Wilhelm or Julius Fredrich Wilhelm Wegner
Wilhelm WEGNER's (also spelled WEGENER) approximate date of death of 1865 was based on splitting the difference between the date of birth of his apparent last child (Augusta in 1859) and the date (1869) that his 2nd wife, Caroline ROMIG, emigrated to US (apparently without him). Also see notes on Caroline.
Where Wilhelm was born or died is not known, although from various records, it is clear that he lived, and that at least one of his children (Herman) was born, in Schlönwitz, which is in the Belgard County (Kreis) of the Koslin District (Regierungsbezirk) of the Province of Pommern (Pomerania in English), of the Kingdom of Preussen (Prussia in English). Prussia was not part of Germany until the German Empire was reestablished in 1871. It appears that Schlönwitz is the location that his 2nd wife, Caroline ROMIG emigrated from in 1869.
Another factor to keep in mind when searching records is that for some unknown number of years prior to 1932, about the southwest one quarter of Belgard County (Kreis) existed as a separate Kreis called Schivelbein. The city of Schivelbein was in the center of this Kreis. Kreis Schivelbein was for many years not a part of the Province of Pommern, but rather a part of the Province of Brandenberg to the south -- or as the portion of Brandenberg east of the Oder River was commonly called, "the Neumark". Kreis Schivelbein was apparently a part of the Neumark in 1718/19 when "Die Neumark, die Klassification von 1718/19" was published, because Kreis Schivelbein is listed in it (as well as Kreis Dramburg, which was also later in Pommern). Kreis Schivelbein became part of Pommern in 1815, and in 1932 Kreis Schivelbein was absorbed into Kreis Belgard, and thus ceased to exist as a separate Kreis.
Wilhelm's grandson Oscar remembered that his dad (Herman) had said he was born in Pomerania, Germany, in a small cross-roads village between the cities of "Swiefelbein" and Labes. The marriage certificate of Herman's first marriage indicates his place of birth as "Schlangeritz" -- the certificate of his second marriage says "Schlanwitz". An 1892 map of the German Empire (Source 3) shows the small village "Schlönwitz" or "Schloenwitz" halfway between Shivelbein and Labes on a direct line between the two (also see map in Source 2). It is likely all four spellings refer to the same village. Also, please note that Shivelbein is now Swidwin, Koszalin, Poland. Labes is now Lobez, Szczecin, Poland, and Schlönwitz is now Slonowice, Poland. This Schlönwitz should not be confused with a larger town, also called Schlönwitz, which is located in another Kreis to the north.
Another significant connection to Schlönwitz is the MOEDE family some of whose members came from that specific village and emigrated to Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin (in 1855 and other family members at a later date). Amelia MOEDE whose father, August MOEDE, emmigrated in 1855 married August WEGNER. Also Bertha WEGNER married August GROEHLER who was a brother to Amelia MOEDE's mother Caroline GROEHLER MOEDE. It is clear that the connections between the families began well before their emigration to the U.S., and that they were deeply associated with the Schlönwitz area of Pomerania. After coming to Wisconsin, these families attended St. Johns Lutheran church (now called St. Johns Community church) northwest of Ft. Atkinson on County Hwy "J".
The Mormon (Latter Day Saints) records include microfilms (numbers 1457297, 1457298, 1457299, and 1457300) of civil records of births, marriages, and deaths in the Schivelbein area for the period 1874 to 1885. 1874 is the year that the government in Prussia took over primary responsibility for keeping such records. Prior to that the church kept the records. Item (section) nine of film 1181765 is a history of the Schivelbein area written in Polish after WWII. It includes a map and discussion of the archeology of Schlonwitz (Slonowice in Polish). Film 1273100 gives birth, marriage, and death records for Labes for 1824 to 1862.
As of this writing, I have searched the Schivelbein civil record from 1874 to 1880. Since some of the people in these records indicate their place of residence as Schlönwitz, it is clear that the Schivelbein CIVIL records include those for Schlonwitz. I have not yet made any definite connections to our family, but the following surnames were mentioned fairly frequently: WEGNER (only one time was it spelled WEGENER), LEMKE, ZENKE (LEMKE and ZENKE were apparently two distinct families in the area), BULGRIN (also spelled BULGERIN), WIEDENHOEFT (also WIEDENHAUPT). Names such as ROMIG, GROELER, SCHMELING, and HOHENSTEIN were mentioned less frequently. The WAGNER spelling was seen not at all. The SOMMERFELDT name was not seen (not surprising since they were from Posen), but the VENZKE name was seen. These particular surnames are mentioned above because they are the ones that were associated with the descendancts of Wilhelm Julius Fredrich WEGNER. Many other names (not known to be associated with our family) were of course also mentioned in the records, some of them very frequently, such as RADTKE, OTTO, OLDENBERG, TIMM, TRAPP, and many other German names very common to us. Interestingly, most of the names were spelled exactly as they are spelled here in Wisconsin today. Perhaps it was not so common to "Americanize" names afterall.
I have also looked at the Evang. Luth. Church records for Labes, Kreis Regenwalde that were microfilmed by the LDS (microfilm # 1273100 that covered Birth, Death, and Marriage records for most of the years 1824-1862), and although I again found family names such as WEGNER, WEGENER, ROMIG, MÖDE, etc, I could see no direct connection to our family. This microfilm also covered the village of Piepenhagen which is even closer to Schlönwitz than is Labes.
The given name most commonly used in primary records in Wisconsin when referring to him was William, or the German version, Wilhelm. Some secondary notes and charts put together by various family members list his name as Wilhelm Julius Fredrich WEGNER. The death certificate of his son Gustav (Ref. 15) lists J. F. W. (apparently as initials of his given names). This could stand for Julius Fredrich Wilhelm, and does raise the question as to what really was his primary given name. Another (probably reliable) record is Source 95-3 which was written by one of Carl Sr.'s children who were born between 1867 and 1886. It records his name as "Fredrich Wm. Wegener".
Most Wisconsin records list Wilhelm's surname, and that of his children, as WEGNER, but the spelling WEGENER is seen often, particulary for the earlier generations (e.g., Carl in Ref. 1-1; Bertha in Ref. 1-4, in Ref. 92-1, and in Ref. 95-3).
The descendents of his son Edward, who lived in Iowa, often (but not always!) used the spelling WAGNER.
It is believed there may have been one or more children of Wilhelm and Hanna Marie born during the period between Carl's birth in 1835 and Albert's in 1844. Oscar WEGNER in his "Tribe of the Sevens" genealogy (Ref. 4-1), indicates his dad told him he (his dad) had one half brother who "had wife trouble and went to Russia", and that two other brothers went to South America. Elaine Berg remembers (Ref 77) her husband's brother Norman saying that "one branch went to Iowa (Ed) and another to South America". Norman, born 1905, was the oldest child of Herman's forth child Hank (Herman's first marriage).
Very possibly connected to our family are two brothers, August Friedrich Ferdinand Wegener (note spelling of last name), born in Panzerin July 1840, and Wilhelm Albrecht Eduard Wegner, born April 23, 1838, also in Panzerin. In Brazil, they apparently went by the first names Friedrich and Eduard. Information on these brothers initially came to us from Brigitte Brandenberg, Joinville, Pirabeiraba, State of Santa Catharina, in southern Brazil (see Reference # 255. Please note that Ref. 255 also contains info on other Wegner's that emigrated to Brazil). Note that the birthdates of the two brothers fit nicely into the gap in birthdates of the known children (i.e., the gap between our Carl Frederich Wilhelm born Oct 6, 1835 in Panzerin [!], and Albert born Dec 29, 1844) of Wilhelm and Hanna Marie Zenke. Brigitte knows the wives and children and emigration details of these brothers, but she has not yet been able to determine who their parents are. They arrived in the port of Sao Francisco do Sul (near Joinville, Brazil) on the ship Electric on May 31, 1869. Perhaps just an amazing coincidence, and perhaps more than a coincidence, this is the very same day that Caroline ROMIG WEGNER and her minor children arrived in the port of Baltimore, USA!! See the notes for August Friedrich Ferdinand Wegener/Wegner for more details. I have tentatively listed them as children of Wilhelm and his first wife, Hanna Marie Zenke. It should be noted that Panzerin in only about three miles from Schlönwitz.
Also part of my Reference 256 is an e-mail from a Martin Struck, Germany, that says, "A few days ago I interviewed an old neighbour of Panzerin and she remembered that the last of the Wegners in Panzerin died in 1939 or 1940 without having children. His wife died later in 1945. So, the branch of the Wegner family in Germany has extinct. The farm of the Wegners in Panzerin (on the map, which Dieter Schimmelpfennig has on his Kreis Belgard homepage) was taken over by Franz Baumann until 1946 (at which point I assumed the Baumann family was expelled)." I printed out a copy of that map (now hangs on my computer room wall). The Wegner farm was the southwest-most place in the village, right next to the "Panzeriner See" (See = lake). It occurs to me that although this particular Wegner family died out, there may be descendants of his brothers etc that are living today in Germany (or elsewhere). Also, descendants of the Baumann family might possibly have old Wegner records since they took over the farm, and I think Wegner's widow continued to live there until her death in 1945. If the Baumanns lived there until 1946, their particular departure from Poland MIGHT have been more orderly than many of the expulsions.
At some point we should try to access Prussian military records for those of Wilhelm's sons Carl, Gustave, Albert, and Edward, who would have ranged from 31 to 20 at the time of the 1866 Austrian/Prussian war. I have done some looking, but the records do not seem to list ordinary low rank soldiers.
It is relatively recent history that Pomerania as well as the other Prussian provinces of East and West Prussia and Posen became a part of Poland. In late February of 1945, toward the end of WWII, the Russian army was advancing from the east and was at the Oder River, within striking distance of Berlin. Instead of proceeding to Berlin and probably ending the war then and there, they moved north into Hinterpommern (the portion of Pommern east of the Oder River) and into East and West Prussia. Those armies were on the outskirts of Schlönwitz on the 4th of March, and well beyond a few days after that. As a chilling personal example of the events of those days, we hear of the flight of Schlönwitz's last Lutheran minister, 65 year old Johannes Jentsch (see Reference 308). With the sound of artillery and the rumble of approaching tanks in his ears, he and his wife fled north and west, apparently trying to escape through a Baltic port. They did not make it. His end is noted with these cryptic words, "Selbstmord mit seiner Ehefrau" [Committed suicide with his wife]. We can of course ask why he fled, when many of the farmers in the area stayed for another year. Perhaps he had heard that the Russians were targeting religious leaders -- perhaps he had other more specific reasons. I do not know these things, and those that might know have not commented -- nor do we know why they chose to end their own lives. With them though apparently perished the church records and our best chance to know our ancestors. His church itself was not damaged, and stands today. In the book "Pommern 1945", Helmut Lindenblatt writes (translated to English): "The Russians came from Labes - west from Stargardt east from Labenz to Schivelbein about noon on March 3, 1945. From Schivelbein the Russians went to Belgard and on the other side to Kolberg." [This was translated by Katharina Hines in an email on the Pommern-L internet mailing list Jan 11, 2002.] Myron Gruenwald, in his newsletter "Die Pommerschen Leute" (The Pomeranian People), asks: "What cause in history would demand that first Pommern and the two Prussias had to be laid waste, with their populations torn asunder?". What cause, indeed! Myron was of course askng a rhetorical question, to which he might have answered: "There can be no possible moral justification for what was done." This is easy enough to agree with, especially given the atrocities which were committed against ordinary nonpolitical citizens; but it should also be noted that there is nothing much moral about most things in war, especially when you are, willingly or not, on the side of a government that is the aggressor (Germany); and Russia did have its reasons, moral or not. Twice during the first four decades of the twentieth century German armies had thrust deeply into Mother Russia, and in this end-game situation, the Russian bear had post-war objectives and ambitions.
Ref 308, mentioned in the above note, in fact gives all of the Schlönwitz ministers since the early 1600's, the source being Ernst Müller's "Die evangelischen Geistlichen Pommerns, Stettin 1912".
What did happen to the northern Baltic regions before and after the end of WWII was an ethnic "cleansing" of major proportions where virtually all of the German families (mostly Lutheran) were expelled to more western portions of Germany (many were also killed or tortured), and were replaced with Polish families (mostly Catholic), who had previously migrated from parts of an earlier Poland into parts of Russia (largely because of earlier conflicts and territory divisions). A considerable change of culture occurred. By the way, the loss of records from the late WWII battles and from the transmigrations of peoples and from post-war descration and destruction is the reason many of us are having a hard time tracing our roots beyond our immediate emigrant ancestors. Their religious backgrounds are noted above just for information, and is not meant to suggest that it was the primary reason they were moved. But whatever part religion played, there was no love lost between the Germans and the Poles.
The reconstructed post-war Polish state was directly controlled by Russia until the fairly recent (about 1990) disintegration of the Soviet Union. From Russia's viewpoint, Poland provided a welcome buffer between themselves and any future resurgent aggressor from the west. While it is easy, and understandable, to lament what has happened to the homeland of our ancestors, we should also realize that the history and territorial claims of the region are complex. If we are to blame anyone, it should perhaps be our own German kin that stayed behind in Gemany, but failed to prevent the madness of Hitler's policies. As a basic root cause, it could be argued that it was the Germans of the first half of the twentieth century that caused our homeland to be lost.
There is nevertheless a desire within each of us at one time or another to return to our roots, to feel first hand the geography and constructions and culture of our past. If we were to return (we did return in the fall of 2000 -- see our observations in separate "Tidbits" series) for a visit to the small river valley crossroads village of Schlönwitz, the geography would likely still be there, although perhaps with less trees and with more pollution; some of the buildings or remnants thereof may remain; but of the culture, we should expect nothing -- not the food nor the language, not the religion nor the traditions. What would be there though are people, people who feel they have as much right to the own land and to control their own government as anyone else, and from what I have heard from those that have traveled there, a people who are generally friendly and willing to accomodate probing visits from the returning "Pommerschen Leute". I guess, that is all that we can expect, and perhaps that is all that is important, because ultimately on this planet we all have a common heritage -- and a common fate.
With respect to what happened to the records for the Schlönwitz church, Willi Rohrschneider (Büdelsdorf, Germany) wrote, "The church books were also taken by the last German minister, Mr. Jentsch, on his escape. The minister and his family died on the escape before the Red army, in the proximity of Treptow at the Rega on March 5, 1945 [we read elsewhere that he committed suicide]. The church books since the time are missing." Willi was a resident of Schlönwitz until April 12, 1946 (note this is a whole year after Russian troops came through the area). I do not know how old Willi was at that point, or how sure he is that the minister took the church books (I have written to him again to ask, but have heard no reply). Willi says he went back to Schlönwitz and Panzerin several times since the war, and he wrote a book about Schlönwitz. If the minister did in fact take them with him, this probably decreases the chances they will ever be found, because he likely had no way to protect them while running from the advancing armies.
