Fokke Wasn't the Only 16 Year Old On the Boat in 1873

The S S Weser arrived in New York City on 3 November 1873. One of those passengers was Fokke Goldenstein.

One of the items I discovered recently while in Salt Lake at the Family History Library was immigration information Fokke filed in in Germany in September of 1873. I'm still in the process of translating that information to make certain I am understanding and interpreting it correctly. One of the items in the record is a copy of the letter Fokke's father wrote. It apparently discusses Fokke's age at the time of immigration and his sister already living in the United States. I waited until I was home to review Fokke's manifest information--just to see how soon he arrived in the United States after the paperwork in Germany was completed. It wasn't very long--he arrived in the US on 3 November, a little over a month after his paperwork in Germany was filed.

It turns out that Fokke wasn't the only 16 year old on that boat. There was another 16 year old with him: Habbe Agena.

While it doesn't look like Agena's name appears in Goldenstein's emigration information, I'm curious to see if Agena has emigration file similar to Goldenstein's and if that file contains a letter from his father as well.

I'll have to add that to my list for next year. We'll have an update on the information on Fokke's emigration file when I've had that translated.

In Support of My Son Focke

This is probably one of the greatest finds I have ever had at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

I mentioned Focke Goldenstein's emigration materials from Ostfriesland, Germany, in an earlier blog post ("Focke Gets Permission to Immigrate in 1873").

The records also included a letter from September 1873 where his father apparently is giving his consent for Focke to emigrate and also indicating that Focke's sister, Wilhelmina Janssen (yes that's her middle name), is already in the United States.

We're working on a translation of this two page letter.

It's not often I find a letter written by an ancestor. Well...it's a handwritten transcription, but still a letter.

Stay tuned.

Focke Gets Permission to Immigrate in 1873

I always knew that Focke Goldenstein immigrated to the United States as a teenager. His passenger list entry confirmed it.

Today I discovered Focke's set of 1873 emigration documents from Germany. Not his passenger list when he left, but instead local documents related to his departure from Europe. For some reason, I avoided using these records as I "had it in my head" that they only started in the mid-1880s. That was a mistake.

It's been a long time since I have gotten excited about finding a record, but this one was a great find.

Focke's age is clearly stated on the partial copy of the record used as an illustration on this blog post. It also indicated his name and provides his 12 January 1857 date of birth in Wrisse.

And it states he's headed to America.

There's more in this permission to immigrate--including a letter signed by Focke's father. My feeble attempts to read German so far indicate that it mentions Focke's sister who was already in the United States.

Stay tuned.

Focke Goldenstein's Farm Sale is Front Page News

Newspapers today don't usually publish prices for specific pieces of real property.

That apparently was not the case in Quincy, Illinois, when the sale of my great-great-grandfather's farm was front page news.

Focke Goldenstein sold 100 acres of Adams County, Illinois, farmland for $110 an acre and apparently that was worthy of note on the front page of the Quincy Daily Whig in August of 1905.

I'm not a fan of "inflation" calculators, so I don't even bother computing that value in today's terms. Besides what really mattered was the relative value of $11,000 in 1905 terms. How did it compare to the cost of other items?

And that's not what I'm really interested in anyway.

I need to locate where this property was and obtain the deeds of transfer to and from Goldenstein. The county should have grantor and grantee indexes which should help me locate those records. Based upon what I know about Goldenstein, he likely did not inherit the property, but most likely purchased it himself. Land records will tell me that. They also may tell me what he paid for the farm as well.

What I'm really curious about is what Goldenstein did with the money. He did not retire and did not leave the Golden area.

Goldenstein is known to have purchased "rice land in Arkansas," which his son farmed in the late 1910s. Is that what Goldenstein did with the money?

That's going to take longer to answer as "rice land in Arkansas" is vague and I'll need a more precise location to find those records as they'll be recorded at the county level.

First steps towards finding the location of that "rice land" should concentrate on:

• locating the son who farmed the land in the 1920 census--that will give me the county
• access Focke's 1913 era probate information in Adams County, Illinois, as it may provide the legal description of the rice land in Arkansas. Hopefully the Arkansas rice land was inventoried in his probate in Adams County, Illinois, and not only listed in a separate Arkansas probate. Even if there was an Arkansas probate it is possible that the location of the rice land is mentioned in the Illinois probate.

And that's more interesting (at least to me) than what $11,000 is worth today. 

Because my suspicion is that 100 acres of farm land is worth more today than that inflation calculator is going to say the $11000 is.

It Was Wild In Nebraska In 1885---That's Why We Search With Wildcards

We've mentioned using wildcards at FamilySearch, but the release of the 1885 Nebraska State Census reminded me of their importance.

A search for ann* goldenstein (exact unchecked) did not provide any hits as shown below:

But a search for ann g*ld*st*n did:

 Readers familiar with Soundex will know that Goldenstein and Goldensten are Soundex equivalent. They will also remember (hopefully) from earlier blog posts that unexact searches are FamilySearch do not necessarily pull all hits that are Soundex equivalent.

The desired entry was located in Dawson County, Nebraska's Willow Island precinct.

The young homesteaders had been married around four years at the time of this enumeration and their household had been joined by two children, including Tjode (listed as Tyoda above), the author's great-grandmother. 

Renhert is actually Bernard--named for Annie's father, Bernard Dirks who stayed behind in Adams County, Illinois, where the couple had been married in 1881. 

