WIESS / STURROCK Family History

474P-SWWiess-7
476P-MargaretSWiess-7

We now have a DNA Project for the Wiess family!



See the book "The Story of Beaumont". It is a great source of information on early Beaumont and the Wiess family and is presented here in web format. (Many thanks to Norman West of Evadale for allowing us to copy the book.)


Other Wiess related pages & web sites

Texas Historical Markers related to the WIESS family:

WiessBluff-sign
Wiess Bluff historical marker

click below for a larger view of the Wiess Bluff historical marker

144 dpi image
(52 k)
300 dpi image
(157 k)

Articles by Mr. William T. Block, East Texas Historian

(Note: the articles by Mr. Block are perhaps our best history, but there were so many that I placed the links to them last.)

  1. From Cotton Bales to Black Gold,a History of the Pioneer Wiess Families of Southeastern Texas, Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record, VIII #1 (Nov. 1972), 40-61.
  2. Napoleon Bonaparte Wiess
  3. A Brief History of Wiess Bluff, Texas
  4. Beaumont's Fabulous Wiess Brothers: History of the Reliance Lumber Co.
  5. Beaumont's Big Business.
  6. Some Notes on the Pioneer McGaffey Families of Sabine Pass, Texas
  7. Pioneer music in Beaumont contained lots of brass horns
  8. Introduction to Articles About Beaumont, Texas by W. T. Block
  9. Lucas gusher fever affected so many folks, far and wide
  10. Table of Contents: A History of Jefferson County, Texas
  11. Two area cities in late 1800s fought major fires together
  12. Former slave's death in 1889 attracted rare news coverage
  13. The Sawdust City in the 1880's: Beaumont Before Spindletop
  14. When Southeast Texas Mail Had Four Feet: Beaumont's frontier postal system.
  15. A Tale of "King Lumber:" Godparent of Beaumont
  16. Historical Journal Articles Written by W. T. Block
  17. Million Dollar
  18. Oil Lease
  19. Pre-boom Spindletop gave hints of its riches
  20. Spouter
  21. Strong Spell swam river ferrying lead steer of herd
  22. Sweeney
  23. Oil industry in East Texas traces roots back to 1860s
  24. President Sam Houston's Sabine City Company
  25. A Brief History of Pioneer Entertainment in Beaumont, Texas
  26. The Patriotism of Beaumont, Texas: Town re-entered union July 4, 1896
  27. The Progress and Present State of Judaism in the Golden Triangle
  28. Some Notes on the Pioneer McGaffey Families of Sabine Pass, Texas
  29. Future
  30. The March
  31. Neches River Cotton Steamboats: A romantic interlude of frontier days
  32. Dr. Smith
  33. Early Beaumont Education: Frontier schools provided the city's leaders of the future
  34. Robert Kidd: Aged 116 years and proof that life begins at sixty
  35. A History of Jefferson County, Texas: Spanish and French Activities
  36. Early Southeast Texas Doctors were Medical Men of Iron
  37. Great Storm of 1886: A day of agony and death at Sabine Pass, Texas
  38. Newspaper Articles Written by W. T. Block
  39. Captain Peter Stockholm: A Pioneer Sabine River Steamboatman
  40. Dr. Niles Smith: Torch Bearer, Town Builder and Bank Examiner of the Texas Wilderness
  41. Henry R. Green: Fake obituary identified Beaumont's early school teacher-historian
  42. 11th Batalion, Texas Volunteers, Confederate States Army
  43. The Beginning of Dick Dowling as a Rebel Fighter
  44. Opelousas Trail: Bellowing cows marked first trail to New Orleans
  45. Diary of H. N. Connor
  46. The East Texas Railroad: Rails gave life to sawmill towns of long ago.
  47. Jefferson County, Texas: Geological, Historical and Agricultural Background
  48. Colonel J. G. Kellersberger, Confederate Chief Engineer of East Texas
  49. Kelly
  50. Smith's Bluff and Grigsby's Bluff, Texas
  51. Guest Book
  52. A History of Jefferson County, Texas: Mexico and the Anglo-American Pioneers
WTBlockJr
W. T. Block

page 3
W. T. Block, WW-II

William Theodore Block, Jr., age 87, known as “W. T.” or “Bill” to his friends, passed away at Christus St. Mary Hospital on Saturday December 15, 2007. He was born in Port Neches on July 29, 1920, the son of Will and Sarah Jane Sweeney Block, and he moved to Nederland in 1935. He grew up on his father’s farm, which is currently the land occupied by Oak Bluff Memorial Cemetery.

He graduated from Nederland High School, Cheniers Business and Radio College, and Lamar University with an MA degree in history. He also served 3 years in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and taught at Lamar for 2 years as a teaching fellow.

During World War II, he served from 1942-1946 in the 78th Infantry Division, earning 3 battle stars for the Battles of the Bulge, Rhineland, and Central Europe. After the war, he worked 31 years for the Postal Service, including 20 years as assistant postmaster and postmaster in Nederland, or as officer-in-charge in Orange. Later he served on the Lamar University staff for 11 years, retiring in 1981.

Mr. Block was a dedicated historian, publishing 9 books of East Texas history, many academic articles in historical journals, and he was a guest columnist for Beaumont Enterprise for many years. He was a member of First United Methodist Church in Nederland, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Texas Gulf Historical Society. He was also a Knight of the Royal Order of Orange-Nassau, a knighthood conferred on him by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. He had also been a ham radio operator for 32 years, and served several years as an assistant scoutmaster.

 

This page is dedicated to descendants, relatives and friends of the Wiess family. If you have anything you would like added, posted or changed, please contact me.

CAUTION:  These are FAMILY HISTORY and RESEARCH sites.  Certainly all the information they offer is done in good faith, but do not accept it as fact unless it is supported by sound evidence (look for references to sources noted in the data).
As with most research, at times some of the data is incorrect, misleading and/or incomplete and even some of what is "certain" may later be shown to be in error as more evidence surfaces.

Remember, there is no absolute certainty of anyone's lineage because of mistakes, lies and common practices like men taking their wive's surnames. Mistakes were and are made in hospitals, clerks and priests have inadvertently written the wrong surnames in legal documents, children were adopted with no legal documents filed and the children never knowing they were adopted, secret affairs resulted in children with a different father than the one recorded, men accepted the children of women as their own without ever telling anyone, etc. Not even DNA testing is 100% certain. Family history is designed to give us a sense of our heritage and the struggles our forebears endured to make us what we are today

Use the information given here carefully, check the sources and verify – and enjoy your family history adventure!

Descendants of Republic of Texas residents (1836-1845) qualify for membership in "Sons of the Republic of Texas," "Daughters of the Republic of Texas," and both the SRT and the DRT have memberships for "Children of the Republic of Texas". The Texas State Genealogical Society recently started an organization, "Texas First Families", in celebration of Texas' 150th anniversary as a state in the United States of America. To qualify, applicants must prove direct or collateral descent from an ancestor who settled in Texas before February 19, 1846.