!Ref 391 is a detailed map of the Schlönwitz/Panzerin/Labes area. The accompanying note from Ron Schulz says the River that flows just south of the Panzerin See (lake) [probably is connected to it in fact) is the Molstow River. The Molstow flows west passing south of Schlönwitz before joining the Rega River soon after that.Tidbits: This note contains a slightly edited version of a series of pieces (called "Tidbits") written of our (my wife Mary and me) trip to Poland in the fall of the year 2000). Astericks (**) are used to indicate paragraph or other separations. ** Introduction: Mary and I are back from our European genealogy trip. A great and very productive trip, but it is good to be home -- and back on the Pommern-L list! On the Pommern part of our trip, we only spent two days in Greifswald, and 4 days in Poland. We will try to convey useful tidbits over the next few weeks (October/November 2000). **** "We Go To Poland": After two days in Greifswald at the newly remodeled Am Wall Hotel (which at $55 for a double was over our stringent budget but was still a good price for a downtown hotel), we are up early and on the road by eight. Buoyed by a bright sunny day and light traffic, we head our Ford Focus (rented some days earlier in Düsseldorf from Budget) southeast on highway 109, then east on 104. As we approach the border, the unknowns of Poland cause a little trepidation, especially since we were not to meet our Polish-speaking guide till late that afternoon. But being several weeks into our trip, we are already feeling the confidence of "seasoned" travelers. After all, we had already mastered two words of Polish: "please" (pro-say) and "thank you" (den-koy'-ya), two words by the way which will take you a long way. ** We had been advised to cross the border on this secondary route near the small town of Linken on road 104 (becomes road 116 in Poland) rather than the busy Autobahn to the south of Stettin. A breif wait in line, a flash of our passports at the German post, a few-second computer check at the Polish post, and we are on our way (not a single word spoken, not even a glimmer of eye-to-eye contact). After speaking of our confidence, I am ashamed to admit we eagerly reached out for the very first crutch offered: a McDonald's service plaza located just inside the border gave us familiar surroundings and format to exchange money, get a snack, and buy a map (hint: gas is cheaper in Poland). ** We get lost breifly navigating the streets of Stettin (now Szczecin), but are soon underway north and east on highway A6 -- bumpy, but four lanes, and under improvement. We are to meet our guide Henryk in Nowogard (prewar Naugard), but have several hours to spare, so decide to check out two small villages where WEGNER's were known to have lived. The highway goes to two lanes, shortly after which we turn north on a small road, drive slowly through the small dusty town of Zolwia Bloc, then continue north a few kilometers, winding through plantations of pine, started during the Cold War judging by their size. The land is flat and sandy, the rows of pines interspersed with areas of brush, logging roads branching outward. The land opens to small clearings, then to a larger field planted with wheat (barley?). Two Holstein cows graze in another field. Beyond is visable the end of a small red barn and a white church steeple, both partially hidden by trees. ** The sign announces "Niewiadowo" (Harmsdorf in German times), a very small village apparently not yet touched by the rapid changes happening in the more urban areas. Some of the buildings are well maintained, others are in disrepair. The town seems in danger of being overgrown by the surrounding forest. We check the church grounds for cemetery stones, and find none. We turn down a small side lane, past an old timber/masonry barn with a horse and a chicken seemingly keeping each other company (the only living things that were stirring in the village that day!), and across a small creek, found right where expected as marked on our 1800's map of the region. A homestead, still within the village, is on the left just beyond the creek. The lane ahead dwindles to two single wheel-tracks before disappearing into the woods beyond. This is likely the "road" shown on our 1800's map that directly connected Harmsdorf with Basethin, our next destination to the east and south. We hesitate, then decide to play it safe. We turn around, and retrace our steps south to the main highway. ** After three kilometers we again turn north, this time on a narrow tree-lined road, the branches from each side meeting to form an arched roof. The road cuts through a scenic gently rolling highland area, grain fields on one side, woods on the other. Entering Basethin (now Bodzecin), an impressive stone church is on the right and large abandoned warehouse structures are on the left, probably barns from a communist collective farm. A cement apartment building reinforces the image of a commune. A clutter of homes behind and beyond the church completes the small town. ** We stop at the church, solidly constructed of mortar and very large fieldstones some nearly a meter in diameter, of many colors but punctuated by reds. The large square two-story entrance structure is extended another two stories by a square masonry tower featuring a clock on each face and a spire on top. Large deep-cut arched window wells on the sides are filled with panes of colored glass. We open the gate in the wrought iron fence, and read the sign now on the front door: "Parafia Rzymsko-Katolicka, p.w. sw.Katarzyny, Goleniow, ul. Jana Pawia 11 25, tel. 418-31-15, Kosciol, p.w. sw.Mikoloja bpa, w Bodzecinie" [It would of course have been Lutheran before WWII]. ** We cannot see the inside of the building, but the outside, except for a small stone add-on structure on the southeast corner which is crumbling badly and is filled with broken tiles and other debri, seems very sound. A number of people of various ages can be seen walking on nearby streets, but no one approaches us - we receive curious but also strangly indifferent stares - a look we were to become familiar, if never totally comfortable, with. Perhaps it was a carryover from two long generations of the Cold War, during which minding ones own business was a virtue. ** Digressing some and as a preface to the following comment, I want to emphasize that the hospitality we received in Poland and elsewhere was very good! One thing though we did come to miss in Poland and in parts of Germany was the easy way total strangers in rural America tend to establish eye contact and interact with one another based on an initial assumption of mutual interest and friendship. I am not referring to appointments or commercial interactions or other meetings in a structured setting, but rather casual encounters with strangers - on the sidewalk, in stores, at restaurants. I am speaking of that fraction of a second before any words are spoken -- the fraction of a second that determines whether there is to be any interaction at all. Perhaps it was just us, perhaps our demeanor, perhaps something else. We did try real hard though not to act or dress like tourists, or to exhibit the pushiness typically attributed to Americans (from our viewpoint, often justifiably). Also, in some parts of Poland, our German license plates may still have been a factor. ** Mary decides to inspect the church grounds to the left, while I go right. I spend a few minutes checking the perimeter, beyond which is brush and brambles that obscures adjacent homes. There are no signs of a cemetery. I walk around back of the church and to the other side, to find Mary standing and looking at something, having not moved more than a few feet from where I left her. She motions me over. As I approach, I can see a substantial granite tombstone. She says, "You have to look at this". It took me a few seconds to spot our family name, "WEGENER"! A solitary well-kept tombstone in the middle of the lawn about 10 meters off the northwest corner of the church, it read: "Hier Ruhen in Gott, Zimmermstr, AUG. EHLERT, * 18.2.1826, + 28.2.1872, u. seine Ehefrau WILHELMINE geb. WEGENER, * 26.12.1843, + 31.3.1925" [translated: Here rests in god, Zimmermstr (reference to occupation?), AUG. ….. and his wife WILHELMINE born WEGENER …..]. ** I do not know if or how they connect to our family, but those of you researching the WEGNER/WEGENER's from this village may know how they fit with your family (please let me know if you do). We found no other tombstones there. ** A little later as we drive by the church on our way out of town, two little boys and a girl, each about five or so years old, stand by the fence waving at us. We wave back and drive on, but then remembering something we had brought along for just such situations, we stop and back up. They are all smiles and have the biggest, roundest, darkest, cutest eyes you could imagine. No indifferent stares here! May they never be corrupted by the inhibited ways that sometimes come with age. Mary digs deep into her bag and comes up with a shiney new US quarter coin for each - not just any ordinary quarter you understand, but one of the special edition ones that have a commemorative for a specific state on one side. They shyly accept them - giggling -- and off they run!, eager to show off their newly acquired treasure to their friends. ** We leave Bodzecin (was Harmsdorf), drive to Nowogard (was Naugard), and check in at the Kamena Hotel ($30 for a double room including breakfast, secure parking provided, nice bar and dining room, outside dining balcony, good food, rooms are a little small and noisy and not fancy, overall definitely a good place to stay). About 4pm our guide, Henryk Skrzypinski, comes in by train from Bydgoszcz (address: Ul Grunwaldzke 10a/68, 85-236, Bydgoszcz, Poland). He wants to "hit" some villages yet today while there is still daylight, but we talk him into sitting on the balcony instead. We sip a few local brews (not bad) while Henryk sticks to "Turkish" coffee (with the grounds in the cup - in Wisconsin we call it "campfire" coffee). We pour over maps and plan strategy for the coming days. The talk - politics, history, genealogy, religion - flows easily, as between friends. When it gets too cold we go inside for a late supper and more talk. ** Henryk is an amazing person, his life and his worldview containing more than enough information for a book, one that we urge him to write. The current generation of Poles, and maybe some of the rest of us as well, could benefit from his insight! **** " Schlönwitz, A Homeland Lost": The next day, after an early breakfast, we follow highways 145 and 147 east to Labes (now Lobez) then turn north on 151 toward the ancestoral home of my Wegner's. The weather this Sunday is fantastic - sunny, light breeze, highs around 25 C (75 F). Near Labes the land is flat, but as we approach Schlönwitz (now Slonowice), the countryside becomes hillier, with a mix of forests and farm fields. An active railroad track parallels the road. ** We enter the village from the south. A blacktopped highway runs north/south through it, with a sideroad branching east, exactly as is shown on our 130-year-old maps. The town sits on a small hill, the church occupying the highest point with a scenic view of Schlönwitzer See, a tadpole-shaped lake100 meters to the west. The fairly well maintained homes are close together, many of them separated from each other by fences or low walls. The manor house on the north end, a stork nesting on top the yard pole, is in ruins, but the out buildings are being used. ** We park in front of the church, a small building of fachwerk construction: flat-edged timber frame visible, with large rectangles of masonry between). Henryk and I peer over maps layed out on the car. Large black ravens caw at us from a dead tree across the way. Two men, one the church sacristan (keeper of the sacristy), approach on foot from up the street. Henryk explains who we are and what we are about. The sacristan seems eager to talk - he wants to make sure we stay to hear the bells. The other man, older and shriveled, stays close listening intently. The sacristan tells of the organ that remains inoperative after being damaged 50 years ago (1945?), and of changes they have made to the church: the foundation raised because the floor had sunk, the outside refurbished, the roof strengthened. Preservation laws prevent them from changing the basic structure. The current building was built in 1723, but the altar originally from Koslin to the north is much older. ** People start arriving, mostly old women at first many clad in black with eyes cast downward, then men and children, the latter more colorfully dressed. Some of the teenage boys hold back on the fringe and manage to avoid attending altogether. We walk to the back of the church grounds where two very old, well-cast bells are housed in a separate wood frame structure. The two men strain against the ropes. ** Oh, how I wish we had had a tape recorder that day, to capture the sound of those large bells, their tones reverberating over the countryside and resonating within us, as I am sure they did with our ancestors a century and a half ago! As I now write this my eyes tear, but I cannot find words to describe how I felt that day. In a sense I was home, but yet I wasn't. My ancestors were definitely here, in this soil, in this land, in this place, but it is no longer a village of my culture. Time and history have moved on. History brought a madman -- and a homeland was lost. Still, the villagers are friendly and they seem to understand why we are here. I believe this is all we can expect. It is now their land too. ** We timidly peak inside the church, now filling with parishioners. The carved wooden alter, said to be hundreds of years old, is a true piece of art. The bells and the alter are real treasures! The Catholic diocese wanted to remove them to Schivelbein or some other central location, an action that was prevented by a strong outcry from the local parishioners. It is good to know they realize and appreciate the treasures they have. ** We follow the example set by the teenage boys. Driving just south of town, we locate the spot our old map shows a cemetery, now an area clearly defined by a brushy woods. The three of us struggle and stumble through it, searching for what we know is not there. It seemed like the thing to do. The only evidence of what had once been here was a broken fragment of decorative iron fence and a similar fragment of marble. I dig them out of the weeds and place them together - as a sort of shrine. After a moment of reflection at this ground, ground under which likely lies my great grandfather, we move on, east toward Panzerin (now Peczerzyno), only a few kilometers down the sideroad. ** After emigration to the States my grandfather and great uncles became independent and successful farmers. Farming may have been the family's background in Pommern as well. Records say that at least one of my great uncles was born near Panzerin. For these reasons the land between Schloenwitz and Panzerin was of interest. The small tree-flanked road winds, avoiding the crests of rolling hills covered with the green and gold of late growth hay and ripe barley. Borders of rocks and large trees separate the fields. The sweeping panorama is quite beautiful, reminding me very much of the Jefferson County township of Oakland west of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, where they settled in the 1860's. Henryk observes the small old farmsteads scattered between the two villages, and speculates that contrary to the norm in the mid-1800's, these may have been independent farms that were not associated with the major landowners. **** "The Cemetery at Panzerin": Our maps showed a cemetery on the east edge of Panzerin (now Peczerzyno), about 8 kilometer south of Schivelbein (now Swidwin). We found a lane, which now runs across the back yards of several houses, on which the cemetery should have been located. The area is now covered with mowed grass, flowers, and a few spruce trees. ** We stop to talk to two old men walking on the lane. They remember the cemetery being there when they came to the area in 1946 (as teenagers?). They recall that nearest the lane was a row of graves of Russian soldiers, then a row of graves of German soldiers. Further in were children's graves, then those of adult civilians. They said that the tombstones gradually disappeared (over several years?). Stones that were there one evening would be gone the next morning. Apparently the stones were being used for other purposes. ** They also recall that when they first came, they found the bones, hair, and clothing of a German soldier lying unburied on the ground. They remember some type of ceremony in which the body was buried somewhere in the area, but not in this cemetery. **** "Schivelbein Records": We returned through Schlönwitz, just in time to see the colorful procession of parishioners walking home after church. The vast majority of the village's residents must have been there. With the help of our guide Henryk Skrypinski, we talk to the young priest, one of several that is rotated out from Schivelbein (Swidwin) to say mass at the small satellite church in Schlönwitz (Slonowice). Of course, we KNEW that no additional records would be found at any of these churches. We had been told so over and over again. But well, we had to ask anyway. ** Father Igor thought for a moment, hesitated, then to our amazement, quietly offered: "I don't know what they are, but there ARE a few books in the church office at Schivelbein --- Come today at 3:00, and we'll look at them". ** We gladly rearranged our schedule for the day, going first to Natzmersdorf (see account below), then to Neuenhagen (also see below), then to Plathe (now Ploty) to check out the castles, and then eagerly to Schivelbein to look at those church records. Six hours after leaving Schlönwitz, we knocked on the main parish door, still not expecting to find anything new or useful. Father Igor greeted us, disappeared for a couple minutes, and returned -- with a small armful of old record books! ** It quickly became obvious that these were Schivelbein Evangelische records, records for years we had not known existed, for years during which my ancestors lived in the area! What an adrenaline rush! Mary and I, with as much calm and method as we could muster, went through the books, extracting WEGNER and related family information. We found no obvious connections to my family, but Schlönwitz had its own church and its own records, so although disappointing was not a surprise. ** Amazingly though, Mary did find her ZARNOTT family in the records!! ZARNOTT is a rare name, and had to date only been found in villages 20 or so kilometers to the west. ** If our notes are correct, these are the books we looked at (our time to look at the records and take notes were somewhat limited): Birth: 1857-1868; 1868-1873 (listed as military garrison records); 1882-1888 (listed as duplicate); 1888-1893; 1901-1906; 1912-1916. Marriage: 1865-1874. Death: 1863-1944, 1946-1947. ** The Evangelische death records ended sometime in 1944; and the entry of Polish Catholic deaths began (in the same book) sometime in 1946. They started with death entries for a large number of Poles. A study of these war-time and post-war death records just might provide additional historical details of the time and the area. ** We had for years been asking about Schivelbein records, and had always been told none existed -- except of course for the 1851-1858 church records held by the state archive in Koslin, and for the post-1874 civil records that have been microfilmed by the Mormons. ** The above experience leads to us to wonder just how many records are actually available, if only we would persistently ask -- or perhaps the key is to be lucky enough to ask the right person at the right time. Father Igor said they intend to turn the records over to the central Catholic church archive in Koslin. ** Leaving Schivelbein, we go north on highway 163 and west on highway 6. Henryk had his heart -- and stomach -- set on the Polenzs restaurant, which turned out to be very nice, but also very expensive. We suggest you have them itemize the ala carte expenses before you order. After this early supper, we continue west and south on highway 6 for a brief stay in Witzmitz (now Wicimice), one of Mary's ancestral villages, then back to the Kamena Hotel in Naugard. **** "Natzmersdorf": We now digress a bit in the story to tell about Natzmersdordf and Neuenhagen. Ron Schultz had asked us to check out Natzmersdorf (now Nacmierz Poland), so after buying some fruit and other snacks in Labes (now Lobez), we head north on highway 148. My map shows two routes off the highway that lead to the town, the closer one from the southwest and a longer way around from the northwest. I suggest the shorter. Henryk looks at his map and says the longer is better. I don't listen. A big mistake. The narrow lane is all cobblestone! It is a pretty rough ride; but hey, by slowing down we get a better look at the rural scene along this rustic road. ** Our 1800's topo map shows Natzmersdorf to be a manor house (Gut) and associated buildings. Except for communist era additions, it is essentially that today. As we drive into the central grounds of the manor house, our eyes are drawn first to an olive drab 1960's army truck sitting in the yard. It appears to be in working order, a functioning reminder of recent history. We park next to one of the outbuildings about 20 meters from the house -- under the shade of a huge, heavily-laden alderberry bush. The house is clearly occupied, but no one comes out. ** One of our primary goals was to look for an old cemetery that was indicated on our map. To do this we needed to walk past the house and down a small path. NO WAY would we do this in the States without getting permission! We suggest knocking on the door, but Henryk assures us we can look around without asking. With severe reservations, we proceed -- in his close presence. No one comes to holler (or worse) at us. I guess different cultures have different rules. ** The path north from the house leads past a vegetable and flower garden, and into a small brushy woods. I calculate the old cemetery was where the garden is now, but we search the woods as well. We find no hint of old graves, but on the edge of the garden is a mound of dirt surrounded by a rectangle of bricks and covered with freshly cut flowers -- obviously a fresh grave. ** We walk back to the car and take pictures of the grounds and buildings. The manor house is impressive and is still in relatively good shape. It is a large masonry structure with a two-story entranceway addition near one end and a three story windowed tower with a foursquare peaked roof on the other end. To the west of the house are a couple large buildings, apparently from the days of a collective farm. Unlike Harmsdorf however, these buildings are well maintained and are still being used. ** It is near noon, and since our plans do not take us near a restaurant anytime soon, we stand under a shade tree and eat our snacks. After a few minutes a young woman comes out of the house on her way to pick strawberries (apparently a persistent ever-bearing variety). With Henryk's help we start a conversation with her. She is 21 years old and is studying to be a medical doctor, but is considering changing to another field because doctors, as well as teachers and some other professionals, are very poorly paid in Poland, worse than farm workers she said. Henryk confirms that this is, sadly, often true. We ask about the fresh grave. She explains that her younger sister's cat died recently, and she comes each day from a nearby home to put fresh flowers on its grave. There is irony here someplace. ** A car drives into the yard, and a middle aged couple gets out and walks to the house. They pause at the front door a bit, then the man walks back to join us. We ask about the manor house. He says they would like to restore it, and that they had in fact submitted restoration plans for approval. They were trying to raise money for the effort. It was not clear how many people lived there, or how the residents were related, or just who owned the house. We got the impression somebody else owned it, perhaps the government. ** We are about to leave when the man comes back, asking if we want some apples for our journey. I follow him back to the garden and eat a couple small sweet strawberries offered by the woman while he picks a bag of apples from an old twisted tree. We munched on those apples for the next five weeks! **** "The Cemetery at Neuenhagen": Once upon a time in Kreis Regenwalde on the road from Plathe to the city of Regenwalde, there existed a place, a small place, called Neuenhagen, not on the main road but off to the south a bit. Exactly what it once was I do not know, but it is now just a collection of scattered buildings in a flat open field, inhabited but with signs of disrepair everywhere. What draws us to this desolate spot are certain barely-readable scrawls on a few old documents saying that the Zarnott's, Mary's maternal ancestors, once lived here -- only a few short kilometers from where my Wegner's were from! We are to a large extent what they were; but who were they? Answering this question is the grist of genealogy. ** Regenwalde is now Resko, Plathe is Ploty, and what is left of Neuenhagen is called Czarne. We turn south off highway 152 onto a sideroad and proceed a kilo or so across flat terraine being marginally utilized for agriculture (although in the fall, it is a little hard to be sure what the crops looked like in summer). The sign says we are in Czarne but where the center of town is not clear. To the right are the remains (occupied?) of an old manor house (Gut). To the left is a still-functioning distillery, its identity easily discernable by odor. ** Our old topo map showed a rectangle with two crosses inside (the symbol for a cemetery), connected to the town by a lane to the south. We carefully measure and scale distances from still existing landmarks and conclude that a barely-passable trail is the lane. It leads right next to a house. We are hesitant to go down it without asking permission, but our guide Henryk assures us it is a public path ("It is?", we ask). We proceed, and the indifferent looks (yes, those indifferent looks again), indicate that Henryk is right. We eventually came to the conclusion that the concepts of private ownership and of public domain are much different in Poland than we are familiar with in the States. ** I would have preferred to walk; but Henryk, his legs not being as young as they once were, urges us on; so, we drive down the lane past a shed or two, and past curious heifers (the Cold War seems to have had no effect on them). We avoid tearing out the oil pan by swerving at the last moment, thus avoiding a boulder hidden in the long grass between the tracks. Again scaling the distance on the map, we park the car when we are close to the indicated spot of the old cemetery. Henryk dozes in the car (we worked him pretty hard that day), while Mary and I walk ahead. A small pine woods just ahead on the right seems promising. We, of course, had no expectations. ** Barely inside the woods, we knew we had the right spot! A limestone marker, the top broken off, still stood, albeit somewhat crookedly. Limestone or not, it was, after rubbing off some lichens, still readable. The first name was broken off, but it ended in an "a" and the second to the last letter ended in a downstroke: ."…a EHLERT, geb. MEDENWALD, * 1.2.1887, + 8.6.1932". Also listed on the same stone was: "Auguste MEDENWALD, geb. DUMMANN, * 3.9.1848, + 19.12.1933", "Ruhel Sanft". ** We do not know who they were -- perhaps a daughter and her mother. This lone surviving stone may not be there much longer, but at least we now have a record of what it said. If anyone knows of these people, we would appreciate hearing from you. ** This tombstone was at the head of, for lack of a better word, a sarcophagus, buried in the ground. The rectangular cement outline of the top walls were visable above the soil. Seven additional of these structures were present, in a line to the south of the first. None of them had a tombstone. I assume the bodily remains are still present inside the structures -- as they appeared undisturbed. **** "Stettin": Back at the hotel in Naugard about 9:00 on Sunday night, Henryk, at our urging, calls the Polish State archive in Stettin (now Szczecin) to see if we can look at records tomorrow (after our experience with the church records in Schivelbein earlier in the day, we had just now decided we wanted to go to Stettin). After it rings for several minutes, the night watchman answers and assures us we can come as early as 8:00. ** In the morning, we drive to downtown Stettin, trade our drivers liscenses for locker keys at the first floor reception desk, and walk up to the second floor archive rooms. Henryk explains our situation. The head archivist scrutinizes us, and asks why we did not speak good German if we were looking for German records. Henryk explains. We look at the catalog book of State archive holdings (we had not done this part of our homework well). We ask for 1825-1874 Stadt Regenwalde records, and run some errands in the city while they fetch them. ** The three of us start looking for ZARNOTT, WEGNER, and related names. A bonanza for Mary! Not only do we find many ZARNOTT's, but also her specific ancestors and other relatives. We begin to see connections between the various ZARNOTT lines! It is clear that we need to look at all the Regenwalde books, and that that will take more than one day. Henryk needs to catch a train at 15:00, and we need a hotel for the night. Henryk suggests a hotel whose name, in English, is the "Fisherman's Home". Henryk and I go there, advance pay, and I drop Henryk at the train station located on the riverfront. I return to the archive, and we extract as many more records as possible before their closing time (16:00, I think). ** We find a guarded parking lot near the hotel, and tip the attendant a little extra for assurance. In better times this hotel teemed with sailors who called it home, sometimes for extended periods, while they awaited their next ship. The rooms were huge, with high ceilings, long drapes, and very large cabinets built into the walls, big enough for the biggest of duffle bags. The fixtures in the bathrooms were genuine antiques. Half of the hotel has been converted to apartments and our half is mostly empty, testimony to the sad state of today's shipping industry there. The opposite of fancy, but clean, this hotel is an interesting place to stay -- for those who are a little adventuresome. It more than met our needs for a place to sleep, we felt safe there, and at about $30 a night for a double, we could not complain about the cost. ** After checking in, we walk toward the nearby river front. What a sight! The west bank of the Oder river makes room for railroad tracks and a multilane city thoroughfare along the river, before rising sharply. Large marble buildings, a museum, a spired cathedral, presumedly all built well before WWII, grace the upper banks. Watching ships pass below, we walk down the bank, then back up many concrete steps, past water fountains to the museum above. We walk along the top of the bank and find a preppy grill-type restaurant with outside seating only, all of which overlooks the river. ** We sit and eat and drink and talk and relax till almost dark, the setting sun casting shades of red on the far bank. It is hard not to feel a profound sense of the history of the place. This was the capital of all Pommern, an important and strategic city. Below is the Oder River, the river so many Pommers tried to escape west of at the end of WWII, the river that so many did not make. Seldom was the sense of our ancestors felt so strongly. Yes, they left long before the struggles of the 20th Century, but surely some of them had visited here, or perhaps had passed through here on their way to the shipyards of Bremen. It was in any case their Haupstadt, of which I'm sure they were proud. ** Back at our room, we force ourselves to organize the data we had extracted that day. We always found this to be the hardest part of doing genealogy on the road. To save time in the morning (archive time is precious), we eat breakfast in our room: orange juice cartons from our suitcases, garlic bread left over from supper, apples given us in Natzmersdorf, tea left over from England, peanut butter, and cookies crumbs from Labes. Who could ask for more? To avoid traffic and parking problems, we walk the kilometer or two to the archive, passing the old gates to the city, and the modern ship sculpture. ** We work hard -- more ZARNOTT's, more connections, scattered WEGNER's. By noon we are finished. I think we paid $5 per copied record. We find time to talk to the archivist's son who also works at the archive. He tells of his plans and dreams, and of the difficulties his generation faces. I couldn't help but think that his immediate ancestors faced even greater difficulties. ** We thread our way south out of town, to highway 6, then west, fill up with gas, easily make the border crossing, and head toward Dresden, the crazies again passing us in the fast lane at 130 miles per hour (200 + kph), headlights arrogantly flashing.
