Recently I found contact information online for church archives in Germany. They are set up by regions or districts, so you have to know a general idea of where to look before contacting them, or else spend a lot of time on wild goose chases. My first research request was in the Plön district, for the small town of Ruhwinkel, where my great-great grandfather, Henry Sienknecht, was born.
Fortunately for me, Ruhwinkel (spelled Rhuwinkel in newspaper accounts of his life) is a real place. I knew his parents' names from the 1925 Iowa Census and knew from a 1905 biography of his brother, John Henry Sienknecht, that they had a sister, Annie, who also lived in Germany. I also knew from this biography that their mother, Julia Ruge, died when the children were young.
Armed with this information, I emailed the researcher in that district and asked if she could find a record of Henry's birth, as well as a record of his parents and any siblings. It took her just a week to respond saying she'd found not only Henry's birth, but the birth of his four (!) siblings, the marriage of his parents, and their death records.
Before this request, here's what I knew about the Sienknecht family:
Father: Christian F. SienknechtAfter the researcher in Germany contacted me, this is what I discovered:
Mother: Julia Ruge
Children:
John Henry Sienknecht
Henry Detlef Sienknecht*
Annie Sienknectht
Father: Christian Friedrich Sienknecht
Birth: 24 Jul 1817 in Belau, Plon, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Parents: August Hans and Ana Cathrina SienknechtDeath: 22 Jul 1900 in Bornhöved, Segeberg, Schleswig-Holstein, GermanyMother: Juliana Maria Sophia Margaretha RugeBirth: 01 May 1828 in Ruhwinkel, Plon, Schleswig-Holstein, GermanyParents; Hans Joachim Friedrich and Ida Wilhelmina Sophia (Seligmann) RugeDeath: 01 Nov 1860 in Ruhwinkel, Plon, Schleswig-Holstein, GermanyMarriage: 07 Aug 1853 in Ruhwinkel, Plon, Schleswig-Holstein, GermanyChildren:Joachim Friedrich SienknechtBirth: 07 Mar 1854 in Ruhwinkel, Plon, Schleswig-Holstein, GermanyAnna Christina SienknechtBirth: 23 Aug 1855 in Ruhwinkel, Plon, Schleswig-Holstein, GermanyDorothea Margaretha SienknechtBirth: 05 May 1857 in Ruhwinkel, Plon, Schleswig-Holstein, GermanyJohann Hinrich SienknechtBirth: 06 Nov 1858 in Ruhwinkel, Plon, Schleswig-Holstein, GermanyHeinrich Detlef Sienknecht*Birth: 05 May 1860 in Ruhwinkel, Plon, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Incredible, right? So many questions were answered. Henry's mother died within six months of his birth. I always assumed his father died when he was young as well, as the biography of his brother states the children were taken in and raised by their mother's brother, Joachim Ruge. Yet, it's clear Christian Sienkencht lived another 40 years. Why didn't he keep his children? What contact did he have with them? By the time he died Henry was in the US with six children of his own. My great-grandmother, Lilly (Sienknecht) Staker, was 16. Did she know about her grandfather back in Germany?
Anyway, back to Henry Staker...
I asked the researcher who did the Sienknecht research if she'd heard of Harmstedt. She had not. She told me to check with the researchers for Barmstedt, which I agreed did sound like Harmstedt. That researcher came up empty-handed. I asked her (kind of begged, really) for any advice or ideas on where to look next. Today, she came up with one: Armstedt.
Armstedt is a municipality in Segeberg, Schleswig-Holstein. Before this morning I had not heard of it, but I can see how Armstedt could eventually become Harmstedt in the U.S. Often accounts of immigrant ancestor hometowns came from children and grandchildren, who heard the name, but didn't actually see it written down.
This morning I emailed the researcher for the Armstedt region asking for assistance looking for Henry Staker. I am hopeful this time I may have found him. If this search turns up empty-handed I'm not sure where to look next.
