Sometimes the best discoveries are made by accident. A search of the “New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957” database at Ancestry.com located a reference I was not expecting simply because I searched for the wrong years when querying the database.
My goal was to try and find a manifest entry for the arrival of William Ehmen into the United States. His estimated date of arrival was sometime in the late 1850s or early 1860s. For some reason, I entered in 1880s as the time frame to search.
And there was a Willm Ehmen, arriving in New York City in 1889, more than two decades after the one I was trying to find immigrated to the United States.
It had to be the Willm for whom I was looking. The age was correct and there was a wife named Tjede and a son named Willm. The ages were consistent with the known Willm Ehmen, his wife, and son Willm. These people were also listed as citizens of the United States. It had to be the person for whom I was looking.
After all, there can’t be more than one family with this combination of names and ages living in the United States.
The name immediately after the Ehmen family is difficult to read, but it appears to be 15 year old male named Hein[rich]. The name after that appears to be a 14 year old male named Jhon Goldenstein.
The name of Goldenstein is significant as Willm Ehmen had an uncle Johann Lucken Jurgens Ehmen Goldenstein who remained in Germany and it is possible that this fourteen-year old is a member of Johann Goldenstein’s family. It is an awfully large coincidence that a young adult with the last name of Goldenstein appears near Ehmen on the manifest.
That’s probably because it’s not a large coincidence nor is it a fluke that Goldenstein is travelling with Ehmen.
The location of Ehmen in this manifest reminds me of several points:
- look outside the time frame of when someone is “supposed” to be in a record
- people travelled in immigration chains
- immigration chains took place over decades, not just a few years
Besides the question of who Goldenstein is I’m wondering who got to take care of Willm and Tjede’s other children who remained in their home in Dawson County, Nebraska.
And was there a purpose to their trip other than to bring a member of their extended family back?
4 Responses
Maybe this was their second trip over. Some people went back to the old country for a visit or other reasons.
One of mine went back to settle his mother’s estate. She died in Ohio but had things still not settled in Germany before they emigrated a few years earlier.
Ditto the above comment. Look for a death of a relative and possible estate settlement in Germany. Esp. one of the couple’s parents or siblings.
Elaine Collier Neal
Ditto the above comment. Look for a death of a relative and possible estate settlement in Germany. Esp. one of the couple’s parents or siblings. Have you looked for a US passport for these people? If the family members traveled to Germany over decades, a younger member of the family may have traveled back even after this couple dies.
Elaine Collier Neal
The couple and the child who travelled over did get a passport–that will be the subject of a future post.
What precipitated their trip back I am not certain, but the inheritance is a definite possibility. His parents immigrated and his father was definitely deceased by the time this trip took place. I’m not certain of his wife’s parents.