An e-mail from Martha Florey includes the following info that is added here just to keep it from getting lost: "By the way, there was a Carl Wegner, married laborer age 36 or 39 from Watertown, blue eyes, black hair and red complexion, 5'6" tall, who enlisted 15 Aug 1862 at Watertown and served in Co E, 20th WI Vol Infantry under Capt F. Alfred Baehr. His Civil War records say he was from Dorow." Dorow is between Regenwalde and Labes in Pomerania. This is not far from the Paatzig that Phyliss Todd mentioned her Wegner's were from, and of course is not far from our Wegner's either. The age and date would indicate Carl was born between late 1822 and early 1826, which would be too early to be Wilhelm and Hanna Marie's son Carl.
Hanna Marie's birth date was based on subtracting 21 years from approximate date of her marriage to Wilhelm WEGNER. This is the standard genealogical assumption made by LDS (Latter Day Saints
) for European/N. American females. Her approximate date of death was assumed as the year between her son Albert's birth and her husband Wilhelm's second marriage. We have no confirmation she died then, however. Her son Albert's church marriage record (Ref. 21) lists "Hanna Marie" as Albert's mother's name. It should not be assumed for certain that her last name was Zenke, although it is clearly indicated as such on Ref. 95-3, which was written by one of Carl Sr.'s children (Carl was one of Hanna's son's), who were born between 1867 and 1886. Nevertheless, in doing further research, the name Lemke or similar spellings should also be considered a possibility -- given the close ties between the Wegner's and Lemke's.
A conversation with Vita Wegner Lanser (born 1929) indicates that Kathleen Wegner born 1933, daughter of Lawrence born 1906, son of August born 1877, son of Karl born 1835, son of Wilhelm Wegner and Hanna Marie Zenke, has a handwritten document of some sort that makes reference to "Julius Friedrich Wilhelm" as his given names, and to Hanna Marie Zenke as his first wife.
Wilhelm or Julius Fredrich Wilhelm Wegner
Wilhelm WEGNER's (also spelled WEGENER) approximate date of death of 1865 was based on splitting the difference between the date of birth of his apparent last child (Augusta in 1859) and the date (1869) that his 2nd wife, Caroline ROMIG, emigrated to US (apparently without him). Also see notes on Caroline.
Where Wilhelm was born or died is not known, although from various records, it is clear that he lived, and that at least one of his children (Herman) was born, in Schlönwitz, which is in the Belgard County (Kreis) of the Koslin District (Regierungsbezirk) of the Province of Pommern (Pomerania in English), of the Kingdom of Preussen (Prussia in English). Prussia was not part of Germany until the German Empire was reestablished in 1871. It appears that Schlönwitz is the location that his 2nd wife, Caroline ROMIG emigrated from in 1869.
Another factor to keep in mind when searching records is that for some unknown number of years prior to 1932, about the southwest one quarter of Belgard County (Kreis) existed as a separate Kreis called Schivelbein. The city of Schivelbein was in the center of this Kreis. Kreis Schivelbein was for many years not a part of the Province of Pommern, but rather a part of the Province of Brandenberg to the south -- or as the portion of Brandenberg east of the Oder River was commonly called, "the Neumark". Kreis Schivelbein was apparently a part of the Neumark in 1718/19 when "Die Neumark, die Klassification von 1718/19" was published, because Kreis Schivelbein is listed in it (as well as Kreis Dramburg, which was also later in Pommern). Kreis Schivelbein became part of Pommern in 1815, and in 1932 Kreis Schivelbein was absorbed into Kreis Belgard, and thus ceased to exist as a separate Kreis.
Wilhelm's grandson Oscar remembered that his dad (Herman) had said he was born in Pomerania, Germany, in a small cross-roads village between the cities of "Swiefelbein" and Labes. The marriage certificate of Herman's first marriage indicates his place of birth as "Schlangeritz" -- the certificate of his second marriage says "Schlanwitz". An 1892 map of the German Empire (Source 3) shows the small village "Schlönwitz" or "Schloenwitz" halfway between Shivelbein and Labes on a direct line between the two (also see map in Source 2). It is likely all four spellings refer to the same village. Also, please note that Shivelbein is now Swidwin, Koszalin, Poland. Labes is now Lobez, Szczecin, Poland, and Schlönwitz is now Slonowice, Poland. This Schlönwitz should not be confused with a larger town, also called Schlönwitz, which is located in another Kreis to the north.
Another significant connection to Schlönwitz is the MOEDE family some of whose members came from that specific village and emigrated to Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin (in 1855 and other family members at a later date). Amelia MOEDE whose father, August MOEDE, emmigrated in 1855 married August WEGNER. Also Bertha WEGNER married August GROEHLER who was a brother to Amelia MOEDE's mother Caroline GROEHLER MOEDE. It is clear that the connections between the families began well before their emigration to the U.S., and that they were deeply associated with the Schlönwitz area of Pomerania. After coming to Wisconsin, these families attended St. Johns Lutheran church (now called St. Johns Community church) northwest of Ft. Atkinson on County Hwy "J".
The Mormon (Latter Day Saints) records include microfilms (numbers 1457297, 1457298, 1457299, and 1457300) of civil records of births, marriages, and deaths in the Schivelbein area for the period 1874 to 1885. 1874 is the year that the government in Prussia took over primary responsibility for keeping such records. Prior to that the church kept the records. Item (section) nine of film 1181765 is a history of the Schivelbein area written in Polish after WWII. It includes a map and discussion of the archeology of Schlonwitz (Slonowice in Polish). Film 1273100 gives birth, marriage, and death records for Labes for 1824 to 1862.
As of this writing, I have searched the Schivelbein civil record from 1874 to 1880. Since some of the people in these records indicate their place of residence as Schlönwitz, it is clear that the Schivelbein CIVIL records include those for Schlonwitz. I have not yet made any definite connections to our family, but the following surnames were mentioned fairly frequently: WEGNER (only one time was it spelled WEGENER), LEMKE, ZENKE (LEMKE and ZENKE were apparently two distinct families in the area), BULGRIN (also spelled BULGERIN), WIEDENHOEFT (also WIEDENHAUPT). Names such as ROMIG, GROELER, SCHMELING, and HOHENSTEIN were mentioned less frequently. The WAGNER spelling was seen not at all. The SOMMERFELDT name was not seen (not surprising since they were from Posen), but the VENZKE name was seen. These particular surnames are mentioned above because they are the ones that were associated with the descendancts of Wilhelm Julius Fredrich WEGNER. Many other names (not known to be associated with our family) were of course also mentioned in the records, some of them very frequently, such as RADTKE, OTTO, OLDENBERG, TIMM, TRAPP, and many other German names very common to us. Interestingly, most of the names were spelled exactly as they are spelled here in Wisconsin today. Perhaps it was not so common to "Americanize" names afterall.
I have also looked at the Evang. Luth. Church records for Labes, Kreis Regenwalde that were microfilmed by the LDS (microfilm # 1273100 that covered Birth, Death, and Marriage records for most of the years 1824-1862), and although I again found family names such as WEGNER, WEGENER, ROMIG, MÖDE, etc, I could see no direct connection to our family. This microfilm also covered the village of Piepenhagen which is even closer to Schlönwitz than is Labes.
The given name most commonly used in primary records in Wisconsin when referring to him was William, or the German version, Wilhelm. Some secondary notes and charts put together by various family members list his name as Wilhelm Julius Fredrich WEGNER. The death certificate of his son Gustav (Ref. 15) lists J. F. W. (apparently as initials of his given names). This could stand for Julius Fredrich Wilhelm, and does raise the question as to what really was his primary given name. Another (probably reliable) record is Source 95-3 which was written by one of Carl Sr.'s children who were born between 1867 and 1886. It records his name as "Fredrich Wm. Wegener".
Most Wisconsin records list Wilhelm's surname, and that of his children, as WEGNER, but the spelling WEGENER is seen often, particulary for the earlier generations (e.g., Carl in Ref. 1-1; Bertha in Ref. 1-4, in Ref. 92-1, and in Ref. 95-3).
The descendents of his son Edward, who lived in Iowa, often (but not always!) used the spelling WAGNER.
It is believed there may have been one or more children of Wilhelm and Hanna Marie born during the period between Carl's birth in 1835 and Albert's in 1844. Oscar WEGNER in his "Tribe of the Sevens" genealogy (Ref. 4-1), indicates his dad told him he (his dad) had one half brother who "had wife trouble and went to Russia", and that two other brothers went to South America. Elaine Berg remembers (Ref 77) her husband's brother Norman saying that "one branch went to Iowa (Ed) and another to South America". Norman, born 1905, was the oldest child of Herman's forth child Hank (Herman's first marriage).
Very possibly connected to our family are two brothers, August Friedrich Ferdinand Wegener (note spelling of last name), born in Panzerin July 1840, and Wilhelm Albrecht Eduard Wegner, born April 23, 1838, also in Panzerin. In Brazil, they apparently went by the first names Friedrich and Eduard. Information on these brothers initially came to us from Brigitte Brandenberg, Joinville, Pirabeiraba, State of Santa Catharina, in southern Brazil (see Reference # 255. Please note that Ref. 255 also contains info on other Wegner's that emigrated to Brazil). Note that the birthdates of the two brothers fit nicely into the gap in birthdates of the known children (i.e., the gap between our Carl Frederich Wilhelm born Oct 6, 1835 in Panzerin [!], and Albert born Dec 29, 1844) of Wilhelm and Hanna Marie Zenke. Brigitte knows the wives and children and emigration details of these brothers, but she has not yet been able to determine who their parents are. They arrived in the port of Sao Francisco do Sul (near Joinville, Brazil) on the ship Electric on May 31, 1869. Perhaps just an amazing coincidence, and perhaps more than a coincidence, this is the very same day that Caroline ROMIG WEGNER and her minor children arrived in the port of Baltimore, USA!! See the notes for August Friedrich Ferdinand Wegener/Wegner for more details. I have tentatively listed them as children of Wilhelm and his first wife, Hanna Marie Zenke. It should be noted that Panzerin in only about three miles from Schlönwitz.
Also part of my Reference 256 is an e-mail from a Martin Struck, Germany, that says, "A few days ago I interviewed an old neighbour of Panzerin and she remembered that the last of the Wegners in Panzerin died in 1939 or 1940 without having children. His wife died later in 1945. So, the branch of the Wegner family in Germany has extinct. The farm of the Wegners in Panzerin (on the map, which Dieter Schimmelpfennig has on his Kreis Belgard homepage) was taken over by Franz Baumann until 1946 (at which point I assumed the Baumann family was expelled)." I printed out a copy of that map (now hangs on my computer room wall). The Wegner farm was the southwest-most place in the village, right next to the "Panzeriner See" (See = lake). It occurs to me that although this particular Wegner family died out, there may be descendants of his brothers etc that are living today in Germany (or elsewhere). Also, descendants of the Baumann family might possibly have old Wegner records since they took over the farm, and I think Wegner's widow continued to live there until her death in 1945. If the Baumanns lived there until 1946, their particular departure from Poland MIGHT have been more orderly than many of the expulsions.
At some point we should try to access Prussian military records for those of Wilhelm's sons Carl, Gustave, Albert, and Edward, who would have ranged from 31 to 20 at the time of the 1866 Austrian/Prussian war. I have done some looking, but the records do not seem to list ordinary low rank soldiers.
It is relatively recent history that Pomerania as well as the other Prussian provinces of East and West Prussia and Posen became a part of Poland. In late February of 1945, toward the end of WWII, the Russian army was advancing from the east and was at the Oder River, within striking distance of Berlin. Instead of proceeding to Berlin and probably ending the war then and there, they moved north into Hinterpommern (the portion of Pommern east of the Oder River) and into East and West Prussia. Those armies were on the outskirts of Schlönwitz on the 4th of March, and well beyond a few days after that. As a chilling personal example of the events of those days, we hear of the flight of Schlönwitz's last Lutheran minister, 65 year old Johannes Jentsch (see Reference 308). With the sound of artillery and the rumble of approaching tanks in his ears, he and his wife fled north and west, apparently trying to escape through a Baltic port. They did not make it. His end is noted with these cryptic words, "Selbstmord mit seiner Ehefrau" [Committed suicide with his wife]. We can of course ask why he fled, when many of the farmers in the area stayed for another year. Perhaps he had heard that the Russians were targeting religious leaders -- perhaps he had other more specific reasons. I do not know these things, and those that might know have not commented -- nor do we know why they chose to end their own lives. With them though apparently perished the church records and our best chance to know our ancestors. His church itself was not damaged, and stands today. In the book "Pommern 1945", Helmut Lindenblatt writes (translated to English): "The Russians came from Labes - west from Stargardt east from Labenz to Schivelbein about noon on March 3, 1945. From Schivelbein the Russians went to Belgard and on the other side to Kolberg." [This was translated by Katharina Hines in an email on the Pommern-L internet mailing list Jan 11, 2002.] Myron Gruenwald, in his newsletter "Die Pommerschen Leute" (The Pomeranian People), asks: "What cause in history would demand that first Pommern and the two Prussias had to be laid waste, with their populations torn asunder?". What cause, indeed! Myron was of course askng a rhetorical question, to which he might have answered: "There can be no possible moral justification for what was done." This is easy enough to agree with, especially given the atrocities which were committed against ordinary nonpolitical citizens; but it should also be noted that there is nothing much moral about most things in war, especially when you are, willingly or not, on the side of a government that is the aggressor (Germany); and Russia did have its reasons, moral or not. Twice during the first four decades of the twentieth century German armies had thrust deeply into Mother Russia, and in this end-game situation, the Russian bear had post-war objectives and ambitions.
Ref 308, mentioned in the above note, in fact gives all of the Schlönwitz ministers since the early 1600's, the source being Ernst Müller's "Die evangelischen Geistlichen Pommerns, Stettin 1912".
What did happen to the northern Baltic regions before and after the end of WWII was an ethnic "cleansing" of major proportions where virtually all of the German families (mostly Lutheran) were expelled to more western portions of Germany (many were also killed or tortured), and were replaced with Polish families (mostly Catholic), who had previously migrated from parts of an earlier Poland into parts of Russia (largely because of earlier conflicts and territory divisions). A considerable change of culture occurred. By the way, the loss of records from the late WWII battles and from the transmigrations of peoples and from post-war descration and destruction is the reason many of us are having a hard time tracing our roots beyond our immediate emigrant ancestors. Their religious backgrounds are noted above just for information, and is not meant to suggest that it was the primary reason they were moved. But whatever part religion played, there was no love lost between the Germans and the Poles.
The reconstructed post-war Polish state was directly controlled by Russia until the fairly recent (about 1990) disintegration of the Soviet Union. From Russia's viewpoint, Poland provided a welcome buffer between themselves and any future resurgent aggressor from the west. While it is easy, and understandable, to lament what has happened to the homeland of our ancestors, we should also realize that the history and territorial claims of the region are complex. If we are to blame anyone, it should perhaps be our own German kin that stayed behind in Gemany, but failed to prevent the madness of Hitler's policies. As a basic root cause, it could be argued that it was the Germans of the first half of the twentieth century that caused our homeland to be lost.
There is nevertheless a desire within each of us at one time or another to return to our roots, to feel first hand the geography and constructions and culture of our past. If we were to return (we did return in the fall of 2000 -- see our observations in separate "Tidbits" series) for a visit to the small river valley crossroads village of Schlönwitz, the geography would likely still be there, although perhaps with less trees and with more pollution; some of the buildings or remnants thereof may remain; but of the culture, we should expect nothing -- not the food nor the language, not the religion nor the traditions. What would be there though are people, people who feel they have as much right to the own land and to control their own government as anyone else, and from what I have heard from those that have traveled there, a people who are generally friendly and willing to accomodate probing visits from the returning "Pommerschen Leute". I guess, that is all that we can expect, and perhaps that is all that is important, because ultimately on this planet we all have a common heritage -- and a common fate.
With respect to what happened to the records for the Schlönwitz church, Willi Rohrschneider (Büdelsdorf, Germany) wrote, "The church books were also taken by the last German minister, Mr. Jentsch, on his escape. The minister and his family died on the escape before the Red army, in the proximity of Treptow at the Rega on March 5, 1945 [we read elsewhere that he committed suicide]. The church books since the time are missing." Willi was a resident of Schlönwitz until April 12, 1946 (note this is a whole year after Russian troops came through the area). I do not know how old Willi was at that point, or how sure he is that the minister took the church books (I have written to him again to ask, but have heard no reply). Willi says he went back to Schlönwitz and Panzerin several times since the war, and he wrote a book about Schlönwitz. If the minister did in fact take them with him, this probably decreases the chances they will ever be found, because he likely had no way to protect them while running from the advancing armies.
