Manquen Family Information

My Connection

My mother's mother's mother was Caroline Manquen, and her father was John Manquen; my ancestor chart gives a pictorial view of how I'm related to them.

I'd like to acknowledge up front that a lot of this information comes courtesy of the following people, to whom I'm indebted: my grandmother, Alma Gruber, and my great-aunts, Sister Marie Harlach and the late Dolores Stucke, who helped me label old photos and searched their memories for hours around the kitchen table; my extended cousin, Jean Balent Penner, who sent me information on the Detroit Manquens (and Doetsches); another extended cousin, Dale Manquen, who provided me with the writings of Sister Felicia, tree charts, and other useful information; and, most recently, yet another extended cousin, Sandy Cerenzia, who has provided me with information on some of my photographs, a letter from Aunt Kittie Biry, transcriptions of documents, and other good things (which just keep coming!).

Pre-Buffalo Manquen History

As mentioned above, my great-great-grandfather was John Manquen, born in Buhl (now Buhl-Lorraine), Moselle, France (part of the region known as Alsace-Lorraine), with the name "Jean Michel Manquin", on October 14, 1849. His father, Nicolas Manquin, born in 1813 in France, and his mother, Therese Mary Kern, also born in 1813 in France, are the earliest ancestors I know of for this family to date.

Tracing this family's lineage is a little tricky, as there were many different spellings of their last name. The original French spelling appears to have been "Manquin", but in the United States there were variants such as "Manken", "Mankin", "Mangan", "Mauquin", "Manguen" and "Manguin" (note the "g" instead of the "q" in those two), and even "Mangnon", as well as the more familiar "Manquen". By 1900, "Manquen" appears to have been the preferred spelling for our branch of the family.

The families of Nicolas (or Nicholas), his brother Michel (Michael), and one other brother emigrated to the US together in November, 1850, according to the notes of Sister Felicia. The manifest for the ship Robert Kelly, which arrived in the Port of New York on November 21, 1850, from Havre, France, lists a few individuals that may be from this family; however, there are a few inconsistencies in the online records, and I'd like to see the original records some day.

As far as I can tell, Nicholas and Michael lived in Detroit for the rest of their lives. They were Roman Catholic, and based on the various family weddings and other ceremonies that were held there, I believe their home parish was St. Mary's in Greektown, now known as "Old" St. Mary's (the church they went to was the old single-steepled one, not the newer, double-towered church that stands there now). The other brother, for whom we do not have a name yet, went south to Philadelphia and then to Virginia, and it is not believed that he had any further contact with the families in Detroit. They had a fourth, older, brother, who stayed in France, and all we know of him is that he served in the French army for four years. They also had a sister who lived in Nancy, France, but we do not know anything else about her, either.

The 1853 Detroit City Directory lists Nicholas as "Mangan, Nicholas", a carpenter living on the south side of Bacon, between Beaubien and Antoine; the 1855 one lists him as "Mankin, N.", a carpenter living at 22 Bacon; and the 1859 one lists him as "Mangan, Nicholas", a carpenter living at at 22 Beaver (misspelling of "Bacon"?). There is another Mangan, James, a laborer who lived on Beech, and I do not know if this was a relative or not.

Dale Manquen's notes list Nicholas Manquen has having died in 1900. The LDS IGI database lists May 5, 1885, as his date of death, but I believe that death date is for another Nicholas Manquen, as other sources for that information show an age that would be grossly incorrect (42 versus 71), and also list that individual's parents as Michael and Marie of Detroit (who did have a son named Nicholas of the correct age for the above death notice, according to the 1860 Federal Census).

Sometime during 1870-1872, John Manquen went West, where he married Eleanor Davis, formerly of Limerick, Ireland, and they had one daughter, Agnes. I am having difficulty locating John in the 1870 Federal Census, or any other records for this time period, so the details are still a bit fuzzy.

In around March of 1874, Eleanor died while giving birth to a second daughter (who was taken in by John's sister, Elizabeth, but only lived for a short time). John remarried, to Barbara Haag (who had emigrated from Bavaria in 1852), sometime in 1874. According to Marie Harlach (their granddaughter and my great-aunt), Barbara told her that she was in church at the time of Eleanor's burial mass. She felt so sorry about this incident, as he was so young and good-looking to be left with a baby. Shortly after, during a bazaar-like festival at church, Barbara was introduced to John and within a short time this led to marriage. John's sister, Catherine Biry (known as "Aunt Kittie"), insisted that she bring up the girl, whose adopted name became Catherine Agnes Biry. Catherine Agnes later became a nun in the order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary under the name Sister Mary Felicia, and there is a wonderful story about her that I will try to put online in the near future, if I get permission from Jean Penner Balent, the author.

John and Barbara had a total of five children while they lived in Detroit: John (1875), Albert (1876), Rosa (1878), Joseph (1880), and Caroline (1883). Their fourth child, Joseph, died of croup in October of 1882, at the age of two years, four months.

History of the Manquen Family in Buffalo

At some point after the birth of Caroline in August of 1883, they moved to Buffalo, for reasons we do not know. The 1887 Buffalo City directory shows John Manquen, a cabinetmaker, living at 14 Spring Street, so around 1886-1887 seems like a good guess.

