Michael Betscher
Michael Betscher was born in Baden about 1791. He left from London on 2 April 1849 and landed at New York on 10 May 1849, and by the autumn of 1851 he was standing in front of the Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas at Cincinnati renouncing his allegiance to the Grand Duke of Baden. He was about sixty. Most men who cross an ocean at sixty are following somebody. He was bringing three grown sons.
He farmed at Dry Ridge, in the German Catholic country in the western townships of Hamilton County. On 5 November 1859 he and his wife sold that farm, thirty seven and seventy nine hundredths acres in the south east corner of section sixteen, to Joseph Betscher of the same place for two thousand six hundred and forty five dollars. The clerk headed the entry, in a hand with a good deal more flourish than the rest of the page, *Michael Betscher Deed Joseph Betscher*.
That conveyance is the hinge of his family. Three German born Betscher men, Joseph, Melchior and Amand, had bought eighty one and a quarter acres together in the next township in 1854. Two of them left records that name their father outright: Amand's death certificate of 1913 gives Michael Betscher and Anna, both of Germany, and Melchior's marriage return of 1900 gives Michael Betscher and Mary Faurs. The third man in that joint tenancy was Joseph, and Joseph is who Michael sold his farm to.
He was still alive and still trusted in 1873, when the Hamilton County Probate Court named him one of three appraisers of a neighbour's estate.
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If Michael Betscher is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Michael Betscher (b. 1791)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/michael-betscher-1791-5f3911.