!Ref 391 is a detailed map of the Schlönwitz/Panzerin/Labes area. The accompanying note from Ron Schulz says the River that flows just south of the Panzerin See (lake) [probably is connected to it in fact) is the Molstow River. The Molstow flows west passing south of Schlönwitz before joining the Rega River soon after that.Tidbits: This note contains a slightly edited version of a series of pieces (called "Tidbits") written of our (my wife Mary and me) trip to Poland in the fall of the year 2000). Astericks (**) are used to indicate paragraph or other separations. ** Introduction: Mary and I are back from our European genealogy trip. A great and very productive trip, but it is good to be home -- and back on the Pommern-L list! On the Pommern part of our trip, we only spent two days in Greifswald, and 4 days in Poland. We will try to convey useful tidbits over the next few weeks (October/November 2000). **** "We Go To Poland": After two days in Greifswald at the newly remodeled Am Wall Hotel (which at $55 for a double was over our stringent budget but was still a good price for a downtown hotel), we are up early and on the road by eight. Buoyed by a bright sunny day and light traffic, we head our Ford Focus (rented some days earlier in Düsseldorf from Budget) southeast on highway 109, then east on 104. As we approach the border, the unknowns of Poland cause a little trepidation, especially since we were not to meet our Polish-speaking guide till late that afternoon. But being several weeks into our trip, we are already feeling the confidence of "seasoned" travelers. After all, we had already mastered two words of Polish: "please" (pro-say) and "thank you" (den-koy'-ya), two words by the way which will take you a long way. ** We had been advised to cross the border on this secondary route near the small town of Linken on road 104 (becomes road 116 in Poland) rather than the busy Autobahn to the south of Stettin. A breif wait in line, a flash of our passports at the German post, a few-second computer check at the Polish post, and we are on our way (not a single word spoken, not even a glimmer of eye-to-eye contact). After speaking of our confidence, I am ashamed to admit we eagerly reached out for the very first crutch offered: a McDonald's service plaza located just inside the border gave us familiar surroundings and format to exchange money, get a snack, and buy a map (hint: gas is cheaper in Poland). ** We get lost breifly navigating the streets of Stettin (now Szczecin), but are soon underway north and east on highway A6 -- bumpy, but four lanes, and under improvement. We are to meet our guide Henryk in Nowogard (prewar Naugard), but have several hours to spare, so decide to check out two small villages where WEGNER's were known to have lived. The highway goes to two lanes, shortly after which we turn north on a small road, drive slowly through the small dusty town of Zolwia Bloc, then continue north a few kilometers, winding through plantations of pine, started during the Cold War judging by their size. The land is flat and sandy, the rows of pines interspersed with areas of brush, logging roads branching outward. The land opens to small clearings, then to a larger field planted with wheat (barley?). Two Holstein cows graze in another field. Beyond is visable the end of a small red barn and a white church steeple, both partially hidden by trees. ** The sign announces "Niewiadowo" (Harmsdorf in German times), a very small village apparently not yet touched by the rapid changes happening in the more urban areas. Some of the buildings are well maintained, others are in disrepair. The town seems in danger of being overgrown by the surrounding forest. We check the church grounds for cemetery stones, and find none. We turn down a small side lane, past an old timber/masonry barn with a horse and a chicken seemingly keeping each other company (the only living things that were stirring in the village that day!), and across a small creek, found right where expected as marked on our 1800's map of the region. A homestead, still within the village, is on the left just beyond the creek. The lane ahead dwindles to two single wheel-tracks before disappearing into the woods beyond. This is likely the "road" shown on our 1800's map that directly connected Harmsdorf with Basethin, our next destination to the east and south. We hesitate, then decide to play it safe. We turn around, and retrace our steps south to the main highway. ** After three kilometers we again turn north, this time on a narrow tree-lined road, the branches from each side meeting to form an arched roof. The road cuts through a scenic gently rolling highland area, grain fields on one side, woods on the other. Entering Basethin (now Bodzecin), an impressive stone church is on the right and large abandoned warehouse structures are on the left, probably barns from a communist collective farm. A cement apartment building reinforces the image of a commune. A clutter of homes behind and beyond the church completes the small town. ** We stop at the church, solidly constructed of mortar and very large fieldstones some nearly a meter in diameter, of many colors but punctuated by reds. The large square two-story entrance structure is extended another two stories by a square masonry tower featuring a clock on each face and a spire on top. Large deep-cut arched window wells on the sides are filled with panes of colored glass. We open the gate in the wrought iron fence, and read the sign now on the front door: "Parafia Rzymsko-Katolicka, p.w. sw.Katarzyny, Goleniow, ul. Jana Pawia 11 25, tel. 418-31-15, Kosciol, p.w. sw.Mikoloja bpa, w Bodzecinie" [It would of course have been Lutheran before WWII]. ** We cannot see the inside of the building, but the outside, except for a small stone add-on structure on the southeast corner which is crumbling badly and is filled with broken tiles and other debri, seems very sound. A number of people of various ages can be seen walking on nearby streets, but no one approaches us - we receive curious but also strangly indifferent stares - a look we were to become familiar, if never totally comfortable, with. Perhaps it was a carryover from two long generations of the Cold War, during which minding ones own business was a virtue. ** Digressing some and as a preface to the following comment, I want to emphasize that the hospitality we received in Poland and elsewhere was very good! One thing though we did come to miss in Poland and in parts of Germany was the easy way total strangers in rural America tend to establish eye contact and interact with one another based on an initial assumption of mutual interest and friendship. I am not referring to appointments or commercial interactions or other meetings in a structured setting, but rather casual encounters with strangers - on the sidewalk, in stores, at restaurants. I am speaking of that fraction of a second before any words are spoken -- the fraction of a second that determines whether there is to be any interaction at all. Perhaps it was just us, perhaps our demeanor, perhaps something else. We did try real hard though not to act or dress like tourists, or to exhibit the pushiness typically attributed to Americans (from our viewpoint, often justifiably). Also, in some parts of Poland, our German license plates may still have been a factor. ** Mary decides to inspect the church grounds to the left, while I go right. I spend a few minutes checking the perimeter, beyond which is brush and brambles that obscures adjacent homes. There are no signs of a cemetery. I walk around back of the church and to the other side, to find Mary standing and looking at something, having not moved more than a few feet from where I left her. She motions me over. As I approach, I can see a substantial granite tombstone. She says, "You have to look at this". It took me a few seconds to spot our family name, "WEGENER"! A solitary well-kept tombstone in the middle of the lawn about 10 meters off the northwest corner of the church, it read: "Hier Ruhen in Gott, Zimmermstr, AUG. EHLERT, * 18.2.1826, + 28.2.1872, u. seine Ehefrau WILHELMINE geb. WEGENER, * 26.12.1843, + 31.3.1925" [translated: Here rests in god, Zimmermstr (reference to occupation?), AUG. ….. and his wife WILHELMINE born WEGENER …..]. ** I do not know if or how they connect to our family, but those of you researching the WEGNER/WEGENER's from this village may know how they fit with your family (please let me know if you do). We found no other tombstones there. ** A little later as we drive by the church on our way out of town, two little boys and a girl, each about five or so years old, stand by the fence waving at us. We wave back and drive on, but then remembering something we had brought along for just such situations, we stop and back up. They are all smiles and have the biggest, roundest, darkest, cutest eyes you could imagine. No indifferent stares here! May they never be corrupted by the inhibited ways that sometimes come with age. Mary digs deep into her bag and comes up with a shiney new US quarter coin for each - not just any ordinary quarter you understand, but one of the special edition ones that have a commemorative for a specific state on one side. They shyly accept them - giggling -- and off they run!, eager to show off their newly acquired treasure to their friends. ** We leave Bodzecin (was Harmsdorf), drive to Nowogard (was Naugard), and check in at the Kamena Hotel ($30 for a double room including breakfast, secure parking provided, nice bar and dining room, outside dining balcony, good food, rooms are a little small and noisy and not fancy, overall definitely a good place to stay). About 4pm our guide, Henryk Skrzypinski, comes in by train from Bydgoszcz (address: Ul Grunwaldzke 10a/68, 85-236, Bydgoszcz, Poland). He wants to "hit" some villages yet today while there is still daylight, but we talk him into sitting on the balcony instead. We sip a few local brews (not bad) while Henryk sticks to "Turkish" coffee (with the grounds in the cup - in Wisconsin we call it "campfire" coffee). We pour over maps and plan strategy for the coming days. The talk - politics, history, genealogy, religion - flows easily, as between friends. When it gets too cold we go inside for a late supper and more talk. ** Henryk is an amazing person, his life and his worldview containing more than enough information for a book, one that we urge him to write. The current generation of Poles, and maybe some of the rest of us as well, could benefit from his insight! **** " Schlönwitz, A Homeland Lost": The next day, after an early breakfast, we follow highways 145 and 147 east to Labes (now Lobez) then turn north on 151 toward the ancestoral home of my Wegner's. The weather this Sunday is fantastic - sunny, light breeze, highs around 25 C (75 F). Near Labes the land is flat, but as we approach Schlönwitz (now Slonowice), the countryside becomes hillier, with a mix of forests and farm fields. An active railroad track parallels the road. ** We enter the village from the south. A blacktopped highway runs north/south through it, with a sideroad branching east, exactly as is shown on our 130-year-old maps. The town sits on a small hill, the church occupying the highest point with a scenic view of Schlönwitzer See, a tadpole-shaped lake100 meters to the west. The fairly well maintained homes are close together, many of them separated from each other by fences or low walls. The manor house on the north end, a stork nesting on top the yard pole, is in ruins, but the out buildings are being used. ** We park in front of the church, a small building of fachwerk construction: flat-edged timber frame visible, with large rectangles of masonry between). Henryk and I peer over maps layed out on the car. Large black ravens caw at us from a dead tree across the way. Two men, one the church sacristan (keeper of the sacristy), approach on foot from up the street. Henryk explains who we are and what we are about. The sacristan seems eager to talk - he wants to make sure we stay to hear the bells. The other man, older and shriveled, stays close listening intently. The sacristan tells of the organ that remains inoperative after being damaged 50 years ago (1945?), and of changes they have made to the church: the foundation raised because the floor had sunk, the outside refurbished, the roof strengthened. Preservation laws prevent them from changing the basic structure. The current building was built in 1723, but the altar originally from Koslin to the north is much older. ** People start arriving, mostly old women at first many clad in black with eyes cast downward, then men and children, the latter more colorfully dressed. Some of the teenage boys hold back on the fringe and manage to avoid attending altogether. We walk to the back of the church grounds where two very old, well-cast bells are housed in a separate wood frame structure. The two men strain against the ropes. ** Oh, how I wish we had had a tape recorder that day, to capture the sound of those large bells, their tones reverberating over the countryside and resonating within us, as I am sure they did with our ancestors a century and a half ago! As I now write this my eyes tear, but I cannot find words to describe how I felt that day. In a sense I was home, but yet I wasn't. My ancestors were definitely here, in this soil, in this land, in this place, but it is no longer a village of my culture. Time and history have moved on. History brought a madman -- and a homeland was lost. Still, the villagers are friendly and they seem to understand why we are here. I believe this is all we can expect. It is now their land too. ** We timidly peak inside the church, now filling with parishioners. The carved wooden alter, said to be hundreds of years old, is a true piece of art. The bells and the alter are real treasures! The Catholic diocese wanted to remove them to Schivelbein or some other central location, an action that was prevented by a strong outcry from the local parishioners. It is good to know they realize and appreciate the treasures they have. ** We follow the example set by the teenage boys. Driving just south of town, we locate the spot our old map shows a cemetery, now an area clearly defined by a brushy woods. The three of us struggle and stumble through it, searching for what we know is not there. It seemed like the thing to do. The only evidence of what had once been here was a broken fragment of decorative iron fence and a similar fragment of marble. I dig them out of the weeds and place them together - as a sort of shrine. After a moment of reflection at this ground, ground under which likely lies my great grandfather, we move on, east toward Panzerin (now Peczerzyno), only a few kilometers down the sideroad. ** After emigration to the States my grandfather and great uncles became independent and successful farmers. Farming may have been the family's background in Pommern as well. Records say that at least one of my great uncles was born near Panzerin. For these reasons the land between Schloenwitz and Panzerin was of interest. The small tree-flanked road winds, avoiding the crests of rolling hills covered with the green and gold of late growth hay and ripe barley. Borders of rocks and large trees separate the fields. The sweeping panorama is quite beautiful, reminding me very much of the Jefferson County township of Oakland west of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, where they settled in the 1860's. Henryk observes the small old farmsteads scattered between the two villages, and speculates that contrary to the norm in the mid-1800's, these may have been independent farms that were not associated with the major landowners. **** "The Cemetery at Panzerin": Our maps showed a cemetery on the east edge of Panzerin (now Peczerzyno), about 8 kilometer south of Schivelbein (now Swidwin). We found a lane, which now runs across the back yards of several houses, on which the cemetery should have been located. The area is now covered with mowed grass, flowers, and a few spruce trees. ** We stop to talk to two old men walking on the lane. They remember the cemetery being there when they came to the area in 1946 (as teenagers?). They recall that nearest the lane was a row of graves of Russian soldiers, then a row of graves of German soldiers. Further in were children's graves, then those of adult civilians. They said that the tombstones gradually disappeared (over several years?). Stones that were there one evening would be gone the next morning. Apparently the stones were being used for other purposes. ** They also recall that when they first came, they found the bones, hair, and clothing of a German soldier lying unburied on the ground. They remember some type of ceremony in which the body was buried somewhere in the area, but not in this cemetery. **** "Schivelbein Records": We returned through Schlönwitz, just in time to see the colorful procession of parishioners walking home after church. The vast majority of the village's residents must have been there. With the help of our guide Henryk Skrypinski, we talk to the young priest, one of several that is rotated out from Schivelbein (Swidwin) to say mass at the small satellite church in Schlönwitz (Slonowice). Of course, we KNEW that no additional records would be found at any of these churches. We had been told so over and over again. But well, we had to ask anyway. ** Father Igor thought for a moment, hesitated, then to our amazement, quietly offered: "I don't know what they are, but there ARE a few books in the church office at Schivelbein --- Come today at 3:00, and we'll look at them". ** We gladly rearranged our schedule for the day, going first to Natzmersdorf (see account below), then to Neuenhagen (also see below), then to Plathe (now Ploty) to check out the castles, and then eagerly to Schivelbein to look at those church records. Six hours after leaving Schlönwitz, we knocked on the main parish door, still not expecting to find anything new or useful. Father Igor greeted us, disappeared for a couple minutes, and returned -- with a small armful of old record books! ** It quickly became obvious that these were Schivelbein Evangelische records, records for years we had not known existed, for years during which my ancestors lived in the area! What an adrenaline rush! Mary and I, with as much calm and method as we could muster, went through the books, extracting WEGNER and related family information. We found no obvious connections to my family, but Schlönwitz had its own church and its own records, so although disappointing was not a surprise. ** Amazingly though, Mary did find her ZARNOTT family in the records!! ZARNOTT is a rare name, and had to date only been found in villages 20 or so kilometers to the west. ** If our notes are correct, these are the books we looked at (our time to look at the records and take notes were somewhat limited): Birth: 1857-1868; 1868-1873 (listed as military garrison records); 1882-1888 (listed as duplicate); 1888-1893; 1901-1906; 1912-1916. Marriage: 1865-1874. Death: 1863-1944, 1946-1947. ** The Evangelische death records ended sometime in 1944; and the entry of Polish Catholic deaths began (in the same book) sometime in 1946. They started with death entries for a large number of Poles. A study of these war-time and post-war death records just might provide additional historical details of the time and the area. ** We had for years been asking about Schivelbein records, and had always been told none existed -- except of course for the 1851-1858 church records held by the state archive in Koslin, and for the post-1874 civil records that have been microfilmed by the Mormons. ** The above experience leads to us to wonder just how many records are actually available, if only we would persistently ask -- or perhaps the key is to be lucky enough to ask the right person at the right time. Father Igor said they intend to turn the records over to the central Catholic church archive in Koslin. ** Leaving Schivelbein, we go north on highway 163 and west on highway 6. Henryk had his heart -- and stomach -- set on the Polenzs restaurant, which turned out to be very nice, but also very expensive. We suggest you have them itemize the ala carte expenses before you order. After this early supper, we continue west and south on highway 6 for a brief stay in Witzmitz (now Wicimice), one of Mary's ancestral villages, then back to the Kamena Hotel in Naugard. **** "Natzmersdorf": We now digress a bit in the story to tell about Natzmersdordf and Neuenhagen. Ron Schultz had asked us to check out Natzmersdorf (now Nacmierz Poland), so after buying some fruit and other snacks in Labes (now Lobez), we head north on highway 148. My map shows two routes off the highway that lead to the town, the closer one from the southwest and a longer way around from the northwest. I suggest the shorter. Henryk looks at his map and says the longer is better. I don't listen. A big mistake. The narrow lane is all cobblestone! It is a pretty rough ride; but hey, by slowing down we get a better look at the rural scene along this rustic road. ** Our 1800's topo map shows Natzmersdorf to be a manor house (Gut) and associated buildings. Except for communist era additions, it is essentially that today. As we drive into the central grounds of the manor house, our eyes are drawn first to an olive drab 1960's army truck sitting in the yard. It appears to be in working order, a functioning reminder of recent history. We park next to one of the outbuildings about 20 meters from the house -- under the shade of a huge, heavily-laden alderberry bush. The house is clearly occupied, but no one comes out. ** One of our primary goals was to look for an old cemetery that was indicated on our map. To do this we needed to walk past the house and down a small path. NO WAY would we do this in the States without getting permission! We suggest knocking on the door, but Henryk assures us we can look around without asking. With severe reservations, we proceed -- in his close presence. No one comes to holler (or worse) at us. I guess different cultures have different rules. ** The path north from the house leads past a vegetable and flower garden, and into a small brushy woods. I calculate the old cemetery was where the garden is now, but we search the woods as well. We find no hint of old graves, but on the edge of the garden is a mound of dirt surrounded by a rectangle of bricks and covered with freshly cut flowers -- obviously a fresh grave. ** We walk back to the car and take pictures of the grounds and buildings. The manor house is impressive and is still in relatively good shape. It is a large masonry structure with a two-story entranceway addition near one end and a three story windowed tower with a foursquare peaked roof on the other end. To the west of the house are a couple large buildings, apparently from the days of a collective farm. Unlike Harmsdorf however, these buildings are well maintained and are still being used. ** It is near noon, and since our plans do not take us near a restaurant anytime soon, we stand under a shade tree and eat our snacks. After a few minutes a young woman comes out of the house on her way to pick strawberries (apparently a persistent ever-bearing variety). With Henryk's help we start a conversation with her. She is 21 years old and is studying to be a medical doctor, but is considering changing to another field because doctors, as well as teachers and some other professionals, are very poorly paid in Poland, worse than farm workers she said. Henryk confirms that this