FamilySearch Full-Text search, 27 Sep 2026: Hegnauer in machine-read deeds, wills, court and other records

How to read this note. Every quotation is the machine transcription as FamilySearch shows it (spelling and OCR errors kept, my readings in square brackets). Full-text transcriptions are often garbled; a date or place quoted here should be checked on the image before it is entered as a fact. Each page is cited by its ARK: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:<id>. FamilySearch's collection labels for full-text pages are often wrong (an Ohio "Who's Who" filed under "Missouri, Stillbirths", Elgg family sheets under "Kentucky, Marriages", a Wisconsin county history dated "1974–1975"); I give the real document type. Living people are not named.

---

1. Summary

• About 3,500 unique pages screened under 23 spellings (table in section 2). The useful ones are listed in section 3 (about 75 rows, covering some 250 pages); the rest are repeats, separate families (Louisville Hegenauer, Highland/St. Louis Hagnauer, German and French bearers) or 20th-century routine (two Hegnauer ministers as officiants at some 200 Ohio and Indiana weddings).
• No page names Igis. The only Swiss origin statements are canton-level or already known: Leonhard (H0003) "b. Canton Graubunden, Switzerland" (his son's 1909 university record), Seengen (Rudolf H0501's 1919 naturalization, already known; a 1923 Zürich civil extract for a Hegnauer daughter born at Seengen in 1900; a Seengen council clerk Heinrich Hegnauer in 1847) and La Chaux-de-Fonds (an Ida Hegnauer, mother of a girl born there in 1891).
• No death record or probate for Luzius (H0001). But the full-text deeds give him a Gasconade County farm from 1857 to about 1870 (Sec. 23, T44N, R5W), four mortgages and its sale, a Home Guard enlistment and an 1864 affidavit — all new to the study.
• Biggest new facts: (1) the Igis woman Christina Hegnauer (H1050, bapt. 1800) and her husband Nicolaus Hermann emigrated to Outagamie County, Wisconsin, in 1856 — a third Igis emigration, the same year as Luzius's (probable); (2) "Dr. Nutin Hegnauer", physician, naturalized in Buffalo County, Wisconsin, on 28 Oct 1879, with a lot at Fountain City (Peter's family's town), practised at Galveston, Texas, 1882–87 (probable) and in Chicago 1889–95 — this is Nutt (H0381), Peter's son; (3) Peter (H0227) was dead by 1883 — "Hegnauer Anna, wid. Peter", Chicago directory 1883–84, living with her son Christian; (4) Christian (H0418) died "a resident of Madison Township", Richland Co., Ohio, on 17 Feb 1926 (study has Columbus), and his printed biography dates the family's emigration to 1872 and his apprenticeship to Fountain City, Wis., 15 Jan 1873; (5) the John (H0002) trail: Kansas City 1884–85 and Lawton, Okla., 1906–1909, "widower" in June 1909, not buried in his Lawton lot; (6) Verena Hegnauer (H0590) of Rochester was the second wife of Andrew L. Wagner and died 28 Sep 1930, aged 78 (probable).

---

2. Searches run

Full-Text search is a keyword search over whole pages (no field for surname; several words are OR'ed; quoted phrases returned nothing; wildcards ? and * work). I ran each spelling over all of FamilySearch's full-text collections, read every hit's text around the name, and opened the full transcription of about 70 pages. Place and record-type filters were applied by reading, not by the search form.

---

3. Hits

Columns: date · place · document · people and roles (key words quoted) · study person and confidence · ARK. "New" = not in the study's records or notes as of today.

3.1 Igis — Luzius (H0001) and his family, Missouri

(Rev. Leonard S. Hegnauer, H0019, and Rev. Robert L. Hegnauer, H0445, appear as officiants in about 200 Ohio, Indiana and Missouri marriage records 1941–1998, in church-history indexes and as naturalization witnesses at Canton 1948–51; not tabulated. Clara E. Hegnauer's coroner file and obituary, Stark Co., 1973: 33SQ-G549-7NM, 33S7-9549-W5D.)

3.2 Igis — Peter (H0227) and his family: Wisconsin, Chicago, Galveston, Iowa, Ohio

3.3 Igis — Christina Hegnauer (H1050) and Nicolaus Hermann: Wisconsin

3.4 Seengen (Aargau) → Rochester, and other Aargau

3.5 Neuchâtel / Newark

3.6 Elgg and other Swiss; unplaced American Hegnauers

Separate families, not ours: Hegenauer of Louisville, Ky. (John, buried 17 Aug 1881; widow Margaret; ~240 pages), Frankenmuth/Saginaw, Mich., Hudson Co., N.J., Kalispell, Mont.; Hagnauer of Highland, Madison Co., Ill. (C. G., William, "Hagnauer & Knoebel Hardware", Robert Hagnauer, circuit clerk 1887–96) and St. Louis (~1,700 pages); French and Dutch notarial pages where "Hegnaur" is an OCR artefact.

