I am looking for information as to the hometown of a Georg W Kattau, a
tailor, who emigrated to the US in the 1820s or 1830s. Census records indicate that
he was from Hannover, and his wife from Bremen. He lived in Boston, and may
have entered through that city.We do not know his wife's name. He died in Boston
on November 12th 1849. Information is lacking as to his background in Germany.
Any information would be appreciated. No other Kattaus appear to have come to
Boston in
the 1800s.
Many thanks.
With no hard evidence, you have to get lucky to find a village of origin. Here is an approach that might bring you luck.
The LDS site, www.familysearch.org lists only 36 people named KATTAU in Germany in the IGI. For the time period relevant to George KATTAU, perhaps 1780 to 1830, the ones in Hannover are from villages of Barver and Drebber. So those might be good places to look.
Since KATTAU is not a common name, I used "google" to search for pages with both KATTAU and Barver. One hit was
http://members.aol.com/rainerkv/Page3.html.
This page, which is written in German, lists the names in a family history file. KATTAU appears in "Barnsdorf and surrounding areas", which includes Barver and Drebber, among others. I suggest you contact the owner of the page. His email address is on his home page, which you can reach by clicking the home icon on the page I gave you. Perhaps he will know something useful.
Paul Kasameyer
Ddbayek@aol.com wrote:
We Kattaus seem to have been good at sneaking in under the radar. My GGF , who was born 1847, showed up in Indianapolis in1868-69. He was born in Dueste near Barnstorf, now part of Eydelstadt. There are now and have been since before 1500, Kattau households in this area which includes the old areas of Diepholz and Hoya.
We never have found his arrival. Heinrich Wilhelm Kattau