Who came over on the boat? Ahhh, the question that started it all. That was exactly what I wanted to know when I began this journey of family history research. Well, okay, that AND does my family have in its possession any of the trunks that came on the ships with my immigrant ancestors. I've long had a fascination with those trunks in which our immigrant ancestors packed their entire lives and most prized possessions to make the trip from the homeland to America. Oh, the stories those trunks and the artifacts could tell. Stories of the journey, yes. But also of who and what had to be left behind.
So far, I've yet to unearth a trunk in my family lines. My mother has never seen or heard of one. My grandparents never mentioned one, and being the pack rat family that we are, if one were around on that side, I'm reasonably sure we'd have found it by now. On my father's side, well, I haven't done as much research, but if one is around, it's likely that it was passed down through another branch of the family. We just don't seem to be as sentimental about things on that side of the family.
On to the ancestors for this post. Who immigrated on my maternal grandmother's side? (See the chart included below which shows the relationships)
As I was answering this question for my cousin recently, I was delighted to find that in my early days of researching and grabbing as many documents as I could reasonably assume were my relatives during my Ancestry.com trial I nabbed a passenger list that includes Franz and Katerina (Schmitz) Klaes with their 8 month old son, Heinrich. From that document, I know they left from Bremen, Germany and arrived in New York on 31 October 1884. Check out lines 50-52 on the passenger list below! How cool!
The next ancestor on this branch of the tree I assume immigrated is Catherine Bloink. I know her to have been born in Prussia in 1810 and found her in the 1860 census in the township of Hamtramck, Michigan. The census lists her living with who I assume is her son, John. He is listed as 13 years old. Check out the 1860 census below. Catherine and John are on lines 33 and 34.
This branch of the family has yet to reveal any other immigrants.
List of ancestors shown in the chart below: Conrad Joseph Rebandt (1926-2003), Margaret Ann Bloink (1929-2009), Frederick William Bloink (1881-1955), Anna Klaes (1896-1950), John Bloink (1846-1914), Maria Jacobs (1848-1918), Franz Klaes (1863-1946), Katherina Schmitz (1863-1926), Catherine Bloink (1810-?), Johann J Klaes (1833-?), Anna Marie Schneider (1831-?), Johann Schmitz, Christina Pitzen
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