The records for Henry George
Grabenhorst's ancestors can be
found in the Lutheran church books
in the Braunschweig (Brunswick) area of
northwestern Germany.
The records date back to 1520 and Henry George's
ancestor, Martin Gravenhorst.
There are no earlier records as church books were not
introduced until after the Protestant Reformation in 1517.
Martin and his descendents lived in the village of
Lauingen until around 1620 when Martin's grandson, Hans Gravenhorst, moved
to the village of Uehrde. Hans married in Uehrde and his descendents lived
there until around 1740 when Henry George's grandfather, Johann Jacob
Gravenhorst, moved nearby to the village of Watzum. Johann Jacob married
Anna Sophia Barbara Borchers and assumed ownership of the Watzum farm,
Ackerhof Ass Nr. 44, from her father, Ludolph Borchers. Most of Johann
Jacob's descendents remained in the general area of Watzum and Uehrde for
the next few generations including Henry George's father, Hans Heinrich.
As a young man Henry George moved a few miles away to Klein Vahlberg where
he married and had children. He and his wife and children immigrated to America in 1850.
In the church records the surname was
spelled Gravenhorst until the generation of Henry George's father, Hans
Heinrich, when it changed to Grabenhorst. Hans Heinrich was born a
Gravenhorst in 1752 and married as a Grabenhorst in 1785. The spelling
change occurred in all the family records of Watzum and Uehrde during that time.
From then on the family
name was spelled Grabenhorst.
Spelling changes like this were not unusual. Most of the population were
illiterate before the 1800's and records were kept by the clergy of each church. The clergy
who wrote the records spelled the names as they heard them and different
clergy might use different spellings for the same person or family.
In looking through the ancestor family trees presented in this
section, one often finds children in a family with the same first name. For
instance Johann Jorden Gravenhorst had four sons with the first name of
Johann and two daughters with the first name of Anna. Both Johann and Anna
are names commonly found in
the ancestor families documented here.
Other common names include Hans, Andreas, Dorothea and
Maria. When Braunschweig children were
baptized they were given two or more names with the first name usually being
that of a saint. For common usage they went by their second names but when an
official record was involved they would use their full names.
The information in this section came
from the Lutheran church books in the various village parishes. These books
are handwritten in the old German gothic script and difficult to
decipher. I
am deeply indebted to the German researchers who took on the painstaking
task of researching those old books and then generously sharing the
information. A deep thanks to
Walter Lehman, Ruth Ohlhoff, Joachim Gravenhorst and Frank Grabenhorst.
Without their help this section would not be possible.