---

4. Discoveries

1. A third Igis emigration: Christina Hegnauer and Nicolaus Hermann, Wisconsin, 1856 (probable). The study has Christina (H1050, bapt. Igis 28 May 1800, daughter of Johann Heinrich × Maria Hartmann) marrying Nicolaus Hermann (H1051) on 10 Mar 1825, and nothing after. A Wisconsin county biography of Frederick Spoehr (married 28 Nov 1858) says his wife Christina Herman was "a daughter of Nicholas and Christina (Hegnauer) Herman", born in Switzerland on 5 Oct 1831, emigrated 1854, her parents following in 1856 and settling in Outagamie County, where the mother died in 1863 and the father in 1878; ten children. Both parents' names, the Swiss birth and a daughter born six years after the 1825 marriage fit; no other Christina Hegnauer is known. This puts an Igis Hegnauer woman in America in the same year as Luzius (1856), and in Wisconsin sixteen years before Peter's family came to Fountain City. Next: Outagamie Co. deaths 1863/1878, the Hermann children, the 1860/1870 censuses (Hermann, Nicholas).
2. Nutt/Nutin (H0381) was a doctor: Fountain City, Galveston, Chicago. "Dr. Nutin Hegenauer" was naturalized in the Buffalo County, Wisconsin, circuit court on 28 Oct 1879 (renouncing "the republic of Switzerland"), bought lot 3, block 7, Fountain City on 30 Jul 1879, and appears as "Dr. Hegnauer" in Buffalo County estates from 1875 to 1881 and in a power of attorney in 1884. "Dr. med. N. Hegnauer", offering consultations in German, French, Italian and Spanish, practised at Galveston 1882–87 (ads, burial certificates, lawsuits, a lot in block 496). From 1889 to 1895 the Chicago directories list "Hegnauer Nutin, physician" (9 Rees; 2 and 872 N. Western Av.; 212 W. Lake). Together with the Chicago death of "Nutin Hegnauer", 63, on 8 Jul 1897 (already in the study) and Peter's family at Fountain City, this makes the chain Igis → Fountain City → (Galveston) → Chicago for Nutt, Peter's eldest son, probable; the Galveston link rests on the initial and the chronology. It also explains the unplaced "A./N. Hegnauer, Galveston 1885". Next: the Buffalo County declaration of intention (before 1877), the 1880 census at Fountain City, the 1897 Cook County death certificate 7291.
3. Peter (H0227) died before 1883, probably in Chicago or at Fountain City. The Chicago directory of 1883–84 lists "Hegnauer Anna, wid. Peter, house 80 Willow" with "Christian, printer" at the same address; Christian was a trustee of the First German Presbyterian Church, 67 Willow St., in April 1883. The study's "aft 1880" can become 1880–1883. Next: Cook County deaths 1880–83 and Buffalo County, Wis., deaths.
4. Christian (H0418): emigration year, apprenticeship, church, and a different death place. His printed biography gives born 7 Apr 1858 (study: 8 Apr, baptized 18 Apr at Igis), "son of Peter Hegnauer and Anna (Berry)", emigrated 1872, apprenticed in a printing office at Fountain City, Wis., 15 Jan 1873, Mansfield from 1903, partner and secretary of the Courier Publishing Co. (the German Mansfield Courier). His will (23 Jul 1923) and the probate application state that he died on 17 Feb 1926 "a resident of the Township of Madison", Richland County — the study's death place "Columbus" needs checking. His son Wilbur's 1948 death certificate gives the mother Cornelia Conzett's birthplace as Wisconsin (study: Iowa).
5. Luzius (H0001): a Gasconade County farmer from 1857/58 to about 1870. The deed books show Luzi/Lucius Hegnauer and his wife Margaretha holding Sec. 23, T44N, R5W (80 acres by 1860, 120 acres by 1868), mortgaging it to Peter Krattly (a Krattly — the family into which Christina H0005 married), Ernst Heck and Hermann Kemper, and selling it to Kemper for $1,200 in 1868–70. He witnessed a marriage at Henry Domeyer's house in Boeuf Township in 1858 and in 1864 swore that Domeyer had betrayed Union men to the rebels. He served in the Gasconade County Home Guards (Capt. Stoecklin's Co. D) before the USRC and the 4th Missouri; his descriptive book gives 42 years, 5 ft 6 in, dark complexion, grey eyes, brown hair. So the family's stay in Madison County, Illinois (Leonard's biography: "settled in Madison County" in 1856) was short for Luzius himself; it was his older sons who returned there in the 1860s and married there in 1866 and 1869. (The 1857 index entries are the least certain; from the 1858 witness entry onward it is clearly him.) After 1870 the only traces are Barbara "of Papinville" (Bates Co.) at her 1883 marriage and the 1890 pension. No death, burial or probate record was found in full text.
6. John (H0002): Kansas City 1884–85 and Lawton 1906–09; not buried at Lawton. He bought a Kansas City lot in 1884 and sold it with his wife Mary in 1885; at Lawton he mortgaged property in 1906, registered to vote in 1906 and 1907, and on 23 Jun 1909 sold a lot as "John Hegnauer, widower". He bought the Highland Cemetery lot in which Mary was buried in February 1907, but was not buried there (the lot was later reclaimed). His death (31 Dec 1917 in the study) is therefore probably away from Lawton.
7. Verena (H0590) of the Rochester family: Mrs Andrew L. Wagner, d. 28 Sep 1930, aged 78 (probable). A New York cemetery transcription lists, under Andrew L. Wagner (1828–1921, from Württemberg) and his first wife Barbara Zeller (1837–1907), "Verina (Hegnauer) w. of Andrew, d. Sept. 28, 1930, ae. 78". The age fits Verena, b. about 1852, of the 1884 party. Next: the cemetery name and a Rochester marriage 1907–1921.
8. Rochester naturalizations, 1892–95 (new). Jacob and Albert were admitted on 18 Feb 1892 (Albert as a minor, born March 1870, arrived April 1884), John Henry on 12 Oct 1892, Rudolph declared on 18 Feb 1892 and petitioned in 1895, giving birth 16 May 1857 and arrival 4 Apr 1884. The second 1884 party sailed from Le Havre on 18 Oct 1884 on the Saint-Germain with a Rudolphe Thut. None names Seengen; the full petitions (Monroe County Court, file 101) may.
9. Seengen and La Chaux-de-Fonds, from European records filed abroad. A Zürich civil extract of 1923 names Lisette Hegnauer, wife of Rudolf Urech, mother of Frieda Urech, born at Seengen on 26 May 1900; a certified Seengen marriage entry of 1847 is witnessed by "the council clerk Heinrich Hegnauer"; and Italian banns of 1933 name Ida Hegnauer, wife of Fritz Flückiger, mother of a girl born at La Chaux-de-Fonds on 7 Jan 1891 — the town where Wilhelm (H0492) and his son James were in 1880. A "Wilhelm J Hegnauer" was naturalized in Middlesex County, N.J., in 1887–89.
10. The Bates County "Christopher" puzzle. The study's unplaced "Christopher H. Hegnauer, 1853–1943, Prairie City" comes from a 1942 cemetery listing whose line reads "Christopher H. Hegnaur his wife (---) d. Aug. 23, 1943 age 90". A 1952 listing of the same area calls Lizzie K. Durst "dau of Christopher and Anna (Wirtz) Hegnauer". Christopher is the local name of Christian (H0010), and the 1943 death is his wife Anna Wirz's (d. 20 Aug 1943). The adult unmarried "Christopher Hegenaur" among the first members of the German Reformed Church about 1879 is a different man, most likely Christian (H0007, b. 1851), before he went to Oregon (his Oregon records begin in 1893).
11. Iowa grandchildren of Peter. Maria (H0394) and Adam Adank had a son Chris Adank (b. 9 Mar 1865 Switzerland, tanner, later licensed embalmer at Burlington, d. 1940); Anna (H0400) and John Frick had a daughter Judith (b. about 1871, in France, m. 1893), and two Iowa death certificates (1956, 1962) of people born in France name their mother as Anna Hegnauer — the Fricks lived in France for some years after the 1865 marriage before coming to Iowa.

