I have found the baptism records for my 2nd great-grandparents in 1823 and
1827 on the Damme tape from the LDS. Does anyone know the name of the
Catholic church? Could it be St. Victor, or would there have been another
church in the 1820s? Both were baptized in the same church and the LDS tape
is the Germany, Oldenburg, Damme - Church Records tape number 909912.
Thanks for your help. I will be in Germany beginning September 22 and wish
to visit the places where my ancestors lived and the churches they attended.
St Viktor was the only RC church in Damme until in 1864 when St.
Mariae Himmelfahrt Osterfeine was created as a separate parish. In
1925 St. Agnes Rüschendorf was also created. In 2007 those three
parishes were recombined because of the lack of both priests and
attendees back into St. Viktor.
Johann Heinrich Gerhard Rolfsen, born 12 Jan 1823, baptized 14 Jan 1823.
Parents: Johann Bernard Rolfsen and Elisabeth Kruse from Pellenwessels
(unknown word--see below and attachment 1)
Maria Agnes Brokamp, born 05 May 1827, baptized 06 May 1827
Parents: Johann Heinrich Brokamp and Maria Rottinghaus from Kleine Hillmans
(same unknown word-attachment 2) Osterfeine.
Only immigration information for Heinrich is from Smith's Amt Damme book
and your website, Werner, which I assume is also from the Amt Damme
emigrants information: Rolfsen, Heinrich von Hofe des Kolonen Stührenberg 1
1841 Rottinghausen.
Agnes possibly immigrated on the ship Hermitage out of Bremen with arrival
08 Oct 1845. Her age is listed as 28, but she was actually about 18. I still
have to study the LDS tape to find her siblings to determine if this is the
correct family on the Hermitage. I cannot find this family in Smith's Amt
Damme book in 1845.
John Heinrich Rolfsen and Agnes Brokamp were married 23 Aug 1847 in Old St.
Mary's Church in Cincinnati, OH.
They had 12 children. The first 2 were born in Cincinnati, the next 10 in
Constance, Boone County, Kentucky. Their house is listed on the US National
Register of Historic Places as a primary example of a "bank house." The
house is built on the banks of Dry Creek about 300 feet from where the creek
meets the Ohio River. The Anderson Ferry is near their house. Henry was a
vegetable farmer.
Henry died 04 Nov 1888 in Cincinnati. His will, written in both English and
German, left everything to his wife Agnes nee Brokamp.
Agnes died 05 Feb 1910 in Cincinnati.
Henry had siblings here but I don't have proof yet. I know Mary was here--I
have a picture of her. The Damme tape will help me with this.
There are two words I cannot read on the birth records. They are attached as
.jpg files. Attachments 1 and 2 are the same word from the two baptism
entries. Attachment 3 describes someone who had a role at the baptism, but I
do not think it is "sponsor" or "godparent." The godparents are listed on
the next line. Can you help me with these?
The words she's looking to define are Leibzucht (the first two attachments) and Levans (the third attachment). I'm still at the office for a few more hours and planned to/will respond when I got home, but if you can either explain or direct her to one of your prior write-ups online, that's okay with me too.
One other thing to note: the church books of Damme included all of the entries for the "daughter" parish of Holdorf until about 1830 (from memory). I don't think Osterfeine would have been in the Holdorf parish, but Pellenwessels doesn't ring a bell for a farm name. I was going to check Pagenstert tonight to see which Bauershaft it was in.
Nice hearing from you again. I'm going to see Werner Honkomp in
November and he sent me a paper on Rabe where you helped in
Cincinnati. As to below, I dodn't what the Levans thing is. Need to
know the context. I'll explain Leibzucht.
Fred
Levans is a latin word:
- levans [wörtlich (über dem Taufbecken) haltend =]
Pate/Patin = godfather/godmother
Leibzucht - Bedeutung (source Gen-Wiki):
Altenteil oder Witwenunterhalt, gleichermaßen bei Adel, Bürgern, Bauern, Freien und unbemittelten Leuten, mit oder ohne Vertrag und je nach Möglichkeiten oder Ansprüchen.
Bei Eigenbehörigen wurde der Grundherr regelmäßig mit einbezogen. Die Regelungen zur Höhe der Leibzucht richteten sich teilweise nach lokalen Gebräuchen.
