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Wagner

The Court Martial of William Wagner

January 9, 1865 was a rainy Monday in Corporal William Wagner’s Union Army camp at Clarksville, Tennessee. He and his Company had been stationed there for a couple years. They were bored and impatient for the war to end so they could go home. Earlier in the day, William had quarreled with Charles Walster over a pistol. (Walster was a survivor of Company M transferred to Company H after a third of his Battery was…
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Bill Russell

Wagner Descendant’s Guide to Canton, Missouri

Canton, Missouri is where multiple generations and branches of our ancestors were born and lived and are buried. I’ve visited several times during my life, and it was the Homeplace for several generations. We have so many ancestors, cousins, aunts and uncles who lived here I cannot mention them all for this. DOWNLOAD PDF Here's a travel report from a recent trip my cousin Ben Wagner took to Canton. The Wagner house on Lewis Street…
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Audio Recordings

1943 Wagner Family Recordings

Ben Wagner recently found some 78-RPM 8-inch records in his late father Arnold’s collection. On them are the voices of our ancestors - my great grandparents William C. Wagner and wife Lilly Giegerich, along with their son William F and Lilly's aunt Tillie Eckert Henry. The recordings were made on Saturday, June 5, 1943, during a trip home by William and Arnold to visit their parents in Canton, Missouri. Other recordings are of the brothers…
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Canton

John Wagner and the Texas Widow

My 2x great uncle John Wagner served alongside his two brothers, Henry and my 2x great grandfather William Wagner, in the Civil War. After the war he moved to Texas, and all I knew was that he had "married a Texas widow." I finally found his obituary, and it lead me on an amazing saga that could have been a movie. I'm still researching a few things, but I wanted to get this posted. Download…
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Giegerich

Wagner Treasure Trove of Photos

Recently my cousin Ben Wagner sent me scans of over a hundred photos that were in boxes from his parent’s estate. I was thrilled to discover a photo of my great great grandfather William Wagner in his Civil War uniform. I had written an extensive chapter about him and his brothers, including a lot of information about their service. This photo is priceless! I updated the chapter to include this photo.   Here are a…
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Are we related?

Are we related to Richard Wagner, the composer?

Probably not. There has always been some curiosity in our family as to whether we are related to the German composer (1813 – 1883). I’ve never found any connection, and he was born after our ancestor John Wagner was born in 1805. It is possible they have common ancestors. However, Wagner is a very common German name. Richard was from Leipzig, about 300 miles to the east of where our Wagners lived in Elleringhausen. I…
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FEATURED

Wagner Family Home Movies

These are the Raw unedited videos from the Super 8 Transfer. There is no sound or captions. The number corresponds to the DVD/chapter. It takes hours to upload each one, so as they finish I'll post and email out. If it doesn't have a link, I'm still uploading. My next task will be to edit like scenes together (like all the Chatauqua Lake footage) Here's a link to the folder that contains all the videos,…
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FEATURED

Staryn Wagner Home Movies

This is a 15-minute compilation of some of the home movies of Staryn Wagner taken by his dad Will Wagner. I've pieced together multiple clips and stills. It's so wonderful that he took and kept these videos. I couldn't include all the footage (then again, how many minutes of crawling do you need to see?), but this gives a nice sampling. I did no color correction. They are as they were transferred. Warning: Will appears…
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Canton

Old Bill Wagner

Jacob William (later dubbed "Old Bill") was born in 1840 in Elleringhausen, Germany. At the age of 6, he and his family joined the waves of German immigrants after their friends in Quincy, Illinois, kept writing for them to come. Six-year-old William took his little sister Henrietta by the hand and led her up the gangplank onto the ship. She never forgot the smell of tar coming from the cordage coiled on deck. They had…
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