When you're a genealogist, there's nothing worse than having a common name to research. I would be willing to bet that almost everyone has a William Clark in their family tree. You're also blessed with some unusual names. My last name was Kienlen, which is not very common in the United States or even in Germany, where the name originated. Because of that, I've had quite a bit of success with this family.
When Christian Kienlen came to St. Louis, he lived on or very near what is now part of the Gateway Arch National Park. After a move and a career change, he became a farmer. I found a newspaper article about a shipment of 25 pigs he received off a steamship in 1838, in case you were curious about how livestock were moved around at that time. He also produced hemp used for ropemaking. Coincidentally, another ancestor who arrived in St. Louis in 1851 worked as a rope maker. A descendent of John Dunsford the ropemaker married a descendent of Christian Kienlen. These were my grandparents George A. Kienlen Jr. and Margaret Emily Dunsford.
Another bit of family lore is that Christian owned a store along the St. Charles Road (now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive) and sold provisions to people traveling west. I have not found any documented proof of this, but I have the key to his store in my possession. It's a large key, like you would expect to find in the first half of the 19th century. His grandson and my great grandfather, George A. Kienlen Sr., had it nickel plated. It's certainly one of my most treasured items.
When I was a kid, my dad told us about a street in St. Louis named for our family: Kienlen Avenue. I remember him driving us to see the street sign. He told us it was originally his 2nd great grandfather's driveway. The road is actually pretty long, probably a bunch of shorter roads that were eventually connected. Each section is named for different prominent men. The southern end is called McCausland. It then becomes Skinker before changing to Kienlen. Beyond the Kienlen section, it becomes Jennings Station Road. Rest assured, not everything is named after men. When the land was sold, some was subdivided and developed for housing. You can find many newspaper advertisements for the "Marie L. Kienlen Subdivision" as the place to buy a lot and build a home. For a time, the Wellston area was indeed the spot to be! There is even a "Mount Kienlen" somewhere. Since there are no mountains here in St. Louis, I have not been able to figure out which little hill is Mount Kienlen.
I have previously posted about Christian Kienlen HERE and his wife Marie Louise Moreau HERE. I have updated and added to that information in this post, so those can be disregarded now. I have added much about the Kienlen home. It was the beginning of my foray into genealogy, and there is still so much more for me to discover!
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