The more I search on FamilySearch, the more I use wildcards as they are more effective. At least most of the time. I'll have to do a little more searching, Frank's uncle and several cousins should also be in Dawson County in 1885.

Another Oceanic Crossing for Focke Goldenstein

The little "immigration chart" I mentioned in an earlier post caused me to discover an oceanic crossing for an ancestor that was completely new to me. It also is a good reminder to review information located early in the research process. Sometimes even if we are not wrong our work is incomplete.

Focke Goldenstein was born 12 January 1857 in Wrisse, Ostfriesland, Germany and immigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Adams County, Illinois, where he died. According to his granddaughter Dorothy (Habben) Ufkes (1924-2008), Focke immigrated as a young man and returned  "a couple" times to visit relatives in Germany.

Years ago, I located him on this manifest from 1873. The age and name matched and he was travelling with a few other Ostfriesians. The name of Focke Goldenstein is not common so this seemed to be him and I still think it is.

Year: 1873; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: M237; Microfilm Roll: 384; Line: 33; digital image at Ancestry.com

In working on my "immigrant challenge," I stumbled upon this entry for another Focke Goldenstein (indexed as Tocke Goldenstein).

Entry number 628 is a Focke Goldenstein, showing as a 21 year old United States Citizen on board the Oder which arrived in New York City on 18 October 1879.

Year: 1879; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: M237; Microfilm Roll: 420; digital image at Ancestry.com

I was not certain if this 1879 entry was mine or not. Again, the name combination is very unusual (although Focke does have nephews with the exact same name as him who also immigrated). What is interesting about this manifest entry is that 1879 Focke indicates he is a citizen upon his 18 October 1879 arrival.

My Focke naturalized and upon checking the date, I determined that the 1879 immigrant could have been mine. Focke J. Goldenstein naturalized in Knox County, Illinois, on 31 March 1879.

Naturalization of Focke J. Goldenstein from his homestead claim: Land Entry Records for Nebraska, compiled 1857 - 1908 State: Nebraska Land Office: North Platte Township: 11 North Range: 25 West Section: 12; digital image on Fold3.com. 

These three individuals could very easily have been the same person. In having researched Focke for years, I have never come across another person of his approximate age with the same name. That does not mean anything in and of itself, but it does make it unlikely that there is another Focke Goldenstein who was an American citizen in 1879. And the ages are all consistent enough to have been the same person.

"My" Focke made a return trip to Germany to visit in the early 1900s. I've written about that before, so I won't repeat that information here. Those manifests are more detailed and contain additional clues making it obvious it was the same guy (residential information combined with his travelling companions).

I just wish the earlier records had those details. 

Note: Focke Goldenstein is my great-great-grandfather and his granddaughter, Dorothy (Habben) Ufkes, is my grandmother. 

An Altered Entry-She's Their Niece Not Their Daughter

This 1906 baptismal entry comes from the records of the Immanuel Lutheran Church (921 N County Road 1900, Carthage, Illinois). It is interesting because there is an apparent correction made nearly fifty years after the fact. The first image shows the entire entry and the second two images are enlarged versions.

We'll have a complete transcription in a later post, but I'm going to let interested readers try and make an attempt to read the entry for Elisabeth Maria Goldenstein (#19). Armed with a knowledge of the family and the area, I'm able to read the entire thing.

But it is easy to see how someone unfamiliar with the names might incorrectly transcribe the notation made in 1955.

 Obviously the pastor mixed up the two Goldenstein families in his congregation.

And it makes one wonder how many errors never got caught because no one went back and requested a "copy."

Note:

These records were microfilmed by a forerunner of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and are available in digital format at Archives.com. Archives.com incorrectly indicates this church is the "American Lutheran Church" in Carthage, Illinois, probably a reference to the former Lutheran national church body of which the Immanuel Lutheran Church was a member before the American Lutheran Church merged to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Archives.org incorrectly identifies the congregation in several instances. Based on the author's extensive personal knowledge of the families in the area, these records do not appear to be those of either of the other Lutheran congregations in the area--Trinity Lutheran Church in Carthage and the former Zion Lutheran Church in Carthage. The records of the former have never been microfilmed and the records of Zion are not extant.

Was He Focke or Fokke?

What name to "use" for an immigrant ancestor is often a dilemma for the genealogist. It can be made worse when the ancestor is a native of an area whose names are not readily "translatable" or for ancestors who decided not to change of Anglicize their names.

Such is the case with Focke J. Goldenstein. Sometimes he is Fokke, Focke, or Foche, and other times he is Frank. What name should be used as his actual name? Once in a while, we are told by our ancestors what they prefer to be called.

In an affidavit made in his 1880 era homestead application file for parcel of land in Dawson County, Nebraska, Fokke's preference is clear: Focke. 

The image above is part of an affidavit made by Focke J. Goldenstein in his homestead application for property located in Dawson County, Nebraska. Not all applications contain such statements, but there were irregularities in the transcribed names for Goldenstein in several of the documents and this affidavit was made in response to those inconsistent spellings. It is not often that affidavits clearly spell out exactly the name that our ancestor preferred. I'll have to go back and see exactly what is on his tombstone.

Of course, when transcribing documents the spelling on the document is used. One does not "correct" records when transcribing them. Notations or comments can discuss any irregularities on the document in regards to names.

I once had a genealogist tell me I was spelling "Focke" wrong and that  I should use "Fokke" instead. Based upon this record, I'm using Focke.