[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Immigrant from Volhynia to the US (1892)

[Jerry Frank]

Comments interspersed below with some snipping of original.


At 02:43 PM 09/12/2003 -0800, Donald Larson wrote:
>My family history sources indicate that Gottlieb Benke and his wife and 
>daughters along with the
>wife's in-laws emigrated in 1892 with a large group of other Germans from 
>Volhynia.  No one in the
>family has been able to identify embarkation or arrival ports, the 
>specific dates of travel or the
>ship used.

They do not appear to be in the Ellis Island records.  They may have come 
through another non-indexed American port or even through a Canadian 
port.  Keep in mind too, even though it may not be part of your family 
lore, that significant numbers of Volhynian Germans migrated to southern 
Manitoba FIRST.  Here they worked for a few years, mostly for Mennonites, 
before then heading down to the Berrien County region.  If you know for 
sure they migrated in 1892, it would not be too difficult to search one 
year of ship arrivals at all Canadian ports to see if you can find 
them.  They are available on microfilm.



>Immigrant Name: Henriette Wilhelmine Karoline Hafer
>Year: 1892
>Place: North America
>Source Publication Code: 5860
>Primary Immigrant: Hafer, Henriette Wilhelmine Karoline
>Source Bibliography: MUELLER, FRIEDRICH. "Westfaelische Auswanderer im 19.
>Jahrhundert-Auswanderung aus dem Regierungsbezirk Minden, Part 1: 
>1816-1900 (Erlaubte
>Auswanderung)." In Beitraege zur westfaelischen Familienforschung, vols. 
>38/39 (1980-1981), pp.
>3-711.
>Page: 522
>
>I believe that this person may be my Great-Great Grandmother.
>
>Ferdinand Hafer (b. 4/10/1840 in "Germany")
>Henrietta Frederike Wilhelmine (Villwock) Hafer (b. 11/23/1841 in Seehof 
>Municipality,
>Rummelsburg, Hinter Pommern, Germany) [wife of Ferdinand]


It would seem unlikely that the person in the referenced material is your 
ancestor.  The basic title translates as, "Westphalia Emigration in the 
19th Century - Emigration out of the Regierungsbezirk (county) 
Minden.  This has no connection to either Volhynia or Pomerania.  It might 
fit if the family migrated for a few years from Volhynia to Minden before 
carrying on to North America - not impossible but also not very common in 
that time frame.

Note also that Germany did not exist in 1841 so the correct designation for 
the place of birth would be Prussia.

Rummelsburg is located in modern day Poland.  It was a municipality or 
county within Pomerania but also a city, today known as Miastko.    There 
were at least 6 Seehof in this province.  You can investigate them all 
using http://www.kartenmeister.com/ .  The most likely one based on other 
German migration to Volhynia from this area is located at about N54/08 
E17/13, today known as Lobzowo.  It is only 2 km south of Lubben, the 
origin of my Girschewski ancestors.  A couple of daughters from this family 
ended up in Berrien County.  It is also known that some Ottos and 
Gitersonke (with numerous variant spellings for the latter), all from this 
northeastern section of Rummelsburg municipality, ended up in Berrien County.

Unfortunately, research in this region, and in Pomerania in general, is 
very difficult due to lack of records from the mid 1800s.



>Information on these family members may be found at my web site:

Your website link did not work.  I tried backing up to myfamilyline.net and 
that didn't work either.




Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
jkfrank at shaw.ca