Hinrich Jacobs Fecht was born in 1823 in Wiesens, Ostfriesland, Germany, and died in 1912 in Elvaston, Hancock County, Illinois. He married Marie Bruns in Wiesens, Ostfriesland, and later married Antje (Jaspers) Habben in Hancock County, Illinois, in 1877. What I’ve learned about research from Hinrich:
- last names can be dropped. Hinrich is enumerated in the 1870 census with the last name of Jacobs.
- in some cultures patronyms matter. Fecht is an ancestral surname for Hinrich. Jacobs is the patronym based upon his father’s first name. Hinrich’s children had the “middle name” of Hinrichs and the last name of Fecht.
- people may be related in more than one way. Several children of Hinrich later married into the family of his second wife. One of his cousins married his step-daughter.
Hinrich is my 3rd great-grandfather. He can be found on my ahnentafel.
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