John and Barbara had three more children after moving to Buffalo: William (1889), George (1892), and Arthur (1894).

At the turn of the 19th century, the family lived at the corner of Spring and Hollister Streets, shown in this picture (there are more pictures of the family on this page). His son John had a house two doors away on Hollister Street, and in between them was the Harlach family, into which his daughter Carrie and his son Art would marry.

Their fifth child, Caroline (Carrie), was my great-grandmother, was born in Detroit, Michigan, on August 21, 1883, and came to Buffalo with the rest of the family, as described in the previous section. She was a seamstress, and married Frank Harlach, a mechanic, in 1912. It is almost certain that they met because they were next-door neighbors; the house behind the one shown in the photograph referenced in the previous paragraph is 13 Hollister, where the Harlach family lived. Carrie and Frank had four children: Marie (Sister Mary Nelson of the Order of St. Francis), Alma (my grandmother), Arthur, and Dolores (Stucke), and that family's story continues on the Harlach page.

John Manquen was a carpenter by trade, and for the last 20 years of his life worked in the passenger car division of the Erie Railroad, where he later became a foreman. He was written up a few times in the Erie Railroad Employee Magazine; I've taken the relevant entries from this index and reproduced them here:

John died of pneumonia at age 64 on April 29, 1914, according to his death notice in The Buffalo Evening News. He is buried in the United German and French Cemetery on Pine Ridge Road in Buffalo, NY, in section VV. An obituary on page 231 in the June, 1914, issue of the aforementioned Erie Railroad Employee Magazine said this:

It is with deep regret that we announce the death of John Manquin, foreman at the Buffalo Car Shop. John was a hale fellow and in his private life was greatly respected by all who knew him. He was held in high esteem by all who knew him at Buffalo Car Shop. He was for a number of years connected with the Pullman Company, both at Detroit and Buffalo. As Assistant Foreman to Mr. W.T. Duffin, Pass. Dept., he was invaluable. He was in his sixty-fourth year and had twenty years service with the Old Reliable. His illness was of short duration. Buffalo Car Shop extends sympathy to his bereaved family. May he rest in peace.

My grandmother and my aunt both remember their Grandma Manquen as a kind, loving, jovial person, whom they loved dearly. She lived with them for many years at their home on 38 Sprenger. They remember that Aunt Kitty often came to visit, and that she was nice but very strict, not at all like Barbara. My grandmother also remembers Barbara's brother, John Haag, coming to visit, staying in the attic bedroom, and emptying the chamber pot out the window (their father sure put a stop to that!). He was quite a character, and made them believe that he had struck it rich in California; however, he was poorly dressed and had nothing, which was disappointing to the children, who hoped his riches would benefit them.

Barbara Manquen died in 1935, and is buried next to John.

Web Searches

This page indicates that the Manquen family lived on Broadway in Buffalo in 1890.

Records from Bath National Cemetery show that a George J. Manquen (1890-1958) is buried there.

A French web site here shows listings of Manquins and Kerns in Buhl-Lorraine and Paris; here is a list from that site of the Manquins in Buhl-Lorraine (I'm not exactly sure what it indicates yet, perhaps a directory listing of some sort):

MANQUIN
... Brendan
... Charles ( 1882 FRANCE, 75115, PARIS )
... Charles
... Colette
... Françoise
... Geneviève
... Jacques ( 1810 ALLEMAGNE, ?, WREXVILLER, + 1873 FRANCE, 94037, GENTILLY )
... Jacques ( 1853 FRANCE, 57119, BUHL-LORRAINE )
... Jacques
... Jean-Pierre
... Joseph ( 1844 FRANCE, 57119, BUHL-LORRAINE, + 1900 )
... Louise ( 1875 FRANCE, 75115, PARIS )
... Marie-Anne ( 1850 FRANCE, 57119, BUHL-LORRAINE )
... Marthe
... Nicolas
... Nicolas ( 1842 FRANCE, 57119, BUHL-LORRAINE )
... Steven
... Victor ( 1848 FRANCE, 57119, BUHL-LORRAINE )
... Victor ( 1886 FRANCE, 75115, PARIS )

Information From Official Records

Detroit and Buffalo City Directory Listings

On my lunch hours, I have been browsing the microfilmed and microfiched copies of the Detroit and Buffalo City Directories, which are available at the Lockwood Library, at UB, about two minutes' walk from my office in Bell Hall. Shown below are the results of my findings for the Manquen family.

I've included variants of "Manquen" only in cases where they seemed relevant, and did not search for every occurance of "Manquin", "Mangan", "Manken", "Menken", etc.

1850-1886, Detroit

1887-1889, Buffalo

1890-1894, Buffalo (incomplete)

1895-1899, Buffalo (incomplete)

1900-1904, Buffalo (incomplete)

1905-1909, Buffalo (incomplete)

1910-1914, Buffalo (incomplete)

1915-1919, Buffalo (incomplete)

1920-1924, Buffalo (incomplete)

1925-1929, Buffalo (incomplete)

1930-1935, Buffalo (incomplete)

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