In October, I started telling the story of one of my immigrant families: the Peters. My purpose was to find additional details about this family and their immigration, but I ended up tracing them back to Germany! I also broke through a “brick wall” and found their parents, too! This post is a summary of that discovery with links to the posts I shared as I traced this immigrant family. Custom Map Created by My Dad At some point, I heard a lecture or podcast about finding your ancestor’s ship arrival in a New York newspaper. And, that is where...
After locating the church in Bellin, Germany, where my Peters family attended in the late 1850s, my dad found a website that appeared to have a dozen photos of this church. However, the writing was in German. I often copy and paste entire paragraphs into Google Translate which, although it isn’t an accurate translation, helps get me started. But, I’ve been reading “Trace Your German Roots Online” by James M. Beidler, and he had a tip about translating an entire webpage at one time! It’s really quite simple. Paste the URL for the website you are wanting translated directly into...
In the U.S., most of my ancestors were farmers. But, my newly found German ancestors had a variety of occupations. As I tried to locate the birth family of my 3rd great grandfather, Joachim Peters, using his father’s occupation as a “keyword” helped me find the correct family. Mecklenburg-Schwerin, where the Peters family lived, did not take many censuses. In fact, the only ones I’m aware of are for the years 1704, 1751, 1819, 1867, 1890, and 1900. Since the family emigrated in 1859 and Joachim was born about 1815, the only useful census would be 1819. However, the 1867...
I started researching our family in 1998, and my dad’s aunt, Beulah, had probably researched several decades before that time. But, discovering the full name of my third great grandparents earlier this week – Joachim Carl Otto Peters and Henriette Mary Magdalena Bünger – busted a hole in our brick wall. Now, it is falling down. [Read part 1 and part 2.] Yesterday morning, I found the marriage record of Joachim and Henriette. It shows the Peters family was from Bergfeld, which is one of the pieces of information I’d learned on Monday. And, most excitingly, the marriage record includes...
Back to the story… Two days ago, I was sitting in the library looking at a microfilm of German church records. Searching for records of my immigrant family, I hadn’t found the parent’s baptismal records. I also hadn’t found baptismal records for the first five children. But, for the final child, the sixth child, I had finally found a record! Joyfully, I had found my German family in a village in present-day Germany. I continued to scroll through the microfilm looking at baptisms, marriages, and deaths. In each section, I did not find anyone with a Peters or Bünger, the...
Finding the village your ancestors came from is, in my understanding, the hardest part of tracing your family back to Germany and the associated countries. Even discovering the name of the village isn’t enough. There are often many villages (and other places) with the same name with many spelling variations. Just recently, I determined that my Peters ancestors most likely came from Bellin in present-day Mecklenburg-Schwerin. [Read more in this post.]To know conclusively, I needed to find records in this small village. I ordered the kirchenbuch – or church book – records which had been microfilmed by FamilySearch. The film...
My Grand Aunt Beulah, who did genealogy research for many years, has “Gustrow, Mecklenburg” as the place of birth of our Peters ancestors. However, the Hamburg passenger list, which I doubt she ever saw, says the family was from Bellin, Mecklenburg. To find church records, which are very important in German research, we need to know exactly where they lived. Meyers Gazetteer is a wonderful tool for locating places in present day Germany. At their website, I typed “Bellin” in the search box and got 5 results for “Bellin.” Filtering for the region of “Mecklenburg-Schwerin narrowed the results to only...
I’ve discussed my Peters’ family 1859 New York passenger list, but what additional information does their Hamburg passenger list tell us? 1859 New York Passenger List “New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1897,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 October 2016), entry for Joach. Peters and family, line 16, aboard Bavaria, Hamburg to Southampton to New York City, leaving Southampton 18 June 1859; citing microfilm M237, roll 193. 1859 Hamburg Passenger List “Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 October 2016), entry for Joach. Peters and family, line 50, aboard Bavaria, Hamburg to Southampton to New York City, arriving...
In Hamburg on June 14th, 1859, Joachim and Henrietta (Bingher) Peters, my third great grandparents, boarded the steamship Bavaria to start a new life in America. Traveling third class, or “between decks,” they brought with them their six children: Louise (14), Eckard (13), Carl (10), Wilhelm (7), Heinrick (6), and Friedhen or “Freda” (4). The Ship According to The Ships List, the Bavaria was built in 1856 as the Petropolis and was a 2,405 gross ton ship. She was 282.1 ft long and had a 39.4 ft beam, which I understand means she was 39.4 feet across at her widest point. She was a...
As I continue to share the story of my Peters ancestors’ 1859 immigration, today I’m sharing a map my dad made using Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 Editor. In a post last week, I discussed the various places their steamship, the Bavaria, passed on their journey. The details of the journey were found in a New York Times newspaper. In this post, I am retelling their journey as more of a story. I will continue to add details as I discover them. Map created by Jon R Stewart On June 14th, 1859, Joachim and Henrietta Peters boarded the steamship Bavaria...
