Hallo,
I hope that someone on the Mecklenburg list can correspond with me in
English. My German "ist nicht zu gut".
One of my ancestral lines, the Westphals emigrated from somewhere in
Mecklenburg-Schwerin to Texas in about 1853 but they did not all immigrate at the
same time.
So far as I have been able to determine the Westphals who immigrated to
Texas were Anna Philomena Westphal (the mother),
Two sons - Heinrich and Friedrich Westphal, and
Three daughters - Sophia Westphal
Maria DOROTHEA (Westphal) Bruedigam, wife of Johann Joachim HEINRICH
Christian Bruedigam and
Helena (Westphal) Voss
Another daughter, Friedericka (Westphal) Bruedigam, died in Germany.
After she died Johann Heinrich Christian Bruedigam married her sister, Dorothea.
If anyone has any information on this family or would like additional
information from me I would certainly like to correspond with you.
Carroll Warschak
Waco, Texas
Hallo,
I�ve got a Jochim Bruedigam who married Sophia Westphal. Their son Johann
Jochim Heinrich Bruedigam was born 31.03.1805 in Gresenhorst (church
Blankenhagen).
Do you know any location? When did your family emigrate? And which port
did they use? The name Westphal is one of the most common names in
Mecklenburg. In the churchbook of Blankenhagen are so many Westphal and
Bruedigam, all with similar given names that I still haven�t researched
more 
Yours,
Heike
www.carlsson-genealogie.de
One of my ancestral lines, the Westphals emigrated from somewhere in
Mecklenburg-Schwerin to Texas in about 1853 but they did not all immigrate
at the
same time.
So far as I have been able to determine the Westphals who immigrated
to
Texas were Anna Philomena Westphal (the mother),
Two sons - Heinrich and Friedrich Westphal, and
Three daughters - Sophia Westphal
Maria DOROTHEA (Westphal) Bruedigam, wife of Johann Joachim HEINRICH
Christian Bruedigam and
Helena (Westphal) Voss
Hi Carroll,
it won't be easy to find a WESTPHAL in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. It is a very
common name there. Because lots of immigrants to Mecklenburg some hundred
years earlier came from Westphalen, another area in Germany and so they were
named after the area they came from similar to Sachs from Sachsen or
Niedersachsen and so on.
You may be more lucky with the names BRUEDIGAM and VOSS.
BRUEDIGAM is the dialect version of BRAEUTIGAM. So it is possible, that you
will find both writings in the church records. Both words are written with
an umlaut (vowel-mutation); the first over the U and in high german over the
first A. By the way - BRUEDIGAM in english means fianc� or groom.
VOSS is also a dialect word, but I wouldn't expect to find it in the high
german version - FUCHS, means fox.
Probably you can get a hint in the 1819 census of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. At
least the mother must have been born when she immigrated around 1853, when
she already had three married daughters. I believe there is an LDS film with
a name and place index for the census. See if you can find the three names
in the same parish or surrounding parishes.
Philomena is a seldom forname as far as I know, so that may help. But think,
that she may not been married to WESTPHAL in 1819!
Good luck
Silke Sarnow