5. The two questions asked

• A Swiss hometown? No full-text page names Igis, Landquart or Zizers for any American Hegnauer. The nearest is the 1909 University of Illinois record of Leonard (H0012): his father Leonhard (H0003) "b. Canton Graubunden, Switzerland", his mother "b. Canton Bern". For the other lines: Rudolf's (H0501) naturalization says Seengen (already known); the Urech extract gives a Hegnauer daughter's child born at Seengen in 1900; Ida Hegnauer's daughter was born at La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1891; a Louise Hegnauer lived at Aarau in 1922. The naturalizations of Dr. Nutin (1879), Albert and Rudolph (1892–95) say only "Switzerland".
• Luzius's death? Not found. Full text has him in Gasconade County deeds to about 1870 and the pension index of 1890; no probate, deed of heirs, cemetery entry or later mention in Missouri, Oregon or elsewhere. His daughter Barbara was "of Papinville", Bates County, in March 1883; a Bates County or St. Clair County probate or the pension file itself (application 831,233, certificate 638,825, at the National Archives) remains the best chance.

Working notes 6. Follow-ups suggested (not done)

1. Buffalo County, Wis.: Dr. Nutin's declaration of intention and the 1880 census (Fountain City); Peter's death 1880–83.
2. Outagamie County, Wis.: Nicolaus Hermann (d. 1878) and Christina (d. 1863) — graves, probate, the ten children.
3. Monroe County Court naturalization files 101 and 125 (Jacob, Albert, John, Rudolph, 1892–95) for a birthplace.
4. Luzius's pension file (NARA) and Bates/St. Clair County probate indexes after 1890.
5. Richland County, Ohio, death record of Christian (17 Feb 1926): Madison Township or Columbus?
6. The full Lewis County, Tenn., deeds for John and Rudolph Hegnauer (New Switzerland colony, 1896–1902).