Illegitimate roots, legitimate shock

A few weeks ago I wrote about the great results I had with a researcher in Germany. My notes were based on my translation of very dense, hard to read church records from 150 years ago.

Today, the researcher emailed me with her transcriptions and translations. With that email came a number of fascinating things.

First, I discovered my great-great-great grandfather wasn't born in Laboe, like I had previously thought. I had misread the dense German handwriting. He was instead from Belau, a small village not 15 minutes from Ruhwinkel, where he lived with his family (including my great-great grandfather).

Perhaps the biggest shocker was the transcription of Christian's marriage to my great-great-great grandmother, Juliana Ruge. I will share it here in it's entirety:

Engagement No. 25 on July 10. / Wedding No. 25 on August 7. / Sienknecht, Christian Friedrich, bachelor, son in marriage, 36 years old, parents: tailor Hans Hinrich Sienknecht from Belau and Anna Catharina, geb. Theden in Ruhwinkel, / Juliana Maria Sophia Margretha Ruge, Juliana Maria Sophia Margretha geb. Ruge: illegitimate child, 25 ½ years old, parents: Ida Wilhelmine Sophia Seligmann, Hans Joachim Friedrich Ruge in Ruhwinkel witnesses: 1) Asmus Hept(?), Ruhwinkel, 2) Dorothea Theden in Belau. / Vaccinationsattests: Machs 1822 No 81, Groth, 1833 No. 39 / Schönböken

Juliana was the ILLEGITIMATE child of Hans Joachim Friedrich Ruge and Ida Wilhelmine Sophia Seligmann! What!? I received this email at work and I'll admit I gasped out loud when I read that. My coworkers were very unsettled.

Juliana didn't live long after her marriage, dying in 1860 just six months after the birth of her fifth child (my ancestor). By the time she had passed her mother, Ida, had already passed on as well according to her death record. The burial record, however, says something interesting about her mother: her maiden name was Möller. Does this mean Seligmann was a married name? What was Juliana's relationship with her father? She had his name and he was listed on her marriage record, so he must have recognized her. According to the biography of one of her sons, John Henry, when she died her brother, Joachim Ruge, helped raise the children. Clearly the family was close.

The researcher in Germany is still digging into the family and I expect to learn more about the Ruge family soon.