This is in aid of the posting about Fred Layman.
in 1857 my GGgrandfather Johann Bonnen Block came to America on the
Bremen registered Ship "D. H. Waetjen", Bremen to New Orleans, went up
to Pekin, Illinois and wound up in the Union Army. He is listed in GTA
(Germans to America). He said he was from Hannover, but that was an
umbrella term at the time, so that everyone from the Kingdom of Hannover
said the same thing. There were a lot of ships departing German ports
directly for USA. This is a GTA lookup! Some passengers have a code that
gives the exact city of origin following their name in GTA (but most
have only a general location). Its worth a look. I tried to extend the
idea of our man's origin by looking at the passengers that were listed
with him. Did not help, though.
While all of his military papers (discharge promotion etc.) say that he
was born in Weidenhaus, we have never found out what that meant.
However, One paper, the mustering out paper, has a column for
birthplace. There, he answered something different, "Osta". Of course,
you can't find anything that corresponds to that either. But, that
turned out to be close to the correct answer, Ostdorf. (The correct
answer appeared in an obituary in a German Language newspaper published
in Iowa on the death of his brother)
I suggest that you write to NARA on the appropriate form (multipart) and
get his military record. In my case this was not very interesting except
for this mustering out record, but you never know what you'll get.
If you get his place of birth in Hannover, you are on the way. Then you
can ask for help and maybe get a look at the 1852 Hannover Census
records (if his place of origin isn't too big, as they are not indexed)
and the parish records.
And, the list person that was indicating name reversal is right on.
Another of our kin, one Karl Louis Willi BACKHAUS became and was always
known as Willi BACKHAUS. And his sisters were know to a one by the third
name on their baptism certificates. The last name (third one in our
cases) in their lineup, was the name they went by. So, who knows his
other names. I would have thought you might have some luck in that
matter from the military records. Did he leave a widow who applied for
pension on his death? Get those records.
Do order his pension records. We found out nothing about out man there,
but in that some 7# of paper, we sure learned a lot about the widow
who's cemetery record and obituary were wrong by naming her as the child
of her uncle (Both her father and here uncle named daughters of similiar
age the exact the same name). (But, the issue in the pension record was
whether she was trying to collect a double pension, as she was a Civil
War widow when she married our ancestor, and was alledged not have been
divorced.) Maybe your records would be better.
Our researches are just about finished, but we
wish you the Best of Luck.
Robert Block