is, sadly, often true. We ask about the fresh grave. She explains that her younger sister's cat died recently, and she comes each day from a nearby home to put fresh flowers on its grave. There is irony here someplace. ** A car drives into the yard, and a middle aged couple gets out and walks to the house. They pause at the front door a bit, then the man walks back to join us. We ask about the manor house. He says they would like to restore it, and that they had in fact submitted restoration plans for approval. They were trying to raise money for the effort. It was not clear how many people lived there, or how the residents were related, or just who owned the house. We got the impression somebody else owned it, perhaps the government. ** We are about to leave when the man comes back, asking if we want some apples for our journey. I follow him back to the garden and eat a couple small sweet strawberries offered by the woman while he picks a bag of apples from an old twisted tree. We munched on those apples for the next five weeks! **** "The Cemetery at Neuenhagen": Once upon a time in Kreis Regenwalde on the road from Plathe to the city of Regenwalde, there existed a place, a small place, called Neuenhagen, not on the main road but off to the south a bit. Exactly what it once was I do not know, but it is now just a collection of scattered buildings in a flat open field, inhabited but with signs of disrepair everywhere. What draws us to this desolate spot are certain barely-readable scrawls on a few old documents saying that the Zarnott's, Mary's maternal ancestors, once lived here -- only a few short kilometers from where my Wegner's were from! We are to a large extent what they were; but who were they? Answering this question is the grist of genealogy. ** Regenwalde is now Resko, Plathe is Ploty, and what is left of Neuenhagen is called Czarne. We turn south off highway 152 onto a sideroad and proceed a kilo or so across flat terraine being marginally utilized for agriculture (although in the fall, it is a little hard to be sure what the crops looked like in summer). The sign says we are in Czarne but where the center of town is not clear. To the right are the remains (occupied?) of an old manor house (Gut). To the left is a still-functioning distillery, its identity easily discernable by odor. ** Our old topo map showed a rectangle with two crosses inside (the symbol for a cemetery), connected to the town by a lane to the south. We carefully measure and scale distances from still existing landmarks and conclude that a barely-passable trail is the lane. It leads right next to a house. We are hesitant to go down it without asking permission, but our guide Henryk assures us it is a public path ("It is?", we ask). We proceed, and the indifferent looks (yes, those indifferent looks again), indicate that Henryk is right. We eventually came to the conclusion that the concepts of private ownership and of public domain are much different in Poland than we are familiar with in the States. ** I would have preferred to walk; but Henryk, his legs not being as young as they once were, urges us on; so, we drive down the lane past a shed or two, and past curious heifers (the Cold War seems to have had no effect on them). We avoid tearing out the oil pan by swerving at the last moment, thus avoiding a boulder hidden in the long grass between the tracks. Again scaling the distance on the map, we park the car when we are close to the indicated spot of the old cemetery. Henryk dozes in the car (we worked him pretty hard that day), while Mary and I walk ahead. A small pine woods just ahead on the right seems promising. We, of course, had no expectations. ** Barely inside the woods, we knew we had the right spot! A limestone marker, the top broken off, still stood, albeit somewhat crookedly. Limestone or not, it was, after rubbing off some lichens, still readable. The first name was broken off, but it ended in an "a" and the second to the last letter ended in a downstroke: ."…a EHLERT, geb. MEDENWALD, * 1.2.1887, + 8.6.1932". Also listed on the same stone was: "Auguste MEDENWALD, geb. DUMMANN, * 3.9.1848, + 19.12.1933", "Ruhel Sanft". ** We do not know who they were -- perhaps a daughter and her mother. This lone surviving stone may not be there much longer, but at least we now have a record of what it said. If anyone knows of these people, we would appreciate hearing from you. ** This tombstone was at the head of, for lack of a better word, a sarcophagus, buried in the ground. The rectangular cement outline of the top walls were visable above the soil. Seven additional of these structures were present, in a line to the south of the first. None of them had a tombstone. I assume the bodily remains are still present inside the structures -- as they appeared undisturbed. **** "Stettin": Back at the hotel in Naugard about 9:00 on Sunday night, Henryk, at our urging, calls the Polish State archive in Stettin (now Szczecin) to see if we can look at records tomorrow (after our experience with the church records in Schivelbein earlier in the day, we had just now decided we wanted to go to Stettin). After it rings for several minutes, the night watchman answers and assures us we can come as early as 8:00. ** In the morning, we drive to downtown Stettin, trade our drivers liscenses for locker keys at the first floor reception desk, and walk up to the second floor archive rooms. Henryk explains our situation. The head archivist scrutinizes us, and asks why we did not speak good German if we were looking for German records. Henryk explains. We look at the catalog book of State archive holdings (we had not done this part of our homework well). We ask for 1825-1874 Stadt Regenwalde records, and run some errands in the city while they fetch them. ** The three of us start looking for ZARNOTT, WEGNER, and related names. A bonanza for Mary! Not only do we find many ZARNOTT's, but also her specific ancestors and other relatives. We begin to see connections between the various ZARNOTT lines! It is clear that we need to look at all the Regenwalde books, and that that will take more than one day. Henryk needs to catch a train at 15:00, and we need a hotel for the night. Henryk suggests a hotel whose name, in English, is the "Fisherman's Home". Henryk and I go there, advance pay, and I drop Henryk at the train station located on the riverfront. I return to the archive, and we extract as many more records as possible before their closing time (16:00, I think). ** We find a guarded parking lot near the hotel, and tip the attendant a little extra for assurance. In better times this hotel teemed with sailors who called it home, sometimes for extended periods, while they awaited their next ship. The rooms were huge, with high ceilings, long drapes, and very large cabinets built into the walls, big enough for the biggest of duffle bags. The fixtures in the bathrooms were genuine antiques. Half of the hotel has been converted to apartments and our half is mostly empty, testimony to the sad state of today's shipping industry there. The opposite of fancy, but clean, this hotel is an interesting place to stay -- for those who are a little adventuresome. It more than met our needs for a place to sleep, we felt safe there, and at about $30 a night for a double, we could not complain about the cost. ** After checking in, we walk toward the nearby river front. What a sight! The west bank of the Oder river makes room for railroad tracks and a multilane city thoroughfare along the river, before rising sharply. Large marble buildings, a museum, a spired cathedral, presumedly all built well before WWII, grace the upper banks. Watching ships pass below, we walk down the bank, then back up many concrete steps, past water fountains to the museum above. We walk along the top of the bank and find a preppy grill-type restaurant with outside seating only, all of which overlooks the river. ** We sit and eat and drink and talk and relax till almost dark, the setting sun casting shades of red on the far bank. It is hard not to feel a profound sense of the history of the place. This was the capital of all Pommern, an important and strategic city. Below is the Oder River, the river so many Pommers tried to escape west of at the end of WWII, the river that so many did not make. Seldom was the sense of our ancestors felt so strongly. Yes, they left long before the struggles of the 20th Century, but surely some of them had visited here, or perhaps had passed through here on their way to the shipyards of Bremen. It was in any case their Haupstadt, of which I'm sure they were proud. ** Back at our room, we force ourselves to organize the data we had extracted that day. We always found this to be the hardest part of doing genealogy on the road. To save time in the morning (archive time is precious), we eat breakfast in our room: orange juice cartons from our suitcases, garlic bread left over from supper, apples given us in Natzmersdorf, tea left over from England, peanut butter, and cookies crumbs from Labes. Who could ask for more? To avoid traffic and parking problems, we walk the kilometer or two to the archive, passing the old gates to the city, and the modern ship sculpture. ** We work hard -- more ZARNOTT's, more connections, scattered WEGNER's. By noon we are finished. I think we paid $5 per copied record. We find time to talk to the archivist's son who also works at the archive. He tells of his plans and dreams, and of the difficulties his generation faces. I couldn't help but think that his immediate ancestors faced even greater difficulties. ** We thread our way south out of town, to highway 6, then west, fill up with gas, easily make the border crossing, and head toward Dresden, the crazies again passing us in the fast lane at 130 miles per hour (200 + kph), headlights arrogantly flashing.
An e-mail from Martha Florey includes the following info that is added here just to keep it from getting lost: "By the way, there was a Carl Wegner, married laborer age 36 or 39 from Watertown, blue eyes, black hair and red complexion, 5'6" tall, who enlisted 15 Aug 1862 at Watertown and served in Co E, 20th WI Vol Infantry under Capt F. Alfred Baehr. His Civil War records say he was from Dorow." Dorow is between Regenwalde and Labes in Pomerania. This is not far from the Paatzig that Phyliss Todd mentioned her Wegner's were from, and of course is not far from our Wegner's either. The age and date would indicate Carl was born between late 1822 and early 1826, which would be too early to be Wilhelm and Hanna Marie's son Carl.
We have not yet established a connection between Caroline and the various other ROMIG's that lived in the area of southern Wisconsin. Since we are having so much trouble finding any records in Germany for her husband, Wilhelm WEGNER, it would seem a useful avenue of research to try to pursue Caroline's line - and who knows, it may lead us to some village that the WEGNER's lived in (one for which there are records). Other than the indication that Caroline emigrated in 1869 from Schlönwitz, Kreis Belgard (actually, at the time it was a separate Kreis, Kreis Schivelbein), we do not know where she originally may have been from. If we could establish a connection between her and the other ROMIG's in Jefferson County Wisconsin and the surrounding area, it may lead us to other specific villages in Pomerania. These other Romig's can be found in this database.
Another Romig, put here just to keep from getting lost (from the Schivelbein Data folder): Charlotte Romig and Johann Junge (J might be a Z) had a daughter Emilie Auguste who in 1875 married at the age of 25 to Herman Carl David Schmeling. Therefore, Charlotte born estimated 1825.
Caroline ROMIG WEGNER, age 50, arrived May 31, 1869, at Baltimore, from Bremen, aboard the ship "Astronom" which was captained by Mr. Klapper. Romig was at times also spelled Romich. Listed with her as a family group were her children, Herman (age 18), August (age 16), and Augusta (listed as age 7). Also refer to notes on her husband, Wilhelm Wegner, who we at this point, believe did not come to this country, and to the notes associated with her children and those of Wilhelm's first family.
Emigration of Germans from the north Baltic regions such as Pommern began somewhat earlier than 1869. As told by Myron Gruenwald, Pomeranian historian, in his Internet web page, five shiploads came in 1838, another five in 1839, and a third flotilla in 1843. From New York, they went up the Hudson River to Albany, then on the Eirie Canal to Buffalo, NY., where the first flotilla settled (Other sources indicate that some settlers, not necessarily German, could not afford the canal fare and took a cheaper, but more arduous, land trek across upstate New York). Scouts had been sent ahead in earlier years to find climate and geography similar to that of Pommern (German for Pomerania). By the time of the 1839 group however, forty families had decided to push on to Wisconsin, taking steamers through the Great Lakes to Milwaukee, and founding a colony called Freistadt, just north of Milwaukee. The Wisconsin beach-head, which provided support for those that followed, had been established! Scouts had been sent ahead here too, and they had done there work well, because the very same multiple glaciers that had formed the Pomeranian ridges and valleys and lakes and the Baltic Sea itself had formed identical features in Wisconsin, including the Lake Michigan basin! These early emmigrants came primarily as a matter of religious freedom, after King Friedrich Wilhelm III (1797-1840) forced the Lutherans to join in a union with the Reformed churches of Prussia. The various Lutheran synods and sects remain today almost as bullheaded as they were then (my comment, not Myron's).
By the late 1860's, when Caroline and her young family came, the main motivation was economic (I can't help but believe it played a role with the earlier settlers as well.) and perhaps maybe even more importantly the desire to keep their teen-agers and young men out of the military conflicts of Europe (note also that they did not come here until after our own civil war was over). It is likely that from Baltimore they came by train to the Midwest instead of the Great Lakes steamer method used earlier.
By this time however, all of the land of southern Wisconsin had been homesteaded, the homesteads were being resold and subdivided, causing some of the emigrants to move on to more virgin territory, as evidenced by the migration after a few years of Caroline's own son Edward to Iowa -- along with the Lemke family.
Also aboard the Astronom on the same voyage as Caroline ROMIG WEGNER <3>, were the following WEGNER's (have no reason to believe any were related to her, but who knows): Henrietta, wife, (age 43); Ferdinand, son, (19), farmer; Bertha (17), daugh; Hanne (15), daugh; Gustave (12), son; Rike (nickname for Fredicka?) (age 7), daugh; August (6), son; and Wilhelmina (4), daughter (all of these were listed as one family unit). Also, listed by himself, was Julius WEGNER (age 24), farmer. All of the above were listed as going from Prussia to Wisconsin.
Reference 323, taken from the Internet: wysiwyg://67/http://www.fortunecity.com/littleitaly/amalfi/13/shipa.htm (also ..../shipc.htm), gives a description of the ship "Astronom" that Carloline and her younger children (Herman, August, Auguste) came over on; and also the ship "Columbus" that Caroline's stepson Gustave and his family (and also Gustavs brother Albert) came on. Quoting, in part: The previous entry said, "ASTRID: see ASTRONOM." [Astronom, by the way, means "Astronomer" in German] The next entry said, "ASTRONOM. The ASTRONOM was a 3-masted, square-rigged ship, built by J. H. Bosse of Burg (now Bremen-Burg), and launched on 4 March 1863. 394 Commerzlasten / 802 tons register; 43,1 x 8,7 x 5,9 meters (length x beam x depth of hold). Owner: 1863-1876 - Joh. Diedr. Koncke, Bremen; ........ In 1875, the ASTRONOM was re-rigged as a bark. In 1899, she was sold to S. M. Bjorkegren, of Simrishamn, Sweden, who renamed her ASTRID, and in 1909 re-rigged her as lighter. Her captains under the Swedish flag were ...... Her ultimate fate is not known ..... ". Here is excerpts from the ship COLUMBUS: "COLUMBUS (1): The bark COLUMBUS was built by Hermann Friedrich Ulrichs, Vegesack/Fahr, and launched in 1861. 265 Commerzlasten / 591 tons; 40,5 x 9,5 x 5,1 meters (length x breadth x depth of hold). .... The COLUMBUS was employed chiefly in the transportaion of petroleum from the United States to Europe, but also carried passengers. In June 1884, the vessel was sold..... Until the mid-1890's her master was .... In 1901/01, the COLUMBUS was sold to ....... The vessel was lost in April 1903 [Peter-Michael Pawlik, 'Von der Weser in die Welt; Die Geschichte der Segelschiffe von Weser und Lesum und ihrer Bauwerften 1770 bis 1893', Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums, Bd. 33 (Hamburg: Kabel, c1993) p, 283, no. 54]. Pawlik's work contains a reproduction of a painting of the COLUMBUS, dated 1862, by Oltmann Jaburg. -- [Posted to the Emigration-Ships Mailing List by Michael Palmer - 13 August 1998]". Especially for descendants of Gustav, it might be interesting to obtain a copy of this painting!! There was also a ship COLUMBUS (2) that is listed under the name REPUBLIC (I did not get a printout of this), and a COLUMBUS (3), that was built in 1914.
A year after her emigration, 1870 census records indicate Caroline was living as a "domestic" with the George Brandel family in the southeast corner of Oakland Township (section 36), Jefferson County, Wisconsin (see Ref 34 for 1872 Plat map). The 1872 plat map shows a church located across the road and about 0.3 miles south/southeast of the farm (in 1999, St. Johns Community Church, phone 920-563-2020, Kevin Butler pastor, was on the location). This was St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church founded in the Township of Oakland, Jefferson County in 1852 (see Ref 361). It is now St. John's Community, a nondenominational church. The Union cemetary is a few tenths of a mile away from the church: south across a creek and on a deadend road to the right. It is on current county highway "J" a few miles northwest of Ft. Atkinson and is located in a very picturesque setting with a meandering creek below and ridges to the south and west. The Township of Oakland in general should not be confused with the "village" (crossroads actually) of Oakland, which was also located in the township. In 1999, I inquired by letter to the church and received some records (see Ref 361). We should contact current Brandel's in the area on the longshot chance they have records of early farm residents/workers. The Brandel's were a prominent family in the area. The 1970 plat map shows Phillip & F. Stroupe on the farm that is just a few hundred feet south of the church. I had at one point thought this was the old Brandel farm, but think now I was mistaken.
In the 1870 census, Caroline's sons Herman and August were living as farm hands on two different farms about five miles to the northwest. No mention was made of Augusta, who would have been about eight at the time, being with Caroline. Perhaps she was living with half-brother Carl and his wife, or sister Bertha and her husband, or possibly with brother Ed who married in the same township in November of 1869, or the census record may just have been incomplete. A. Mode (Moede) and C. Mode had acrerage about 1 1/2 miles to the west of the Brandel farm.
In the portion of Ref 361 that gives the Trustees notes dated August 24, 1869, for St John's Luth Church, Town Oakland, Jefferson County Wisconsin, familiar names mentioned include Georg Kunz, John Zier, August Groeler, Karl Möde, Fridrich Dahlmann, and Max Westphal. I did not translate the actual text. The Sep 8, 1872 notes refer to a Mr. Franz Wegener and Fr. Siewert, Frider. August Siewert, "Franz Wegener, Town Oakland", to name only the familiar names. Ref 387 gives the 1917 Church Directory for St. John's, but by then only a Bertha Wegner and a Carl were the only Wegner's listed.
In 1880 at the age of 61, Caroline was living with son Herman in Edgerton, Fulton Township, Rock County, Wisconsin. She died in 1889 at the age of seventy in Jefferson County, and is buried in section one of Evergreen Cemetery, Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin. Source 88-3 (cemetery tombstone records) indicate Jan 29, 1819 as Caroline's birthdate instead of Jan 26, 1819.
The 1870 plat map shows an F. Wagner in section 26 of Oakland township, but I could find no mention of him in this township in the 1870 census and have no reason to believe he is related (He was not on the same land in the 1887 plat map). A Jacob Wagner is shown on the 1870 plat map in section 29 of Oakland township. A short biography of Jacob in the "Dodge and Jefferson County Index to Names in Memorial and Genealogical Record, Goodspeed Brothers publishers, Chicago, 1894" would indicate he is not related.
At some point we should try to access Prussian military records to try to get those of Martin (ancestor of "LaValle" Wegners) who we know was in the military at some point. We should also check for those of Wilhelm's sons Carl, Gustave, Albert, and Edward, who would have ranged from 31 to 20 at the time of the 1866 Austrian/Prussian war!
Reference 323, taken from the Internet: wysiwyg://67/http://www.fortunecity.com/littleitaly/amalfi/13/shipa.htm (also ..../shipc.htm), gives a description of the ship "Astronom" that Carloline and her younger children (Herman, August, Auguste) came over on; and also the ship "Columbus" that Caroline's stepson Gustave and his family (and also Gustavs brother Albert) came on. Quoting, in part: The previous entry said, "ASTRID: see ASTRONOM." [Astronom, by the way, means "Astronomer" in German] The next entry said, "ASTRONOM. The ASTRONOM was a 3-masted, square-rigged ship, built by J. H. Bosse of Burg (now Bremen-Burg), and launched on 4 March 1863. 394 Commerzlasten / 802 tons register; 43,1 x 8,7 x 5,9 meters (length x beam x depth of hold). Owner: 1863-1876 - Joh. Diedr. Koncke, Bremen; ........ In 1875, the ASTRONOM was re-rigged as a bark. In 1899, she was sold to S. M. Bjorkegren, of Simrishamn, Sweden, who renamed her ASTRID, and in 1909 re-rigged her as lighter. Her captains under the Swedish flag were ...... Her ultimate fate is not known ..... ". Here is excerpts from the ship COLUMBUS: "COLUMBUS (1): The bark COLUMBUS was built by Hermann Friedrich Ulrichs, Vegesack/Fahr, and launched in 1861. 265 Commerzlasten / 591 tons; 40,5 x 9,5 x 5,1 meters (length x breadth x depth of hold). .... The COLUMBUS was employed chiefly in the transportaion of petroleum from the United States to Europe, but also carried passengers. In June 1884, the vessel was sold..... Until the mid-1890's her master was .... In 1901/01, the COLUMBUS was sold to ....... The vessel was lost in April 1903 [Peter-Michael Pawlik, 'Von der Weser in die Welt; Die Geschichte der Segelschiffe von Weser und Lesum und ihrer Bauwerften 1770 bis 1893', Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums, Bd. 33 (Hamburg: Kabel, c1993) p, 283, no. 54]. Pawlik's work contains a reproduction of a painting of the COLUMBUS, dated 1862, by Oltmann Jaburg. -- [Posted to the Emigration-Ships Mailing List by Michael Palmer - 13 August 1998]". Especially for descendants of Gustav, it might be interesting to obtain a copy of this painting!! There was also a ship COLUMBUS (2) that is listed under the name REPUBLIC (I did not get a printout of this), and a COLUMBUS (3), that was built in 1914.
