“Immigration” is the prompt for Week 7 of 2024’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge.
I’ve written about my Wolf family before and researched them fairly extensively, but in genealogy there’s always more to learn and discover, whether it’s a new approach to research or a new source that becomes available online. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find the ship manifest for the Jacob Wolf family (my 3rd great grandparents), who immigrated to the United States around 1836. This week I hit paydirt. Though I didn’t find the manifest, I found a new record set on MyHeritage called “Germany, Hesse Emigrants” which contains records of emigrants departing from the Hessian region of Germany. It was added to the platform in December 2023. The record set brought me to the Hessian Institute for Regional History website. That isn’t the most user-friendly site, but check it out if you have immigrant ancestors from Hesse. Use broad search terms, like just your ancestor’s last name.
I still couldn’t locate a ship manifest, which would have contained helpful information like who else was on the ship. There’s always that, “Did they leave with other family members or friends?” question which remains unanswered, but at least I confirmed that these were my Wolfs. Jakob Wolff, a schreiner (carpenter), age 35, his wife Juliana (maiden name Gurtelschmeid), age 28, and sons Konrad, 2 ½, Jakob, 1 ½, and Johann, 3 months, left for the United States in February of 1836. Imagine what a cold, miserable journey that must have been crossing the Atlantic on a ship in February with three children under the age of three! Yuck! Kudos to Juliana and Jacob!
The record also confirmed that the family came from Siefersheim in Hesse-Darmstadt. I suck at geography on the best of days, and German geography is hard! Borders frequently changed as they were won, lost, or negotiated away, and places were renamed. I set out in earnest to learn more about this area.
According to Wikipedia, Siefersheim is old – it was first mentioned in documents in 1254. It belonged to France from 1798-1814 and became part of the province of Rheinhessen of the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1815, after the Congress of Vienna. After the November Revolution in 1918 it became part of the people’s state of Hesse. After WWII, Siefersheim became part of the newly formed state of Rhineland-Palatinate. When trying to search for Siefersheim today, it’s no longer in Hesse-Darmstadt, but in Alzey-Worms, Rheinhessen, Hessen, Germany. Siefersheim is small – the population is under 1,300 – but it’s picturesque. The Rheinland is known as German wine-country, and even the tiny village of Siefersheim has two vineyards.
Some weeks I have great stories to tell about my ancestors. Other weeks I don’t and use my blog more as an opportunity to write research notes for myself and gather sources for further exploration. I’ve looked up this area of Germany several times and haven’t written down anything about it until now…which is why I’ve looked it up several times instead of once! Now that I know where Siefersheim is and have found the entry for it on the Meyer’s Gazetteer, I’ll be able to look for additional resources in Germany, and hopefully learn more about this family and my ancestors.
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