A “new” cousin and a hope for answers
She was born in Bremen, Germany, on the fourth of December 1832, and given the name Anna Adelheid Lahrs.
Her mother was 24-year-old Beta Lahrs, and she undoubtedly named this first-born child for her own mother Anna Adelheid (Woltjen) Lahrs, who died when Beta was just 18.1
The birth was recorded as “unehelich.” Illegitimate. And the baby was baptized the same day, which may have meant she wasn’t expected to make it.2
But make it she did. And, as she grew, Anna Adelheid Lahrs was not the name she was known by. Not the name she carried into adulthood. Not the name she married under.
Because her father wasn’t unknown. He just wasn’t married to her mother at the time of her birth. When Beta Lahrs married the father, Gerhard (Gerd) Nuckel, on the ninth of August 1833,3 Anna Adelheid’s status was regularized: she became Anna Adelheid Nuckel, first-born child of The Legal Genealogist‘s third great grandparents.
Over the years I’ve tried to find out as much as I can about all of the children born to Gerd and Beta Nuckel:
• Gerd, born 1836, married Anna Margarethe Kruse in 1856, and died 1866, leaving four small children.4
• Johann, my second great grandfather, born 1838, married Marie Margarethe Sievers in 1860, and died 1870, leaving three small children.5
• Betha, born 1840, and married Johann Heinrich Friedrich Gercken in 1858.6
• Margarethe Gesche, born 1843 and died at the age of 17 months in 1845.7
• Johann Friedrich Wilhelm, born 1846, married Anna Marie Margarethe Müller in 1869, and died in 1932.8
• Adelheid, born 1849, married Friedrich Ludwig Klee in 1871, and died in 1922.9
• Gerhard, born 1851, married Gesche Adelheid Hartin in 1873, and died in 1936.10
Compared to many of these siblings, what I know about Anna Adelheid is little indeed. I could never find what happened to her in any record in Germany.
But that — I hope — is about to change.
Because I now know a little bit more about what happened to Anna Adelheid.
And I now know to stop looking for her in the records of Germany.
Because Anna Adelheid and her husband Jacob Jung came to America.
And one of their descendants took a DNA test.
A “new” third cousin, who contacted me this week after seeing the match on AncestryDNA.
Finally… finally… I hope I’ll be able to find out about Anna Adelheid after she disappears from the records in Bremen. What became of her. What children she had and what became of them.
I can’t wait to hear more from my new cousin, and hope I can fill as many gaps in her understanding of our German family as she can fill in mine…
SOURCES
- See Judy G. Russell, “Looking at Anna,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 30 June 2018 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 3 Aug 2018 2018). ↩
- Bremen Standesamt, Zivilstandsregister (Bremen city registry office, civil status registers), Geburten (Births), p. 649, 1832, Anna Adelheid Lahrs. ↩
- Bremen Standesamt, Zivilstandsregister, Heiraten (Marriages), p. 249, 1833, Nuckel-Lars. ↩
- Bremen Standesamt, Zivilstandsregister, Geburten, p. 106, 1836; Heiraten, p. 126, 1856, Nuckel-Kruse; Todten (Deaths), p. 604, 1866. ↩
- Ibid., Geburten, p. 114, 1838; Heiraten, p. 282, 1860, Nuckel-Sievers; Todten, p. 306, 1870. ↩
- Ibid., Geburten, p. 650, 1840; Heiraten, p. 519, 1858. ↩
- Ibid., Geburten, p. 557, 1843; Todten, p. 97, 1845. ↩
- Ibid., Geburten, p. 174, 1846; Heiraten, p. 766, 1869, Nuckel-Müller. The death information appears as a marginal note on the birth record, and is confirmed by the Bremen city funerary records. “Funerary Records of Bremen since 1875 (Leichenbücher der Stadtgemeinde Bremen ab 1875),” entry for Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Nuckel (25 January 1932), Die Maus – Family History and Genealogical Society of Bremen (Gesellschaft für Familienforschung e. V. Bremen) (http://www.die-maus-bremen.de/ : accessed 3 Aug 2018). ↩
- Ibid., Geburten, p. 250, 1849; Heiraten, p. 201, 1871, Klee-Nuckel. The death information appears as a marginal note on the birth record, and is confirmed by the Bremen city funerary records. “Funerary Records of Bremen since 1875 (Leichenbücher der Stadtgemeinde Bremen ab 1875),” entry for Adelheid Klee (19 April 1922). ↩
- Ibid., Geburten, p. 854, 1851; Heiraten, p. 984, 1873, Nuckel-Harting. The death information appears inthe Bremen city funerary records. “Funerary Records of Bremen since 1875 (Leichenbücher der Stadtgemeinde Bremen ab 1875),” entry for Gerhard Nuckel (28 March 1936). ↩
Wow, that is wonderful! I can not imagine finding a cousin for a 3x great grandparent. (I am still trying to find connections to whom my paternal great grandfather is.) Thank you for sharing a wonderful and documented family history.
Judy,
It’s always exciting when you find a new cousin! I hope you’re right that you’ll soon be filling in some of the blanks in each other’s mutual family trees.
Doris
Oh, how I wish a descendant of my Irish great-great grandmother Eleanor Alice Fitzsimmons Cardwell (1834-1922) would pop up in my DNA matches. The only branch likely to have information moved away after an accidental death of her grandson James Robert (1887-1929), who fell from a girder while working on construction of a skyscraper in St. Louis. The theory from an experienced and helpful researcher is that the widow went back home (which may have been New Orleans) and remarried, and the children were adopted by the new husband. Thus, the Cardwell name in that line disappeared. DNA is my only hope, but so far, no luck. I look forward to living vicariously through your discoveries through your “new” cousin.