Ref 15 (his civil death certificate) says Gustave WEGNER (also spelled WEGENER) was born in Putzerin, Germany. He married Wilhelmine Putzer in 1859, and emigrated at age 36 to United States in 1869 with his wife (age 33), son Carl (age 9), Richard (age 4), and Gustave's brother Albert (age 24), arriving at New York (from Bremen) on the 29th of November aboard the ship Columbus. This was late in the year for such an emigration. We now think that "Putzerin" might be Putzernin (near Alt Marrin) which is northwest of the city of Körlin not far from the Baltic. Also refer to the notes for August Friedrich Ferdinand Wegner born, Panzerin, July 1840, for further discussion of a Putzernin connection. See the "Wegner - Putzernin" hard copy file for historical information on the villages in and around Alt Marrin, including a couple references to Putzernin. On his death certificate, his father's name is listed as "J. F W Putzer". The Putzer is obviously wrong, but the initials might mean "Julius Friedrich Wilhelm" (not even sure if the first initial is an 'F')
It should be noted however that his church death record (see Ref 312) seems to say he was born Punzerin, which is very close in spelling to Panzerin (which is how Martha Florey deciphered it), so who knows. This same record does clearly give his wife's name as Putzer. It also says they had three children, Karl, Richard, and a third child that was stillborn. Karl's marriage record (Ref 312 says he was born in Panzerin).
In 1870 Gustave, and presumedly his wife and children (we should recheck census records on this point), were living with his brother Carl (who had emigrated two years earlier) in Watertown, Wisconsin. Gustave and Williamina had a stillborn child (Julius, stillborn Jan 25, 1873, Milford Township, Wisconsin). Gustave died tragically, "following a fall from a carriage", at the age of 45, just ten years after he came to this country. He suffered a concussion resulting in paralysis, and the next day in his death. A translation of part of his death notice in Ref 312 reads, "..... He died on 16 (?) July, 1879 at age 48years, 8months, 29days. In the afternoon he travelled home with his wife. Happily arrived at his barn, he wanted to drive in. However the horse, shying, did not want to go in. He bent forward to see if there was something the matter with the wheels, when the horse jumped, broke the wagon and part of the harness to pull Brother Wegner, who probably had wanted to stop, off the wagon and onto the hard barn floor. He fell headlong onto his neck and thus had a deadly fall. For an hour he was unconscious, before the neighbors came to bring him into the house. He regainded consciousness and stayed so until his end. His sickness and bed of pain were blessed. With patiencne he bore his pains faithfully confessing his sins to his Lord he pleaded for grace. The Lord heard his prayer and assured him of pardon, so that he could face death without fear. I have the firm confidence that he went as a saved man to the Lord. He had very much wanted the Lord's Supper, which however because of some difficulties had to be postponed, so that he, dying suddenly, never received it. I still do not understand today how I could miss it. But one thing I know, the Lord has taught me a lesson which I shall never forget, the Lord helping me, for it is meaningful for body and soul. Never in my life have I been so shaken and beaten as on the day the Brother Wegner died, when I knelt alone at the bier of Brother Wegner. On July 20, our dear Brother Gustav Rudolf Wegner was interred at Ebenezer cemetery. ...."" This is part of what was the longest funeral account in all of the church's records. Martha Florey writes, "and I believe that was because the Pastor (V. Seifert) seems to have had a bit of a crisis of faith as a result of Gustav's death." Martha Florey continues (in Ref 312), "The family disappears from the Mamre records. I would guess that they moved away, possibly to Windsor township." Wilhelmine did not remarry.
A bit about the Moravians: The Unitas Fratrum was begun in 1457 in Bohemia and Moravia. Persecuted before the Reformation, they finally found religious freedom in Germany in 1727. Dedicated to world mission, the "Moravians" purchased their own ships to transport missionaries to the New World. They chose Bethlehem, Pennsylvania as the center of North American activity in 1741. About 20 years later, they purchased a large tract of land that surrounds Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Active among Native Americans and fellow colonists, Moravians are well known for their detailed records. A new GenConnect board for the genealogy of the Moravian Church: http://genconnect.rootsweb.com/gc/Special/MoravianChurch/ Moravian church records are in the process of being centralized in the Moravian Archive in Bethehem Pennsylvania.
Interestingly he was associated with (or was at least buried by) the Ebenezer Moravian Church of Watertown, Wisconsin, while his brothers and sisters were Lutheran. His death record (Ref 312) gives perhaps a more definitive account of their church membership: "In 1869 Brother Wegner traveled with his family to America. In the congregation of Ebenezer (Moravian), where he lived for four years, he sought and found the Lord, and here he was together with his family received as church members [As it says in above note, at least in 1870 census, he was living with brother Carl. Was Carl also Moravian?]. In 1873 he moved with his family to Mamre, where he bought a lot of 20 acres, and where he was received into the congregation to be a faithful member." The funeral service was held at Ebenezer, and he was buried at Ebenezer Cemetery (south of Watertown). Is it possible Gustav's wife's family were Moravians -- or perhaps it was just a burial place of convenience after an unexpected and untimely death, although his son Carl was married there two years later. It may be useful to know where was his wife, Williamina Putzer, buried. The cemetery where Gustave is buried is three miles south of Watertown at the corner of High Road and Ebenezer Road just off of Highway 26 (grave 16 of row 4). The Moravians were a group from Germany that, led by John Huss, broke from the Catholic church in the 1400's, well before the Lutheran reformation. They reportedly tolerated a wide range of beliefs among their members. It should be noted that another Wegener family belonged to the church, that of August Wegener/Maria Hammel from Gennin, Brandenburg, Germany, that had emmigrated in 1854. It is not known if they were related to our family.
Martha Florey's reply to a query I put on the Pommern-L mailing list, probably gives the best insight as to why some of our Wegner's came to join Moravian churchs: "Moravian preachers were tolerated in Pomerania, but few congregations existed in the mid-19th century. The "Albrecht" Evangelicals developed in Pennsylvania and did not exist in Germany. Many Pomeranians in Wisconsin joined Moravian and Albrecht Evangelical congregations only after arriving here. Both groups sent German-speaking preachers out into the "wilderness" to be available to newly arrived German settlers. Both groups had circuit-riding preachers who covered large rural territories with many small congregations.
Ref 312 gives his name as Theo Gustav in the confirmation record of his son Richard, and Ref 364 also gives Theo Gustav in the likely birth record of his son Richard.
Williamina Albertine Louise Putzer
See notes for husband Gustav Wegner. Ref 364 spells her name Puetzer, suggesting in German it was Pützer.
His residence in 1900(?) was Hammel Township, Taylor County, Wisconsin. Also see his father for notes and sources.
Ref. 312 gives a confirmation record of a Richard Wegner, born June 10, 1865 (I previously had listed Janurary 10, 1865) , confirmed June 9, 1878, father Theo Gustav. Ref 364 lists Jan 10, 1765 (??) with the father listed as Theo. Gustav.
It is not known when this child was stillborn, or what his birth order was.
Karl Friederich Wilhelm Wegner
At some point we should try to access Prussian military records to try to get those of Martin (ancestor of "LaValle" Wegners) who we know was in the military at some point. We should also check for those of Wilhelm's sons Karl, Gustave, Albert, and Edward, who would have ranged from 31 to 20 at the time of the 1866 Austrian/Prussian war!
As far as we know, Karl (spelled Carl in the USA) was the first of this Wegner (also spelled Wegener) family to emigrate from Germany. On June 20, 1867, at the age of 31 years he arrived at New York on the ship Schlosser along with his wife Fredrica Bulgerin (age 29). The ship had sailed from Bremen, Germany. The ship "arrival" logs also listed a Bertha, age 0, but other reports indicate that she died and was buried at sea on the crossing of the Atlantic to this country. Years later, they also named their last daughter Bertha.
Karl was reportedly a tailor in Germany, and worked as a laborer and farmer in this country. After emigrating in 1867, they settled in Watertown, Wisconsin, then onto a farm in Jefferson County (son August and his wife Katie continued to work this farm after Fredrica became ill). According to the 1870 Census, Karl's newly-emigrated-to-America brother, Gustave -- and presumedly Gustav's wife and children (we should recheck census records on this point) -- were living with them in Watertown, Wisconsin City. The directory for Watertown (see Ref 95-3) of 1872 lists a "Carl Wegner, Laborer, Utah street south of Boomer street". The 1875-76 directory lists a "Charles Wagner, laborer, lab, res s s Emerald e 2d." The 1880 directory lists "Carl Wegner, res. s. s. Emerald, 4 e. 2d." All of these directory entries probably refer to Karl Frederich Wegner born 1835. The farm was in the Wrights Mills neighborhood of North Hebron, Wisconsin.
In July of 2000, I looked for the church birth records of the first four children of Karl and Fredriche that were born in Wisconsin (Marie, Anna, Ida, and Martha born 1868-1875), all apparently born in Watertown. I did not find the birth records in these Watertown churches: St John's Lutheran, St. Luke's Lutheran, St. Pauls Episcopalian, and St. Mark's Lutheran (some probably weren't even open that early). I think we need to check Moravian records, because please note that Karl's brother Gustav was living with them in 1870, and Gustav went to Ebenezer Moravian chuch from 1869 to 1873.
It is interesting to note however that in the 1880 census for Koshkonong township of Jefferson County (Source 118), they are listed in dwelling 19, and Gottlieb and Augusta (Anna Justina) Sommerfeldt <117> are in dwelling 20, presumedly adjacent to them. This location is about two miles east of Fort Atkinson (about 5 miles west of Hebron), and is probably not the Wrights Mills neighborhood mentioned above. The 1899 Jefferson County plat map shows a Carl Wegner farming and stock-raising on 80 acres in the south central portion of section 1 of Concord township. In 1899, they moved to Curtis Mills, Wisconsin (not sure where this is).
Fredrica died of stomach cancer in 1903 and was buried at the Evergreen Cemetery in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin. After his wife's death, Carl lived alone in Coldsprings for a while until he became ill with "dropsy", then went to live with daughter Ida and her husband Henry on their farm near Cold Springs. He later went to live with his daughter Martha at her home on Washington Street in Ft. Atkinson. He died there in his sleep, of "fluid on the heart" in 1909 and was also buried in Evergreen Cemetery (section 16).
Also see notes for husband, Carl Wegner. Alternate spellings of Bulgerin include Bolgrin, Bulgrin, and Bulgrien.
Died on ship during voyage to the United States and was buried at sea. She probably died in May or June of 1867 (based on when shipped arrived in U.S.).
She lived with her younger, unmarried, sister, Bertha #2. "Millie", also unmarried, was a seamstress, and she "loved flowers". She died of cancer, and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin.
Bertha Auguste Friederike Wegner
Bertha was named after her first born sibling who died and was buried at sea when her parents emmigrated to this country. She never liked this fact, wishing instead "she had a name of her own". For 30 years before her retirement she worked as a stenographer in an office of the James Manufacturing Corp, in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin, a manufacturer of barn equipment. She was a member of St. Pauls Lutheran church. Bertha lived with her unmarried sister Millie until Millie died, then with sister Ida till Ida died, then with brother August and his wife Kate. At the time of her death of a stroke, Bertha lived at 403 East St., Ft. Atkinson. She was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery? (Lakeview Cemetery?) in Ft. Atkinson.
It was only through a handwritten note that Clara Hahn <46> wrote on a copy of Bertha's obituary and sent to Clara's cousin Oscar Wegner <20> (and discovered by his son Andy in Oscars "iron box" of records only after Oscar's death in 1988) that we came to know of Oscar's half uncle Carl, Bertha's dad. Clara wrote: "Her father was a half brother to your dad and mine".
Ref 364 gives her two middle names and lists St Peters Luth, Helenville.
August Friedrich Ferdinand Wegner
It is believed there may have been one or more children of Wilhelm Wegner (also spelled Wegener) and Hanna Marie Zenke that was/were born during the period between Carl's birth in 1835 and Albert's in 1844. Oscar WEGNER in his "Tribe of the Sevens" genealogy ( Ref. 4-1), indicates his dad told him he (his dad) had one half brother who "had wife trouble and went to Russia", and that two other brothers went to South America. Elaine Berg remembers (Ref. 77) her husband's brother Norman saying that "one branch went to Iowa (Ed) and another to South America". Norman, born 1905, was the oldest child of Herman's forth child Hank (Herman's first marriage).
Likely connected to our family are two brothers, August Friedrich Ferdinand Wegener (note spelling of last name), born in Panzerin July 1840, and Wilhelm Albrecht Eduard Wegner, born April 23, 1838, also in Panzerin. In Brazil, they apparently went by the first names Friedrich and Eduard. Information on these brothers initially came to us from Brigitte Brandenberg, State of Santa Catharina, in southern Brazil (see my Reference # 255. Please note that Ref. 255 also contains info on other Wegner's that emigrated to Brazil). Note that the birthdates of the two brothers fit nicely into the gap in birthdates of the known children of Wilhelm and Hanna Marie Zenke. Brigitte knows the wives and children and emigration details of these brothers, but she has not yet been able to determine who their parents are. They arrived in the port of Sao Francisco do Sul (near Joinville, Brazil) on the ship Electric on May 31, 1869. Perhaps just an amazing coincidence, and perhaps more than a coincidence, this is the very same day that Caroline ROMIG WEGNER and her minor children arrived in the port of Baltimore, USA!!
Brigitte also indicates that on the same ship (Electric), arrived a ROMICH family from Bulgrin: Herman age 30, his wife Albertine age 32 and 3 small children. Also on the same ship voyage, a ZEMKE family from Crampe (a Crampe is near Bublitz, another in Kreis Lauenburg and another in Kreis Stolp): Heinrich age 31, his wife Caroline age 28 and two small children. Brigitte says there are also ZENKE's in Jaragua do Sul nearby Joinville, and that a Romich settled in Pirabeiraba. She also indicated that a Bergemann and Boldt family emigrated from Panzerin and settled at the Weststrasse Pirabeiraba around 1880. I'm not sure the significance of all this, but these families seem to be associated, both in Wisconsin and in Brazil.
Brigitte Brandenberg (Ref 255) writes that "in some registers she found that August Friedrich Ferdinand came from Kreis Fürstenthum, but after researching baptism registers (in Brazil), they always give Kries Schivelbein as the Kreis of origin". She also indicates that, "the ship registers give Roggow and Henkenhagen as the place of origin for August Friedrich Ferdinand and Wihelm Albrecht Eduard, respectively. It is possible they lived in these villages for a time before emigrating, but I am sure they were born in Panzerin". Apparently Aug. Fried. Ferd. and Caroline Maas also gave "Regakrug" as a place of origin on the immigration register. Kreis Fürstenthum was apparently a region by the Baltic, a Kreis that was later (1872?) split up among Kreise Bulitz, Köslin, and Kolberg-Körlin. I believe the Putzernin that we think our Gustav was born was in Kreis Fürstenthum. There is a Henkenhagen on the Baltic which is about 45 kilometers northwest of the city of Körlin, and about only 15 kilometers northwest of Putzernin. There is a Roggow a little south of Belgard, and two Roggow's in Kreis Regenwalde: Roggow A which is west of Labes, and Roggow B which is 8 kilometers south of Labes. Also, there is another Henkenhagen, which is 5 kilometers south of Roggow B (LDS does have Kirchenbucher for Roggow B for 1622-1767. As another place to look for records, Aug. Fried. Ferd.'s brother Wilh. Albrecht Eduard's daughter Emilie was born in Hanshagen, brigitte says is now in Kreis Kolberg-Körlin (I have not yet been able to locate a Hanshagen in that Kreis, but there is one in Greifswald which is in VorPommern, and another in East Prussia, both of which are a long ways away). Also, Schroeder and Fuelling report the existence of 1839-1874 records for a Hanshagen, but they don't list a Kreis. Ref #255 contains a 1700's French map of Pommern. Brigitte thinks what was in later times called Putzernin, was called Pafsermin.
Brigitte notes the similarities of names between her known family and our known family: "August Friedrich Ferdinand's son was Karl Friedrich Wilhelm, the same name as the second son of Wilhelm and Hanna Marie Zenke (which would be the child's uncle IF we have the relationships correct). Another son (born in Brazil) of August Friedrich Ferdinand was named Albert Gustav Ferdinand" (Albert and Gustav would also be uncles).
Brigitte reports various people, with the following family names, emigrating from Putzernin to Brazil: Ladebuhr, Böge, Hardt, and Neitzke, some of whom are associated with Wegner's in Brazil. Also Caroline Maas's brother married a Böge in Germany. Considering the significant distance between Panzerin and Putzernin, the ties are surprising, unless the families moved from one area to the other, which of course we think ours did (i.e., we think Gustav was born in Putzernin, and some of the later children were born in Panzerin and Schlönwitz.
Reference 256 contains an e-mailed image of the birth record obtained from the State Archive in Stettin (Szczecin, Poland) for Karoline Friedericke Maaß, born at 4 AM on Oct 22, 1841, baptised November 14, parents were Johann Gottlieb Maaß and Christiane Charlotte Henriette Becker. They also report a sister to Karoline Friedericke: Justine Florentine Wilhelmine Maas born March 27, 1840. The archivist reports these records were found in the "Landgericht Labes" unit of the archives. I'm guessing that this includes the village of Prütznow, that we understand from other records, these births occurred. It should be noted that the image of birth record does not include the right portion of the record -- where sponsors might be located. The Archive looked for the record of Karoline Friedericke's marriage to Aug. Fried. Ferd. Wegener in these same records (for the years 1859 to 1864) but did not find it. They also looked without success for emigration papers in the archive unit "Regierung Stettin", but are still checking (or we may need to check) with the Koslin Archive for emigration papers.
Also part of my reference 256 is an e-mail from a Martin Struck, Germany, that says, "A few days ago I interviewed an old neighbour of Panzerin and she remembered that the last of the Wegners in Panzerin died in 1939 or 1940 without having children. His wife died later in 1945. So, the branch of the Wegner family in Germany has extinct. The farm of the Wegners in Panzerin (on the map, which Dieter Schimmelpfennig has on his Kreis Belgard homepage) was taken over by Franz Baumann until 1946 (at which point I assumed the Baumann family was expelled)." I printed out a copy of that map (now hangs on my computer room wall). The Wegner farm was the southwest-most place in the village, right next to the "Panzeriner See" (See = lake). It occurs to me that although this particular Wegner family died out, there may be descendants of his brothers etc that are living today in Germany (or elsewhere). Also, descendants of the Baumann family might possibly have old Wegner records since they took over the farm, and I think Wegner's widow continued to live there until her death in 1945. If the Baumanns lived there until 1946, it MIGHT have been a more orderly expulsion from what was then Poland.
Brigitte says her Wegner's moved from Mildaustrasse to Weststrasse around 1890. August Friedrich Ferdinand died of appendicitis on Oct 15, 1916 at the age of 76 years, 3 months. Also see notes for his son Albert Gustav Ferdinand. Brigitte (Ref 255) notes that all the land that first belonged to Aug. Fried. Ferd. and Caroline is still (in 2001) in the hands of their descendants.
