Request for help on locating birth documents

Bernard Girma

I need some help to find the birth records of a couple of individuals.

On the 3rd of June 1846, a woman last name Lohrberg (no first name) arrived to the US with her 3 sons but no husband.

Her maiden name was “Marylon” Zinck per her son Friedrich death document dated 4 Nov 1908 • Monterey Township Allegan County Michigan.

There is no trace of her after the arrival.

The 3 sons are:

Augustus Lohrberg born 1 Jan 1825 according to Civil war documents.

Friedrich G. Lohrberg Born 13 August 1827

Heinrich Lohrberg born 11 Aug 1931 according to his grave site

The 3 men were born in or next to Hanover Germany. Possibly in Aftenau, Hannover, Preußen, Germany

All 4 of them arrived on the whaler named the George Henry. That ship became famous 4 years later for the discovery of a British ship that was abandoned in the ice named the Resolute (see Resolute desk story)

I would really appreciate if I could get some help on finding the birth documents of the mother, her unknown husband, and her son Friedrich.

Thanks in advance.

Bernard

A van Helsdingen

In most parts of Germany pre-1876, church records are the most important source. Civil registration/vital records began around 1876, before then churches recorded baptisms, marriages and burials.

So you will need to know what the religion of this family was- most likely they were either Catholic, Lutheran or Reformed/Calvinist.

In the FS Catalog, there is an entry for duplicate/copies of 1853-1874 Evangelical Lutheran records.

I searched for "Aftenau" in Archion.de, the main website for German Protestant (i.e. Lutheran and Reformed) records, but it seems that they don't have the records for Aftenau.

For Catholic records, the main websites are the FS Catalog and Matricula. This map: https://data.matricula-online.eu/en/landkarte/?bbox=997877%2C6831980%2C1193555%2C6911779 shows that they have many Catholic records from the city Hannover and the surrounding region.

Ulrich Neitzel

Hello @Bernard Girma

There is no place called "Aftenau" in Meyers Gazetteer. Google Maps does not find such a name either. It is possible that the name is a misspelling of "Altenau", see Meyers for Altenau here: https://www.meyersgaz.org/place/10030009. Altenau is a small city in the mountainous region called Harz, it belonged to the kingdom of Hanover, which became part of Preussen.

I found a few Lohrbergs from Altenau in FS, see for example https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPDM-4MJ7. Also in this entry the indexed name of the location is partly misspelled as Aftenau. While I couldn't find any of your Lohrbergs yet, it shows that this name existed in Altenau at that time.

The original church books of Altenau are kept in the "Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv". Not sure how far they are scanned and available online yet.

Bernard Girma

Thanks,

I contacted the Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv and asked them if they could help in navigating their site.

Bernard

A van Helsdingen

I found the records for Altenau on Archion.de They cover only 1853 onwards, the same as in the FS Catalog. So either the records before 1853 haven't been put online, they have been lost/destroyed, or Altenau was in a different parish before then. Contacting the archive in Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) is probably the best thing to do right now.