Grall, Brunig, Benishek, and Wellner Families

The family of Anton Grall (Greil) came from villages around the Eschlkam (Germany) area, very near the Czech border. Anton Grall's name was spelled "Greil" before being changed to Grall after coming to the US (after a bankruptcy, according to oral history). Anton Greil was born in 1839 in Ritzenried Germany. According to the birth record, viewed here (sixth one down), Anton's parents were Anton (b. 1807 in Vorderbuchberg) and Anna Maria (Multerer) b. 1801. Her Multerer parents were from across the border in Bohemia in Heuhof (German name) or Sruby (Czech name), which is likely the now-abandoned village located just southeast of Vseruby. Anna Maria had been widowed twice before marrying Anton, and had four children whose father's surnames were Hartl and Fischer. A further generation back, Anton's Sr.'s father (b. 1783) (also Anton) was also born in nearby Vorderbuchberg, where he married Barbara Wöhr in 1801. A detailed family tree can be viewed here.

Other ancestral branches of Carol Grall Jindra were also from this German/Czech border region including the Augustins from Stachsried (before 1860), the Lembergers from Haibühl (1857), and the Wellners from Studanky (1856), across the border in Bohemia. The Wellners came on a boat with the George Grall family (not a relative of Anton's, as far as we can tell) and those two families bought farms next to each other in Kossuth township. On Carol's husband's side, the Jindras immigrated (1868) from a Czech village, Miletice, only about 10 miles away from the Greil villages.

Anton Greil's father Anton (b. 1807) had a small farm (less than 1/2 acre) in Ritzenried and was also a day laborer. He came to the US in 1852 as a recent widower, as Anna Maria died in 1851, and his three surviving children (daughter Barbara died in 1853 aged 11, another died in infancy) came two years later in 1854 (see Munich newspaper notice). Anton Sr., however, died in April of 1854 in the Francis Creek, Wisconsin area, before his children had arrived. The children may have come because they heard he was ill. Anton, the youngest child at age 15, thus became an orphan, according to probate papers which appointed a guardian, Francis Weber. Anton likely worked on a farm before serving in the Civil War. Soon after, in 1865, he married Mary Lemberger, and later that same year they bought a farm just east of Whitelaw in Cato township, and had nine children, including Carol Grall Jindra's grandfather, Wolfgang.

Anton's older sister Theresia, age 20, married Joseph Zipperer just about two months after arriving (perhaps arranged by the father before he died). They bought the farm directly to the south of Anton's at about the same time, and had eight children, which meant close connections between the Grall and Zipperer families. The farmhouse, abandoned since the 1950s, still stands today. See it here.

Though these Gralls were earlier "Greils", there were also "Grall" families in the Czech/German border area, some of whom spelled their name KrÃl (or Krall in some records) using a Czech/Bohemian spelling. These Gralls were from near Všeruby, specifically the villages of Friedrichsthal, now called Chalupy, just NE of Hyrsov/Hirschau, and also nearby Fuchsberg (west of Hyrsov). This area sometimes shifted between Bavarian and Bohemian control and the Grall/Kral family were German speakers, not Czech speakers, and thus "Bohmisch".

One of these Gralls, Johann Grall (1833-1904), also emigrated to the Whitelaw area (1854), married Barbara Seidl (1837-1913), and had many children, (See a Family photo), thus many of the Gralls in the area descended from him. They lived on a farm just SW of Whitelaw. Earlier, it was assumed Johann and Anton were likely cousins. Ed Wenzel and Jeannie Tuschl hired a professional researcher to check into this, but then newly-online birth records, found through generous help from Ellen Rohr and Jarrett Boenisch, revealed that Anton's surname was actually Greil. It was determined that Johann and Anton do not appear to have shared a common ancestor for at least four generations prior. DNA research also tentatively indicates that the Gralls and Greil/Gralls are not related, with the exception of branches who are descended from both lines through subsequent intermarriage in the US.

Descendants of these families who stayed in Europe were probably forced out of the Czech side after WWII when there were anti-German forced migrations out of Czech lands at that time. Also, the village of Fuchsberg was destroyed when Communist authorities built border fences and no man's land sometime after WWII.

Descendants of the families who emigrated often settled on farms in Manitowoc County in Wisconsin, especially in the area from Whitelaw to Kellnersville. There is a Hershau Rd. just off of Hwy H southeast of Whitelaw, likely named after Hirschau village. Also, the hamlet of Taus in Manitowoc County is the German name for Domazlice, the biggest city in that area of Czechia where many immigrants came from.

A family history (including photos) and descendants of Anton and Mary Lemberger Grall, written by Jeannie Tuschl, can be viewed here (though the Anton Grall birth info is now out of date with new research). The Anton Grall farm on Hwy 10 went to his son John, and then to John's daughter Germaine and her husband Anthony Tuschl, who bought the farm in 1945. The land stayed in the family until 2024.

Other descendants of Anton Grall include Wolfgang, who owned the Whitelaw mill until it burned down in 1934, and whose son Art and sons later owned the Standard Oil (later BP) gas station in Whitelaw. Anton and Mary's daughters married into the Brunner, Staudinger and Kohlbeck families. The Joseph Zipperer and Theresia Grall Zipperer daughters married into the Pritzl, Braun and Fischer families.

Johann Grall's (b. 1833) many descendants are also found throughout the area and now of course in many other places. He had one son and ten daughters, who married into the Vogel, Koeppel, Grimm, Staudinger, Ginter, Grassl, Gresl, Zipperer, Braun and Meyer families, so descendants include many different surnames.

These two branches have produced hundreds of descendants.

Anton Grall Anton Grall (1839-1918), married to Mary Lemberger, was one of them. They settled on a farm just east of Whitelaw. Anton and Mary's tree can be viewed here (free registration needed to view).

Johann Grall The patriarch of another large branch was Johann Grall (1833-1904), married to Barbara Seidl (1837-1913). They lived on a farm just SW of Whitelaw. Johann and Barbara's tree can be viewed here.

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More about the Grall, Brunig, Benishek, and Wellner Families

Note: Many old birth, marriage, death, and other records from Europe and the US are now online, so it has become much easier to see the original records about your ancestors, going back at least to the 1700s. These records, however, can be very hard to read, as one can see from Anton's record above since, besides being in either German, Czech or Latin, they are written in an old script that can make it hard even to read names.