Reference 256 contains an e-mailed image of the birth record obtained from the State Archive in Stettin (Szczecin, Poland) for Karoline Friedericke Maaß, born at 4 AM on Oct 22, 1841, baptised November 14, parents were Johann Gottlieb Maaß and Christiane Charlotte Henriette Becker. They also report a sister to Karoline Friedericke: Justine Florentine Wilhelmine Maas born March 27, 1840. The archivist reports these records were found in the "Landgericht Labes" unit of the archives. I'm guessing that this includes the village of Prütznow, that we understand from other records, these births occurred. It should be noted that the image of birth record does not include the right portion of the record -- where sponsors might be located. The Archive looked for the record of Karoline Friedericke's marriage to Aug. Fried. Ferd. Wegener in these same records (for the years 1859 to 1864) but did not find it.
Brigitte (Ref 255) reports that Caroline's grave in Westtstrasse Cemetery "is so beautiful, one of the oldest ones of the place along with my other gggrandmother [means ggrandmother?] Maria Bäachtold Brandenburg. Unfortunately August Friedrich Ferdinand Wegner's grave was taken by a Köhn family.
She died at 7 months of age.
Albert Edward Ferdinand Wegner
At some point we should try to access Prussian military records to try to get those of Martin (ancestor of "LaValle" Wegners) who we know was in the military at some point. We should also check for those of Wilhelm's sons Carl, Gustave, Albert, and Edward, who would have ranged from 31 to 20 at the time of the 1866 Austrian/Prussian war!
Reference 323, taken from the Internet: wysiwyg://67/http://www.fortunecity.com/littleitaly/amalfi/13/shipa.htm (also ..../shipc.htm), gives a description of the ship "Astronom" that Carloline and her younger children (Herman, August, Auguste) came over on; and also the ship "Columbus" that Caroline's stepson Gustave and his family (and also Gustavs brother Albert) came on. Quoting, in part: The previous entry said, "ASTRID: see ASTRONOM." [Astronom, by the way, means "Astronomer" in German] The next entry said, "ASTRONOM. The ASTRONOM was a 3-masted, square-rigged ship, built by J. H. Bosse of Burg (now Bremen-Burg), and launched on 4 March 1863. 394 Commerzlasten / 802 tons register; 43,1 x 8,7 x 5,9 meters (length x beam x depth of hold). Owner: 1863-1876 - Joh. Diedr. Koncke, Bremen; ........ In 1875, the ASTRONOM was re-rigged as a bark. In 1899, she was sold to S. M. Bjorkegren, of Simrishamn, Sweden, who renamed her ASTRID, and in 1909 re-rigged her as lighter. Her captains under the Swedish flag were ...... Her ultimate fate is not known ..... ". Here is excerpts from the ship COLUMBUS: "COLUMBUS (1): The bark COLUMBUS was built by Hermann Friedrich Ulrichs, Vegesack/Fahr, and launched in 1861. 265 Commerzlasten / 591 tons; 40,5 x 9,5 x 5,1 meters (length x breadth x depth of hold). .... The COLUMBUS was employed chiefly in the transportaion of petroleum from the United States to Europe, but also carried passengers. In June 1884, the vessel was sold..... Until the mid-1890's her master was .... In 1901/01, the COLUMBUS was sold to ....... The vessel was lost in April 1903 [Peter-Michael Pawlik, 'Von der Weser in die Welt; Die Geschichte der Segelschiffe von Weser und Lesum und ihrer Bauwerften 1770 bis 1893', Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums, Bd. 33 (Hamburg: Kabel, c1993) p, 283, no. 54]. Pawlik's work contains a reproduction of a painting of the COLUMBUS, dated 1862, by Oltmann Jaburg. -- [Posted to the Emigration-Ships Mailing List by Michael Palmer - 13 August 1998]". Especially for descendants of Gustav, it might be interesting to obtain a copy of this painting!! There was also a ship COLUMBUS (2) that is listed under the name REPUBLIC (I did not get a printout of this), and a COLUMBUS (3), that was built in 1914.
Albert Wegner (also spelled Wegener) emigrated from Germany in 1869. He came over on the same ship with his brother Gustave and Gustave's wife and two children. The ship Columbus sailed from Bremen and arrived in New York on November 29th. He married Albertina Augustine three years later. They were members of St. Pauls Lutheran church in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin. His great, great, niece, Monique Karlen has a picture of Albert.
He lived in Hebron in 1880 and in Koskonong township in 1910. Both of these places are in Jefferson County, Wisconsin. He was a farmer and general laborer. His grandson Harold remembers him having a small farm between Milton and Whitewater located three miles north of highway 59 (this could have been in southern Koskonong township). The 1899 Jefferson County plat map lists him as "farming, stock raising, and dairying, born in Germany, came to Jefferson County in 1869", and shows him having 20 acres in section 8 (E1/2, SW1/4, SE1/4) of Cold Springs township. He was living at his daughter Hulda's farm near Richmond, Wisconsin, when he died of a pulmonary hemorrhage, with an injury to the right side as a contributory cause. He and Albertina are both buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin (section 20). Albert's tombstone says he was born in 1845.
Albetina (possibly Mittena Albertina) was four years older than Albert and was also born in Pommern, Germany. She had previously been married to a Schemmel (in Germany or in this country?). They had several children, William, Ida, Matilda, Ann, Ottile, and Harry (Henry?). She married Albert after Schemmel's death. Albert and Albertina had at least five, and possibly seven, children. The identity of the possible two additional children is not know, but as possible lead, a Lillie Johanne Amalie Wegner was born February 15, 1883 and confirmed in 1896 in St. Johns Lutheran church, Whitewater, Wisconsin.
Albertina or Mittena Albertina Augustine
See notes and sources for her second husband, Albert Wegner . Ref 310 claims that Albertina Augustine and Schemmel had William and Harry and Ann, plus other children, at least one of whom was a daughter. I assume the additional children does not refer to children of her second marriage. Dorothy Wegner Lidvig, in Ref 310, says, "I have pictures of these ladies [I assume she is refering to Ann and her unnamed sister] who lived in Rockford, Illinois, but I don't know their married names. Ann had a daughter named Pearl and the family was wealthy enough to have a chauffeur in the early 1900's."
The obit of an Ida Schemmel in Ref 400 indicates Albertina Augustine and husband Schemmel also had Ida and Matilda, neither apparently married, and that "Anna" married a Freeman. Also see obit for another child Ottlie Schemmel Zeugner
Emma worked at a hospital as a nurse, was never married, died in the flu epidemic of 1918, and was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin. Such a small amout to say about a person.
Birthdate or birth order compared to her other siblings is not know. The estimated birthdate is an average of her siblings with known dates.
Irene was reported to have been an artist.
Reportedly, there were two additional children (see Source 7-2). Not confirmed.
Birthdate or birth order compared to his/her other siblings is not know. The estimated birthdate is an average of his/her siblings with known dates.
Reportedly, there were two additional children (see Source 7-2). Not confirmed.
Birthdate or birth order compared to his/her other siblings is not know. The estimated birthdate is an average of his/her siblings with known dates.
Since Edward would have been 20 at the time of the Austrian/Prussian war in 1866, we should check Prussian military records for him.
Source 63 (family chart by Marvin and Paula Wegner) indicates that Ed Wegner (also spelled Wegener) emigrated from Germany in 1868. This is about the time the rest of his family emigrated, but I do not know the source of this specific date. As far as I know, we do not yet have ship logs. He would have been 22 years old at the time. On November 29, 1869, he married Wilhelmina Lemke, who had emigrated from Germany to Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin, earlier that same year (the families may have known each other in Germany). The marriage took place in Oakland township, Jefferson County, Wisconsin. His obituary, given in Ref 337, says they married June 17, 1868, but this would appear to be wrong because the Nov 29, 1869 date is based on his Jefferson County Wisconsin marriage certificate (Ref 92-1). His obit says he emigrated to Ft. Atkinson in 1866 at the age of 22. Clearly, he would have only been 20 in 1866, so I take this as further support that he emigrated in 1868.
Possible ship log for Edward taken from Vol 21 (5/1868-9/1868), page 46, of Germans to America: "Eduard Wegner, 19, Farmer, PR to USA".
Possible ship log for Wilhelmina taken from Vol 23, page 236 of Germans to America: "Wilhe. Lemke, 26F, GR to USA, ship = Hansa from Bremen to NY arriving 30 August, 1869. However, please also note this possibility: Ref 257 says she came over on Ship Carl from Bremen to New York arriving May 11, 1869, and was listed alone as Wihelmine Lemke, age 24 Female, unknown occupation, Prussia to Wisconsin. The family listed above hers though is that of Wilhelm Kading, age 39 Farmer, Marie age 41, Friedrich age 16, Albert age 11, August age 7 (who Dorene thinks is Augusta), and Herman age 5. Dorene says that the Marie is possibly Wilhelmine's Aunt Marie Kolhs (Coles) Kading.
What appears to be a membership of some such list (Ref 361) dated Nov 1861 lists an August Möde with the notation beside his name in a different handwritting of "jitz in Fort Atkinson" (now in Ft. Atkinson?). Although the page is dated Nov 1861 at the top, it is not clear when his name was entered, nor when the notation was entered. My guess is it was a running list kept over a number of years for the Town of Oakland St. Johns Lutheran church. On the second page of that list is found, to name a few familiar names: Eduard Wegner, Wilhelm Kading, August Gröler, Charles G. Kunz. Almost certainly Eduard was not in America in 1861.
Ten years later (in 1879) they moved to Walnut township, Adair County, Iowa (SW part of Iowa, near Casey, now on Interstate 80). The Lemke family reportedly also moved to Iowa at the same time. Did they ever! A map of Walnut township (Source 92-1) of unknown date shows Carl and Fred Lemke (brothers of Wilhelmina) having property (160 acres each) within one mile of the Edward Wagner property (120 acres). John Schmelling <251? or his son John> had 80 acres immediately adjacent to Ed. John Schmelling Sr. was married to Wilhelmina's sister Augusta, and later (1907) John Schmelling, Jr. married Alma Wolfeil <111>, oldest daughter of Magdelena Reiss <5, 31> (from her first marriage, to John Wohlfeil). This is another example of the inter-relationships among some of these families. At least one Lemke sibling, Herman, remained in Wisconsin, living in Cecil (east of Shawano in Shawano County) in 1905.
Also see note under Wilhelmina for a possible sister to Wilhelmina's dad, and for a possible link to another (or our??) Wa(e)gner family.
Eduard's obit (ref 337) says that after coming to Iowa in 1879 they lived on the Adair County farm for 27 years, Wilhelmina died in 1905, in 1906 Ed moved to Casey (apparently into the village) where he lived for 21 years. On Feb 16, 1908 he married Mrs. Emma Ridenhour, who passed away Feb 16, 1924, just 16 years to the day after their wedding. His obit continues that he was confirmed at age 14 and was all his life a member of the Lutheran Church -- in Germany, in Wisconsin, and in Iowa -- but in January 1911 "to be with his wife in her church membership, he transferred .... to the Casey, Iowa, Methodist Episcopal church ..... He did not change .... because he was dissatified with it, but rather because he did not believe in a family being divided in their church worship." I think that the above and the following, also from his obituary, say something of his life-outlook and his personality: "His citizenship and loyalty to his adopted country is attested in the fact that during the World War, although his adopted country was at war with his fatherland, and not being able to contribute financially as he would have liked to help his adopted country win the war, he contributed of his services in another form, as he knitted over one hundred pair of socks and several sweaters for the soldier boys." He would have been 74 when WWI ended in 1918. ".... he will be missed from this part of the state as an outstanding pioneer. .... The following six grandsons were the pallbearers; Roy, Harold and Lawrence Kading, Perry, Wayne, and Harley Overmeyer."
Some references suggested that after Wilhelmina's death, Ed married a woman whose first name was "Mattie" and that they had a daughter, Lucille (It should be noted that Ed's obituary (Ref 337) does not mention her! Because, his obituary appears to be complete and accurate in other respects, I question whether Lucille was their child. Perhaps it was Mattie's from a previous marriage) (I now think neither of them had a daughter Lucille, and that she is being confused with the daughter Lucille of Ed's son William -- see next note). Ed died of dysentary in 1927, in Thompson township, Guthrie County (Casey Iowa is on the boundary between Adair and Guthrie counties). This reference suggested Mattie died seven years later, although Ed's obit (Ref 337) says his second wife died before him. Ed and both his wives were buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Walnut township. Ref 333 (and Ref. 337) says that in 1908 Ed married a "Mrs. Emma Ridenhour". I assume Ridenhour was her previous married name, and that this is the same one as referred to as Mattie. I suppose it is possible that a Mattie was his third wife, but his obit makes no mention of it, and Ed only lived a couple years after his second wife died.
Ed death certificate lists his mother's maiden name as LEMKE, not the ROMIG we believe to be the case. The information was given by his daughter Mary, who may have confused it with her own mother's name, or with Ed's dad's first wife's maiden name, that with some uncertainty we believe to be ZENKE. More reliable than his death certificate however, is the church record of his marriage (not the civil certificate). It was in the Lake Mills Moravian Church, Jefferson County (note again the Moravian connection - probably the bride's church). It lists his name as Eduard J. Wegener, born May 2, 1846 in Schloinwitz (some uncertainty as to the "oi"), Pommern, married Nov 28, 1869 in Oakland, to Wilhelmina E. Lempke born Dec 26, 1842 in Rebzin, Pommern. Witness: A. Gröler and F. Dallmanns.
After moving to Iowa, the family for the most part spelled their name, WAGNER, although not exclusively. The point may be mute anyway as I am not aware of any male descendents of Ed. There may be others, but I know of only one son, William, who had one son, Edward, who had two daughters.
Ref 337 contains a copy of a picture of Eduard and Wilhelmina, and another of just Wilhelmina.
Ref 333 says their marriage certificate says they were residing in Town of Oakland (Jefferson County Wisconsin) Nov 29, 1869. Ref 364 (Larry Jaeger printout) seems to list their marriage record in Lake Mills Moravian Church, or at least some reference to it. Ref 312 would seem to confirm (actual copy of record).
Guthrie County, Iowa court record (death record?) says he died of Dysentery.
Also see the notes on her husband Edward Wegner <23>.
Ref 361 gives her birth record of her daughter Henrietted Marie Louise, but lists the mother as Wilhelmine Kunz, not Lemke. Father's name spelled Eduard Wägner. Not sure if the mother's last name is just an error or a previous married name or what. Birth sponsors for Henriette Marie were Henriette Kunz, Marie Kading, Albert Wagner. Name also listed as Kunz for birth of daughter Wihlemina Albertine Augusta Dec 3, 1871 with sponsors Agust Groeler, Friederich Kaeding, Auguste Lemke, and Auguste Wegner. I am inclined to believe Kunz was a previous married name of hers.
This is somewhat speculative, but Wilhelmina's dad Edmann and the Wilhemine (Minna) Lemke that married Wilhelm (Max) Wagner (not currently known to be related) could possibly have been brother and sister.
Wilhelmina (Minnie) died in 1905. Her obituary (Source 92) gives a somewhat confusing, and probably incorrect, account of her children: John Overmery, George Overmery, Will Ksuling, Miss Minnie Wagner, and Will Wagner. This is in conflict with other information we have, but may suggest that three daughters married two Overmeyer's and a Ksuling (Likely a misspelling of Kading). Eduard's obit (Ref 337) gives a clearer picture, saying the five children born to Eduard and Wilhelmina were: Mrs. John Overmyer, Mrs. George Overmyer, Mrs. William Kading, Mrs. William Ward, and William Wegner, all of Casey Iowa except for Mrs. George Overmyer who was deceased.
Ref 257 indicates Caroline's (Wilhelmina E. Lemke's mother) maiden name is Kohl, her birthplace Zulzefitz [Zülzefitz is just east of Labes], and that she came over in 1878 with her son Herman and his wife and their four children. She lived with Herman until her death in 1902 in Shawano county. She joined Immanuel Lutheran Church, Township of Washington, Shawano County in 1880, and is buried at that cemetery. On the death certificate of her brother, Fredrick's birthplace was listed as Kasno as well as the birthplace of his father Edmund Lemke. Wilhelmina was the oldest (birthplace unknown), Herman was born in Arnhausen, Augusta was born in Parzin, Fredrick in Kussenow [just southeast of Schivelbein], Carl and Frederickea (Rike) were both born in Piepenhagen [just north/northwest of Labes, by Prütznow]. These towns are all in the same general area on a map that I have (with the exception of Arnhausen which is a little further north)[northeast of Schivelbein]. Mother Caroline Kohls was born in Zulzefitz which is also in that araea. Wihlelmina was probably born in this area somewhere too. NOTE: I was unable to find Kasno and Parzin anywhere on a map -- believe that Kussenow and Panzerin were correct spellings and they are on the map. I'm not so sure of this, but haven't been able to find Kasno or Parzin. Ref 312 (her marriage record) says Wilhelmina was born in Rebzin (probably Repzin, just a couple miles northeast of Panzerin).
Ref 257 also says she came over on Ship Carl from Bremen to New York arriving May 11, 1869, and was listed alone as Wihelmine Lemke, age 24 Female, unknown occupation, Prussia to Wisconsin. The family listed above hers though is that of Wilhelm Kading, age 39 Farmer, Marie age 41, Friedrich age 16, Albert age 11, August age 7 (who Dorene thinks is Augusta), and Herman age 5. The Marie is possibly Wilhelmine's Aunt Marie Kolhs (Coles) Kading. However, there is also this possible ship log for Wilhelmina taken from Vol 23, page 236 of Germans to America: "Wilhe. Lemke, 26F, GR to USA, ship = Hansa from Bremen to NY arriving 30 August, 1869.
Ref 337 contains a copy of a collage of pictures that contains all six Lemke siblings (i.e., the children of Edmann Lemke and Caroline Kohls).
Wilhelmine Albertine Augusta Wegner
Her baptism sponsors were August Groeler, Friederich Kaeding, Auguste Lemke, and Auguste Wegner. I am not sure if this is a different child than I previously had entered as "Minnie" born about 1874. Both are still listed.
Anna Wilhelmina Albertina Wegner
Birth sponsors were Herman Wegner, Wilhelmine Sommerfeld and Frau Louise Elles.
Since Edward would have been 20 at the time of the Austrian/Prussian war in 1866, we should check Prussian military records for him.
Source 63 (family chart by Marvin and Paula Wegner) indicates that Ed Wegner (also spelled Wegener) emigrated from Germany in 1868. This is about the time the rest of his family emigrated, but I do not know the source of this specific date. As far as I know, we do not yet have ship logs. He would have been 22 years old at the time. On November 29, 1869, he married Wilhelmina Lemke, who had emigrated from Germany to Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin, earlier that same year (the families may have known each other in Germany). The marriage took place in Oakland township, Jefferson County, Wisconsin. His obituary, given in Ref 337, says they married June 17, 1868, but this would appear to be wrong because the Nov 29, 1869 date is based on his Jefferson County Wisconsin marriage certificate (Ref 92-1). His obit says he emigrated to Ft. Atkinson in 1866 at the age of 22. Clearly, he would have only been 20 in 1866, so I take this as further support that he emigrated in 1868.
Possible ship log for Edward taken from Vol 21 (5/1868-9/1868), page 46, of Germans to America: "Eduard Wegner, 19, Farmer, PR to USA".
Possible ship log for Wilhelmina taken from Vol 23, page 236 of Germans to America: "Wilhe. Lemke, 26F, GR to USA, ship = Hansa from Bremen to NY arriving 30 August, 1869. However, please also note this possibility: Ref 257 says she came over on Ship Carl from Bremen to New York arriving May 11, 1869, and was listed alone as Wihelmine Lemke, age 24 Female, unknown occupation, Prussia to Wisconsin. The family listed above hers though is that of Wilhelm Kading, age 39 Farmer, Marie age 41, Friedrich age 16, Albert age 11, August age 7 (who Dorene thinks is Augusta), and Herman age 5. Dorene says that the Marie is possibly Wilhelmine's Aunt Marie Kolhs (Coles) Kading.
