This is a very long post, so please bear with me!
Our “Fleger” family line emanates from modern day Rescita, Romania (see red flag in the map above – click map to enlarge). That is the location from where this line left Europe to come to Cleveland, OH and begin a new life here in America. In a prior post (see here) I explored the history of this region of Europe at the time the family emigrated, which was in 1903-1904. At that point in time the region was under the Austria-Hungary Empire:
… the Austro-Hungarian Empire in English-language sources, was a constitutional union of the Austrian Empire (the kingdoms and lands represented in the Imperial Council, or Cisleithania) and the Kingdom of Hungary (Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen or Transleithania) that existed for 51 years from 1867 to 1918, when it collapsed as a result of defeat in World War I.
Emphasis mine. I found it very intriguing in the prior post that the region of Romania where the “Fleger” line is from was at one point part of the Princedom of Transylvania. As was outlined in other prior posts (see here and see here) the “Fleger” line is actually comprised of at least three biological surnames, none of which is “Fleger” (Joseph Fleger was my great grandmother’s second husband, who adopted her children from her first marriage).