewis' mother, about 1832. Together they had six children (Wilhelm, Caroline, Luisa, Rachel, Catherine, and Ludwig {Lewis}). The father, Wilhelm, bought a farm in Gaugrehweiler in 1826; it was sold in 1846.

Lewis Deets' grandfather was Friedrich Karl Dietz, born May 16, 1763 in Gutenbacherhof. Gutenbacherhof is a cluster of four or five houses on the outskirts of Gaugrehweiler and could probably best be described as "Dietzville"; maybe something like Emerson was to Sterling, Illinois at one time.

A picture of one of our Dietz relatives and his family standing in front of his house in Gutenbacherhof, probably from the 1920s or earlier. Friedrich Karl Dietz was a master miller and owned a mill in Gaugrehweiler. Friedrich Karl was one of a long line of Dietz's to run the family mill built in 1616 and is one of the oldest buildings in Gaugrehweiler.

Lewis Deets' great-grandfather, Johann Nicolaus Dietz was also born in Gutenbacherhof in 1731. It was Lewis' great-great grandfather, Johann Friedrich Dietz, born 1706, who made the big move — the 25 kilometers — to Gutenbacherhof from Badenheim. Johann Friedrich's father, Philipp Wilhelm Dietz, born 1673, lived and died in Badenheim and it's there that the records cease to exist on the Dietz line.

The Wetzels

Margaret (Wetzel) Deets was born in Summit, Ohio December 7, 1831 and married Lewis Deets on August 10, 1857 in Whiteside County, Illinois.

The Wetzel line can be traced back to one Sebastian Wetzel born in 1663 in Baden, Germany.

Margaret's father, John Wetzel, was born on April 8, 1797 in Greensburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, married Margaret (Reese) Wetzel in (I think) Wetzel County, West Virginia in 1811, moved to Stark County, Ohio and again to Whiteside County, Illinois where he died in 1860 and where he is buried.

Margaret's grandfather was John Wetzel, born 1770 in Dunkard Creek, Shenandoah, (West) Virginia and who died in Stark County, Ohio in 1817. According to Margaret this was the grandfather that the British shot at during the Revolutionary War (possibly when the family was "holed up" near Fort Henry). John had an older brother, Lewis, who was a famous (or infamous) Indian fighter on the early frontier whom I'll talk more about below. Margaret's great-grandfather, also named John, was born in Paoli, Pennsylvania (outside Philadelphia) in 1733. He was a miller and provided for the Army of George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

Here is a good place to pause to tell about Lewis Wetzel, born in 1763. Lewis is Margret (Wetzel) Deets' great-uncle, son of John the miller above and brother of her grandfather, John of 'the British shot at him'.

In 1777 Lewis Wetzel at age 13 and his younger brother, Jacob, were captured by a band of Indians while their father and older brother looked on, unable to stop the Indian attack. The Indians shot Lewis and wounded him in the chest. After three days in captivity, Lewis and his brother managed to escape but that experience seemed to have shaped his life from then on. A year later Lewis Wetzel started his long career as an Indian Fighter killing his first three Indians in a successful mission to save a neighbor's wife. Lewis Wetzel died in 1808 of Yellow Fever and was buried with his rifle near Natchez, Mississippi. His body was exhumed in 1942 and reburied in McCreary Cemetery, Moundsville, West Virginia, two miles from the Wetzel Family homestead and where those early Indians first captured him in 1777. West Virginia named a county and a highway in his honor.

Johan Jacob Wetzel, born in Heidelberg, Germany in 1714 was the Wetzel that brought the family to America. Johan's father was Elias Wetzel and he was from Heidelberg and was born April 24, 1683. And Elias' father, as previously noted, was Sebastian Wetzel, born 1663 and also of Heidelberg.

The Bennetts

Margaret (Wetzel) Beets' grandmother was Mary Bonnett. Mary Bonnett, born 1735 in Paoli, Pennsylvania, was the mother of Indian fighter, Lewis Wetzel, and spouse of John, 'the British shot at me' Wetzel. The Bennetts were also a famous American frontier family and, like the Stanley's (more on them later), may spring from minor nobility. Her father, Jean Jacques Bonnett, born in Friedrichstal, Germany in 1702 brought the Bonnett family to America. He died in Paoli, Pennsylvania in 1753.

The Bonnetts were Flemish Huguenots of French and German heritage. The genealogy websites have more on the Bonnett family, but like the Stanley's, I am skeptical and have stopped with Jean Jacques' arrival in America. Like I said before, once you tap into the aristocracy, you can trace them back forever.

For those who are interested, though, Daniel Bonnett, who was born in 1658 in the Piedmont region of Italy, is your connection to nobility. The Piedmont region is located in northeastern Italy next to France and south of Lake Geneva. "The House of Savoy" (French) controlled the Piedmont region in the 1600s, there was no "Italy" as we know it back then. At the time Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy was the dominant royalty known for his occasional slaughter of women and children during his numerous wars. The House of Savoy fought the Swiss, the Austrians, and the Papal States (Rome) off and on for six hundred years. Ultimately, the Savoys produced the Italian kings. Daniel Bonnett was likely distantly related to the Savoys. The Piedmont is known for their good red wine: Barolo and Barbaresco.