What appears to be a membership of some such list (Ref 361) dated Nov 1861 lists an August Möde with the notation beside his name in a different handwritting of "jitz in Fort Atkinson" (now in Ft. Atkinson?). Although the page is dated Nov 1861 at the top, it is not clear when his name was entered, nor when the notation was entered. My guess is it was a running list kept over a number of years for the Town of Oakland St. Johns Lutheran church. On the second page of that list is found, to name a few familiar names: Eduard Wegner, Wilhelm Kading, August Gröler, Charles G. Kunz. Almost certainly Eduard was not in America in 1861.
Ten years later (in 1879) they moved to Walnut township, Adair County, Iowa (SW part of Iowa, near Casey, now on Interstate 80). The Lemke family reportedly also moved to Iowa at the same time. Did they ever! A map of Walnut township (Source 92-1) of unknown date shows Carl and Fred Lemke (brothers of Wilhelmina) having property (160 acres each) within one mile of the Edward Wagner property (120 acres). John Schmelling <251? or his son John> had 80 acres immediately adjacent to Ed. John Schmelling Sr. was married to Wilhelmina's sister Augusta, and later (1907) John Schmelling, Jr. married Alma Wolfeil <111>, oldest daughter of Magdelena Reiss <5, 31> (from her first marriage, to John Wohlfeil). This is another example of the inter-relationships among some of these families. At least one Lemke sibling, Herman, remained in Wisconsin, living in Cecil (east of Shawano in Shawano County) in 1905.
Also see note under Wilhelmina for a possible sister to Wilhelmina's dad, and for a possible link to another (or our??) Wa(e)gner family.
Eduard's obit (ref 337) says that after coming to Iowa in 1879 they lived on the Adair County farm for 27 years, Wilhelmina died in 1905, in 1906 Ed moved to Casey (apparently into the village) where he lived for 21 years. On Feb 16, 1908 he married Mrs. Emma Ridenhour, who passed away Feb 16, 1924, just 16 years to the day after their wedding. His obit continues that he was confirmed at age 14 and was all his life a member of the Lutheran Church -- in Germany, in Wisconsin, and in Iowa -- but in January 1911 "to be with his wife in her church membership, he transferred .... to the Casey, Iowa, Methodist Episcopal church ..... He did not change .... because he was dissatified with it, but rather because he did not believe in a family being divided in their church worship." I think that the above and the following, also from his obituary, say something of his life-outlook and his personality: "His citizenship and loyalty to his adopted country is attested in the fact that during the World War, although his adopted country was at war with his fatherland, and not being able to contribute financially as he would have liked to help his adopted country win the war, he contributed of his services in another form, as he knitted over one hundred pair of socks and several sweaters for the soldier boys." He would have been 74 when WWI ended in 1918. ".... he will be missed from this part of the state as an outstanding pioneer. .... The following six grandsons were the pallbearers; Roy, Harold and Lawrence Kading, Perry, Wayne, and Harley Overmeyer."
Some references suggested that after Wilhelmina's death, Ed married a woman whose first name was "Mattie" and that they had a daughter, Lucille (It should be noted that Ed's obituary (Ref 337) does not mention her! Because, his obituary appears to be complete and accurate in other respects, I question whether Lucille was their child. Perhaps it was Mattie's from a previous marriage) (I now think neither of them had a daughter Lucille, and that she is being confused with the daughter Lucille of Ed's son William -- see next note). Ed died of dysentary in 1927, in Thompson township, Guthrie County (Casey Iowa is on the boundary between Adair and Guthrie counties). This reference suggested Mattie died seven years later, although Ed's obit (Ref 337) says his second wife died before him. Ed and both his wives were buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Walnut township. Ref 333 (and Ref. 337) says that in 1908 Ed married a "Mrs. Emma Ridenhour". I assume Ridenhour was her previous married name, and that this is the same one as referred to as Mattie. I suppose it is possible that a Mattie was his third wife, but his obit makes no mention of it, and Ed only lived a couple years after his second wife died.
Ed death certificate lists his mother's maiden name as LEMKE, not the ROMIG we believe to be the case. The information was given by his daughter Mary, who may have confused it with her own mother's name, or with Ed's dad's first wife's maiden name, that with some uncertainty we believe to be ZENKE. More reliable than his death certificate however, is the church record of his marriage (not the civil certificate). It was in the Lake Mills Moravian Church, Jefferson County (note again the Moravian connection - probably the bride's church). It lists his name as Eduard J. Wegener, born May 2, 1846 in Schloinwitz (some uncertainty as to the "oi"), Pommern, married Nov 28, 1869 in Oakland, to Wilhelmina E. Lempke born Dec 26, 1842 in Rebzin, Pommern. Witness: A. Gröler and F. Dallmanns.
After moving to Iowa, the family for the most part spelled their name, WAGNER, although not exclusively. The point may be mute anyway as I am not aware of any male descendents of Ed. There may be others, but I know of only one son, William, who had one son, Edward, who had two daughters.
Ref 337 contains a copy of a picture of Eduard and Wilhelmina, and another of just Wilhelmina.
Ref 333 says their marriage certificate says they were residing in Town of Oakland (Jefferson County Wisconsin) Nov 29, 1869. Ref 364 (Larry Jaeger printout) seems to list their marriage record in Lake Mills Moravian Church, or at least some reference to it. Ref 312 would seem to confirm (actual copy of record).
Guthrie County, Iowa court record (death record?) says he died of Dysentery.
Mrs. Eduard Johann (Emma) Wegner
See notes on her husband Edward Wegner (also spelled Wegener). The obituary of her (second?) husband, Eduard Wegner, says her name is Mrs. Emma Ridenhour, from which I assume Ridenhour is her previous married name. Other references suggest her first name is Mattie.
Johann Karl Friedrich August Groehler
He went by name August. See notes for his wife Bertha Wegner. Lived in Ft. Atkinson in 1918. Also, just to keep it from getting lost, the Nov 2001 issue of Out on the Limb, the Dodge/Jefferson Cty Genealogy Society newsletter, reports the marriage of an August F. Groeler and Friederike on Oct 18, 1886, Dodge County.
Bertha Caroline Henrietta Wegner
Bertha Wegner (also spelled Wegener) emigrated from Germany to the United States, but we are not sure of what date or ship. Source 1-4 gives a ship log entry for a Bertha Wegener, age 20, coming from Pommerland to Wisconsin on ship Bark Gauss from Bremen arriving in New York (or Baltimore?) on May 29, 1868. She was not listed as part of a family group. Adjacent entries were also of women not part of a family group. She was possibly traveling with a group of other single women. If her birthdate as listed on Source 64 is correct, she would have only been 19 years, 8 months old on May 29, 1868. Source 64 lists her date of emmigration as 1867, but do not know basis of Source 64 information.
Bertha married August Groehler in 1869 in the Town of Oakland, Jefferson County, Wisconsin. August Moede and Ferdinand Dahlmann wittnessed the marriage. August is a brother of Caroline Groehler who was Amelia Moede's mother. Amelia married Bertha's brother August. Completely independent information from the Moede family (Ref. 104) indicates this family came from Schlonwitz, Pommern! It is highly likely these families knew (and possibly intermarried) each other while still in Germany. Pursuing the Moede family line may be a lead in getting Schlonwitz information about our own.
The 1870 census for Koshkonong township, Jefferson County, lists August Groler, age 30, day laborer, born Prussia; Bertha, age 22, keeping house, born Prussia; Bertha, age 7(!), born Wisconsin; Herman, age 4; and Amelia, age 4 months. The 1899 Jefferson County Plat Map lists August Groeler having 81.5 acres in southwestern portion of section 20 of Koshkonong township farming, stock raising, and dairying. It says he was born in Germany in 1840 and came to Jefferson County in 1867. Comments: Note the various spellings of Groehler. The ages of Herman and especially Bertha (assuming Bertha is even his child) would indicate these may be children of a previous marriage. If he came to Jefferson County in 1867 and Bertha was born in Wisconsin in about 1863, August must have lived elsewhere in Wisconsin before coming to Jefferson County (again, assuming Bertha is his child).
August and Bertha lived in Koshkonong township, Jefferson County, Wisconsin in 1900, and Ft. Atkinson in 1910. They died less than two years apart. August is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin.
He baptism sponsors were Mary Moede, August's, Johanna Ziebell, and Albert Groeler.
Ida was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin
Also refer to notes for Herman's two wives, Ann Wilhelmina Sommerfeldt and Magdelena Riess and to his dad.
Herman Wegner's (also spelled Wegener) son Oscar remembered that his dad had said he was born in Pomerania, Germany, in a small cross-roads village between the cities of "Swiefelbein" and Labes, and that the county seat (haubt stad) was Stettin. The marriage certificate of his first marriage indicates his place of birth as "Schlangeritz" -- the certificate of his second marriage says "Schlanwitz". His marriage certificates for bothe marriages are in the foil-wrapped roll. An 1892 map of the German Empire (Source 3) shows the small village "Schlönwitz" or "Schloenwitz" halfway between Shivelbein and Labes on a direct line between the two (also see map in Source 2). An umlaut vowel is often Anglicized by adding an "e" after the vowel. It is likely all four spellings refer to the same village. Also, it should be noted, Shivelbein is now Swidwin, Koszalin, Poland. Labes is now Lobez, Szczecin, Poland, and Schlönwitz is now Slonowice, Poland.
Another significant connection to Schlönwitz is the MOEDE family <106, 108, 110> some of whose members came from that specific village and emigrated to Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin (in 1855 and also some time after 1864). Amelia MOEDE <107.1> whose father, August MOEDE <107>, emmigrated in 1855 married August WEGNER <10>. Also Bertha WEGNER <9> married August GROEHLER who was a brother to Amelia MOEDE's mother Caroline GROEHLER MOEDE <107>. It is clear that the connections between the families began well before their emmigration to the U.S., and that they were deeply associated with the Schlonwitz area of Pommerania.
At the age of 18 Herman emmigrated to the U.S.aboard the same ship as his mother and siblings, August and Auguste. The "Astronom", captained by Mr. Klapper, departed Bremen, and arrived in Baltimore on May 31, 1869. Herman recounted stories of the games the boys played on shipboard to pass time during the six week crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.
Reference 323, taken from the Internet: wysiwyg://67/http://www.fortunecity.com/littleitaly/amalfi/13/shipa.htm (also ..../shipc.htm), gives a description of the ship "Astronom" that Carloline and her younger children (Herman, August, Auguste) came over on; and also the ship "Columbus" that Caroline's stepson Gustave and his family (and also Gustavs brother Albert) came on. Quoting, in part: The previous entry said, "ASTRID: see ASTRONOM." [Astronom, by the way, means "Astronomer" in German] The next entry said, "ASTRONOM. The ASTRONOM was a 3-masted, square-rigged ship, built by J. H. Bosse of Burg (now Bremen-Burg), and launched on 4 March 1863. 394 Commerzlasten / 802 tons register; 43,1 x 8,7 x 5,9 meters (length x beam x depth of hold). Owner: 1863-1876 - Joh. Diedr. Koncke, Bremen; ........ In 1875, the ASTRONOM was re-rigged as a bark. In 1899, she was sold to S. M. Bjorkegren, of Simrishamn, Sweden, who renamed her ASTRID, and in 1909 re-rigged her as lighter. Her captains under the Swedish flag were ...... Her ultimate fate is not known ..... ". Here is excerpts from the ship COLUMBUS: "COLUMBUS (1): The bark COLUMBUS was built by Hermann Friedrich Ulrichs, Vegesack/Fahr, and launched in 1861. 265 Commerzlasten / 591 tons; 40,5 x 9,5 x 5,1 meters (length x breadth x depth of hold). .... The COLUMBUS was employed chiefly in the transportaion of petroleum from the United States to Europe, but also carried passengers. In June 1884, the vessel was sold..... Until the mid-1890's her master was .... In 1901/01, the COLUMBUS was sold to ....... The vessel was lost in April 1903 [Peter-Michael Pawlik, 'Von der Weser in die Welt; Die Geschichte der Segelschiffe von Weser und Lesum und ihrer Bauwerften 1770 bis 1893', Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums, Bd. 33 (Hamburg: Kabel, c1993) p, 283, no. 54]. Pawlik's work contains a reproduction of a painting of the COLUMBUS, dated 1862, by Oltmann Jaburg. -- [Posted to the Emigration-Ships Mailing List by Michael Palmer - 13 August 1998]". Especially for descendants of Gustav, it might be interesting to obtain a copy of this painting!! There was also a ship COLUMBUS (2) that is listed under the name REPUBLIC (I did not get a printout of this), and a COLUMBUS (3), that was built in 1914.
Census records in 1870 indicate Herman was living and working on the Levi A. Colby farm (160 acres comprising the southeast one quarter of section 21 in Oakland Township, Jefferson County - see map in Source 34) as a farm hand, and that he had not attended school in the past year. His mother was living as a domestic worker on a farm about five miles to the southeast. Herman and Anna's first child, Lizzetta, was born in (near?) Whitewater, Wisconsin. By the 1880 census, Herman was listed as a farmer in Fulton Township of Rock County, and the family unit included his first wife, "Minnie", their three oldest children (Lizzetta, William, and Hannah, age 2), and his mother Caroline, now 61 years old. This was apparently known as the Dr. Borden farm, which was southwest of Milton Jct., Rock County, Wisconsin, because we have reference that this is where Herman and Anna's fourth child, Henry, was born in 1878. Not sure why Henry was not listed on the 1880 census. Their last child Art was born in Jefferson County in 1887 (not sure if they lived in Jefferson County then, or if Art may simply have been born in the nearby city of Ft. Atkinson, which is in Jefferson County. I think the 1887 plat map shows a Herman Wegner on 80 acres in section 23 (W1/2 of NE1/4 of NE1/4 plus W1/2 of SE1/4 of NE1/4 plus E1/2 of NW1/4 of NE1/4 plus E1/2 of SW1/4 of NE1/4) of Koshkonong township, Jefferson County, but this needs to be rechecked. In late 1893, Herman and his second wife Magdalena Riess, had their first child, Elsa, who was born in Koshkonong Township of Jefferson County.
On August 16, 1894, Herman signed a mortgage agreement in which he purchased a 260 acre farm from Fredrick and Florence MORSE for $19,500. It was located a couple miles south of the city of Whitewater in Whitewater Township of Walworth County. It consisted of the SW 1/4 of NW 1/4 plus NW 1/4 of SW 1/4 of section 16 and the SE 1/4 of section 17 and 20 acres off the east side of the SW 1/4 of section 17, all in Town 4 North of Range 15 East.
In 1905 at the age of 55 Herman declared "he could not keep up with the hands, and that the boss should be able to lead", so he retired and moved to a house at 1012 Peck Street in Whitewater. The homestead farm stayed in the family for many years. His son, Art, lived there until 1922, then son, Hank, for seven years, followed by his daughter, Gert, and her husband, Irving HUTH. Herman spent his last few weeks there with his daughter, before dying in November of 1929 of "general peritonites, with contributory appendicitis". He was buried in Hillside Cemetery, Whitewater (lot 16-1096). He and his family was Lutheran.
His obituary lists his birthdate as April 7, 1850 and his death certificate indicates 9/17/1850.
Ref 402 is an article in the magazine "Journey", Nov/Dec 2001 issue, that uses a photo of Herman simply to illustrate the article which is about a Russian immigrant. Herman has no other connection to the article, which in fact is believed to be fictional. The only reason Herman's picture was used is that Herman's great grandson, Marvin, is Art and Design editor for the magazine, and he thought Herman's image, and perhaps life too, typified the fictional character in the story.
Anna Wilhelmina or Minnie Sommerfeldt
Also refer to the biographic notes on her husband, Herman. Her nickname was "Minnie" -- "Mina" was also seen in one record. Her baptised name was Anna Wilhelmine. Not sure whether the Anna was a church-added name or a communal family given name or what, but the Minnie or Mina clearly refers to Wilhelmina, and at least among her dad's siblings, it was apparently the practice to add "Anna" to all the daughters: e.g., Anna Christina and Anna Wilhelmina. Likewise among Anna's father's brothers, a "Johann" was added: e.g., Johann Ludwig, Johann Micheal, Johann Gottlieb, and a second Johann Ludwig. Confusing!
She died young, at only 38 years of age. She had been in poor health with a lung problem for some time, then died suddenly of inflammation of the lungs. She was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Ft. Atkinson, near the resting place of Caroline, her mother-in-law. There is German script (a verse?) on her tombstone. Reportedly, as of 1988, she still has relatives in the Janesville, Rock County, Wisconsin, area.
Various birth dates are given for Anna Wilhelmina: The church death record and her tombstone indicate October 24, 1852, and her obituary indicates December 24, 1852. LDS data (microfilm 1180434) gives her christening date October 31, 1852. The christening record gives her birthdate as 10/21/1852, and this is the one probably the most reliable. A handwritten note on Source 43 also says October 21, 1852. The 1870 census would indicate about 1852 and the 1880 census 1854. Her ship log says she was 16 in May of 1868.
Concerning place of birth, Source 73 (marriage record) indicates "Rathei Tr. Tosen:" or possibly "Rathei Pr. Posen:" or "Rathei Fr. Tosen:". Not sure what the first letter on the last two words are. Baptism records for the Sommerfeldt family refer to a Rattay. There is a Rattai about 2 miles E/NE of the city of Kolmar in Posen province of Prussia. The German city of Kolmar is now Chodziez, Poland, although even old German maps sometimes list the city as Chodziesen. Apparently there had been both Germans and Poles in that area for a long time. Her marriage certificate and church marriage record list her place of birth as "Losvzisky" and "Losvziskz, R.B. Chodziesen", respectively. The R.B.. sometimes also abbreviated Reg. Bez. stands for Regierungsbezirk and is the term for the regional governmental unit (in English, sometimes called a district). It should be noted that Kolmar is both a city and a larger regional unit, but not sure if it is properly refered to as a county (Kreis) or a district. Likewise in Polish there is the city of Chodziez and the larger unit refered to as Chodziez (or a similar spelling). The city of Kolmar/Chodziez is about 16 miles south/southeast of the larger city of Schneidemuhl (now Pila or Pita, Poland). Schneidemuhl was on the border between Posen and West Prussia, about 60 miles southeast of Labes, Pommern. At one point it appears Schneidemuhl was actually in the province of Pomerania.
Not sure where the village of Losvzisky(z) is, but there is a Loschwitz about 25 miles S/SE of Kolmar or about 6 miles south of Wongrowitz (Wagrowiec in Polish). It is possible that Losvzishy(z) is a Polish spelling of Loschwitz, although it is a fair distance from Rattai. As a final piece of birthplace information, LDS data lists her place of christening as Kolmar (city or regional unit?), Posen.
Wilh. Sommerfeldt, Junggeselle (bachelor or unmarried man), was listed as a sponsor on her baptism record. Other sponsors were Chr[isto]ph Wittlief, Junggeselle , and Jul.[ianne] Reischke, Frau. She was baptised by Rev. Schultze.
Anna Wilhelmina and her parents and at least some of her siblings emigrated in 1868. They arrived in New York on May 25th aboard the ship Anton from Bremen. Anna was listed as "W., 16, female, servant".
Hanna was the third child of her father Herman's first family. The 1880 census lists her as two years old which would mean she was born in about 1878. Her neice Dorothy <21>, born 1913, speculated "Hannah must have died young as I know nothing about her". She was not alive when her mother died in 1891.