Leibzuchthäuser wurden dem Zweck nach nur zeitweilig genutzt und waren daher zwischendurch oft verpachtet.
"Leibzucht" i a small house of the farm owner for his retirement. Located close to the main farm house.
In the mean time lives the "Heuerleute" (tenant farmer) of the farm in this house.
your questions:
Parents: Johann Heinrich Brokamp and Maria Rottinghaus from Kleine Hillmans, Osterfeine.
means: the parents lived as Heuerleute on the farm "kleine Hillmanns" in (Damme-) Osterfeine.
Emigrants information: Rolfsen, Heinrich von Hofe des Kolonen Stührenberg 1 1841 Rottinghausen
means: Rolfsen Heinrich of the farm Stührenberg in (Damme-) Rottinghausen emigrated 1841 - 1 person
Thanks for doing the research. So for most of the records I have from Damme there is one person who is the "Levans" and two others who are "sub-godparents" (my word!) or witnesses. I think the word before the last two is (Ass.) like the English assistant. It is probably also Latin. I can now decipher most of the records.
I have someone who came from the duchy of Oldenburg to America about 1870 and is found in the 1870 US census working as a farm hand. He's marked there as a US citizen. Family lore states that after he had made enough money, he returned to Germany to fetch his bride. The two of them came into New York on the ship Mosel in 1875, and again, he's listed as from the USA. All well and good, except that he got his citizenship in 1890. Would papers of a declaration of intent have sufficed for someone to be considered a US citizen, or at least legally belonging to that country? The wording on the passenger list is "the country to which they severally belong."
The census records and ship passenger lists were not always composed with the greatest of care. Therefore, we should not be surprised that they were often not one hundred percent accurate. Also, in 1870, it could have been a neighbor who was supplying the information--one who did not know his neighbor's farmhand particularly well. (1940 is the first census that indicates who supplied the information).
His "first" papers were not the same as citizenship, simply the first step. He had to live here five years before he could become a citizen. Unfortunately, at that time period, his papers could have been filed in whatever court suited him. It may take some digging to locate them. Also know that before about 1900, the first papers and the citizenship papers did not contain very much information.
Thank you, Nicole! So far, I've struck out on finding much of anything from his time there in northern Illinois. A lot of things that "should" be there, aren't. There's always hope, however. Their marriage license did eventually surface.
On the Rastede CD, I have located an ancestor, Alert MELCHER (alias KIRCHMANN) - born about 1570, died before 1655. His occupation/station is listed as "Undervogt." Babylon gives a translation of "Vogt" as "nm. reeve, governor, head of a city council, bailiff, law-enforcement clerk, protector." The Pomersche Leute site defines it as assistant bailiff or deputy sheriff. Can anyone give me a clearer picture of what "Untervogt" might have meant in Oldenburg in the early 1600s?
The title of Vogt has its origins as in the Middle Ages as a
representative of the second estate, the clerics among the population.
Eventually this became a job beholden to the lay authority, the
nobility. In effect, a Vogt represented the ruling class among the
ordinary people and kept the law. In larger area he would have a
helper under him, therefore Untervogt. You'll also hear of Kirchenvogt
who may well have been responsible to collect tithing's for the
parish.
Many of these old titles had different responsibilities over time but
the title stayed the same. Lots of this is also subject to the customs
of the locality. No easy generalisations here. Lots of Vogt
jobs/titles became an inherited function passed from father to son for
generations. Anybody holding the title always tried to pass it on as
it held prestige, possble income and raised one over the general
population.
Fred
Thank you, Fred. Thanks for the complete and informative reply! Is it possible the surname KIRCHMANN originally derived from earlier generations who held the position of Vogt? It appears the position of Untervogt was not passed down to another generation in this case, unless that child isn't in the records.
I would assume the surname Vogt derived from a person that held one of the
positions described below. Growing up in Baltimore we had at least three
generations of a Vogt family as neighbors.
I would think Kirchmann would be more closely linked to someone living
near the church. During medieval times there would usually be a street
surrounding the church and it's cemetery where people lived who did
not have land or a farm. They may have worked in one capacity or
another at or for the church or the parish priest and wound up with
the name church man. We will never conclusively know the exact source
of people's names over time but it's always fun to conjecture. For all
we know the man may have grown lots of cherries and the original name
was Kirschmann. Who knows what strange sources names really had with
all the language and spelling changes over time.