Roling records and research questions

A short guide to the records, conflicting dates and open questions.

Photographs and documents

People’s stories can be linked to photographs and documents, with names, dates when known, captions, and the source of each item. Uncertain identifications will be labeled clearly.

Two men in overcoats and hats standing outside in snow. — Joe Roling and John Frank Roling in the snow. The accompanying handwritten reverse supplies their names; date and location are unknown.

A uniformed man holding a rifle while standing on steps outside a building. — Bob at Fort Riley, 1953, as labeled on the photograph.

The work behind the family history

Gertrude L. Roling Widmer’s foreword offers a glimpse of the work behind the family’s history book. She thanked her sister Mary Lou for cutting and recutting the stencils, and looked ahead to keeping the history current with annual updates.

The source notes name family interviews, church records, census records and passenger lists. The book grew out of relatives’ memories as well as hours spent tracking down documents—a family effort that later generations could build on.

Source: the family history’s undated foreword and source notes. The foreword is signed Gertrude L. Roling Widmer (Mrs. John R. Widmer).

Sources and confidence

Sources and how to read them explains how records, recollections and unresolved questions are presented.

ROL-S01: John Franklin Roling’s 1947 Missouri death certificate. Names Bernard Roling and Magdalena Wentz as his parents.

ROL-S02: 1900 U.S. census, Quincy Ward 3, ED 128, sheet 12B, lines 96–97. Records the household’s reported immigration year and Bernard’s naturalization notation.

ROL-S03: St. Lambertus, Ochtrup, 1820 baptism. Documents the German child; the connection to Quincy Bernard remains unproved.

ROL-S08: Freiburg Funeral Home transcription, entry 131 in the 1900 sequence. Names Ochtrup and gives a birth date that differs from the German baptism.

St. Boniface marriage evidence: January 7, 1855 sacramental index and the diocese’s September 17, 2026 report that the original entry names neither spouse’s parents.

Louisa Roling memorial card, photographed copy in the family collection; printed name and life dates. Issuer and publication date not shown.

Typed family sheet headed by Louisa Maria Bickel and John Frank Roling, family binder, first orange sheet; compiler and date not identified on the sheet. This compiled source gives June 19, 1863, and July 15, 1934. It also gives a November 1890 marriage in Chicago.

Obituary clipping headed ‘J. F. Roling Killed Friday Evening by a Wabash Train,’ with its continuation, preserved in the family collection. The continuation reports the Chicago marriage on October 17, 1890. Newspaper name, issue date and page number are not visible in the supplied photographs.

The separately identified Quincy Herald-Whig report of November 23, 1947, page 18, column 7 is discussed in John F. Roling remembered in Quincy above. Its citation belongs to that article, not to the undated family clipping.

‘J. F. Roling Family,’ separate typed family account, author and date unidentified. Its closing paragraph gives Louisa’s death month as June 1934.

Research questions

Can an American or migration record connect Quincy Bernard explicitly to the Ochtrup household? What explains the different birth days? Can Bernard’s naturalization papers clarify his origin?

Salisbury photographs and business stories can be added as separate, clearly sourced pages without turning family recollections into proved facts.