The Engels

Annie Engel, my great-grandmother, was born in Whiteside County, Illinois on June 3, 1863 and died in 1924. Her father was Carl F. W. Engel, born September 29, 1830 in Chappaie Koenigich, Prussia. He died in Emerson, Illinois on December 17, 1915 at age 85. Carl married Willemina Mum in Prussia April 9, 1860. Willemina (Mum) Engel was also from Prussia, was born in Mecklenburg, Germany on 1829. She died in Emerson on May 2, 1880.

Carl Engel arrived in America somewhere around 1861, set up farming in Hopkins Township, and by the 1870 census he was comfortably established. His farm is still in the family.

The Stanleys

The Stanleys are the English side of the family. Bessie Bradford (Stanley) Deets was my grandmother. Her parents were William H. Stanley, born July 11, 1866, died 4 December 1944, and Hannah Marie (Harrison) Stanley, born November 5, 1864, died 23 February 1946. William and Hannah were married in Coleta, Illinois at the home of Mark Harrison, Hannah's father, on September 1, 1886. Bessie Stanley's grandfather was William Jones Stanley, born August 27, 1819 in Virginia. Her grandmother was Adelia Ann (Bunce) Stanley born July 12, 1829 in New York. The Stanley's come Virginia with the "U.S. Stanley" being Thomas Stanley, born September 27, 1670 in St. Peters Parish, Virginia. Thomas migrates to England where he dies May 7, 1714. His father purportedly is Edward Stanley of Lancashire, England and his mother, also of Lancashire, Elizabeth Bosville.

The Harrisons & Dentons

Hannah Marie (Harrison) Stanley's father was Mark Harrison, born in England on November 4, 1837 . Her mother was Maria (Denton) Harrison also of England and born January 24, 1831. Hannah Marie had a brother, Benjamin, who went off to Colorado, to seek his fortune mining for gold in Cripple Creek. He did not strike it rich. In a letter back to the Harrison family in Illinois, he says, "No more whisky for me." Benjamin is buried in an unmarked (pauper's) grave in Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He died of cirrhosis of the liver. The English census data, among other sources, will yield more information for those interested in doing some computer and library research on the Harrisons and the Dentons.

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Stanley celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary Monday at their home, 1612 Locust street. Only their children and their families were present. A delicious lunch was served and the afternoon and evening was pleasantly spent in a social way. William H. Stanley and Miss Anna Harrison were married September 1, 1886 at the home of the bride's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Mark Harrison, south of Coleta. They have spent their entire married life in Sterling and vicinity. To this union were born five children. Four are living. They are: Mrs. Jessie Over, wife of Howard Over; Mrs. Bessie Deets, wife of John L. Deets; Donald and Clark. One son Frank, passed away several years ago. Mr. and Mrs. Staney are in the best of health.

The Bunces

The Bunces go back to colonial America and then to England. The first Bunce in America was James Bunce, born in Kent, England in 1585. He is said to have died in Connecticut in 1606. Since Jamestown, Virginia was founded in 1607 and the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts established in 1620, James Bunce had to be one of the first settlers to the New World. James died, supposedly, in 1606, fourteen years before the Mayflower landed on the shores of Cape Cod and one year before Captain John Smith claimed Jamestown for the Virginia Company. You've got to be a little skeptical about some of this genealogy.

The Deets DNA

I've no expertise on DNA analysis, but DNA is the hot new thing in genealogy research so if you'll forgive my lack of knowledge, this has never stopped me before in offering my opinions on anything, I'll try to cut through the complexity of the science and explain DNA in genealogy research as I understand it.

In most of our genes we carry half the mother's genes and half the father's genes and, thus, become "unique" from our parents. Not so with the male sex gene. Males, and only males, pass on an identical copy of their sex gene from one generation to another unchanged except for an occasional rare mutation.

So, my "Y-chromosome" is identical to my father's, which in turn, is identical to his father's and so for generations. While a mutation can occur from father to son, it is exceedingly rare, and so my male Y-chromosome is likely to be the same as the male Deets line for hundreds of years back, maybe, going back even a thousand years.

What this says is my Y-chromosome, which is classified as E3bl (alternatively, called M35), will be identical to my father's, Milton I. Deets, identical to my Uncle Mason's, identical to my cousin, Laurence Deets, identical to my grandfather, John L. Deets, identical to Lewis Deets, and all the way back to Philipp Wilhelm Dietz of Badenheim, Germany in 1673. Plus, any male Dietz descended as I am from Philipp Wilhelm Dietz will carry an identical copy of my Y-chromosome.

So, if you ever get to Gaugrehweiler, Germany and take a cheek swab of a (male) Dietz and get it tested for DNA, you can see if you're related to him by comparing my Y-chromosome DNA with his.

The second thing the DNA can do is trace the ancient migration of humans "out of Africa" to Europe. That was the purpose of a National Geographic Study. To date I haven't found anybody that matches oru Dietz DNA.

On a final note, all the genealogy research on the family tree assumes no illegitimate births or adoptions. The Dietz DNA might end up really being the Jones DNA for all we know. Maybe, we don't want to know.

Charles Wilson Deets John Lewis Deets Sons of William Wilson & Anne (Engle) Deets