Betcher and Lemke Surnames

BÖTTCHER, BOETTCHER, BETCHER, LEMKE, STEIG, SAMUEL, SAMUELS

Posted By: Joshua Ammons (email)
Date: 9/8/2007 at 17:26:21

Looking for information about my ggg-grandparents Wilhelm Böttcher and Henriette Lemke. In English their names were William Betcher and Henrietta Lemke. What I am trying to figure out is where they came from in Germany. They did not come to America together. It is unclear when either of them came to America, but census records generally indicate that William came about 1864 from the Prussian province of Pommern (Pomerania) and Henrietta's obituary says she came from Prussia to New York in 1865 and then came to Saint Joseph County, MI where she met William and they were married in 1867. Her obituary says she is from Maido, Prussia, but today there is no such town as Maido in either Germany or Poland, and nothing that really sounds like it except for Mitau in Latvia (called Jelgava today), and I doubt that is it). They are both buried in the Elk Cemetery and Henrietta's obituary says that she was a follower of the German Lutheran Church until she began attending the Elk Chuch later in life. William's obituary says he had a Methodist service at his funeral. I was thinking maybe church records might tell what towns they were both born in, but since they both left the Lutheran Church there wouldn't likely be church records of their death. Henrietta's obituary mentioned that she had a sister named Wilhelmine Lemke who was married to Henry (Heinrich) Steig from Froeschwiller, Alsace, France, and they had some children who were baptised in Zion Lutheran Church of Storm Lake, so there may be church records of the births of Henrietta and William's children in that church too, but I haven't checked. All we know about William's origins is that he was from the province of Pommern, which is half in modern day Germany and half in Poland along the Baltic Sea. After WWII the eastern half of Pommern including the capital Stettin was given to Poland, and the western part of Pommern became the modern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany. We have no city to go by with him. He did go back to Germany after Henrietta's death to find a new wife, and he married Theresa Samuel(s) and brought her back with him to Storm Lake and then they and his son Frank Betcher all moved to Sioux City where he lived until he died in 1926. His son Frank also married a Samuel(s). He married Anna Samuel(s). The Samuel(s)' are buried right with the Betchers in Elk Cemetery. We do have one clue about the Samuel(s) family. There are emigration records in Hamburg from when William and Theresa went by ship from Hamburg to New York, and the records for both of them say that their destination is Storm Lake and their last residence is Schirgiswalde, and their person of contact is in Bautzen. Theresa states in a federal census that she was born in Dresden, and Schirgiswalde and Bautzen are right by Dresden in the province of Sachsen, Germany. The marriage took place in Germany, so if a marriage record could be found it would almost certainly tell a place of birth for William, but it is unclear if they were married in Bautzen or Schirgiswalde and whether or Theresa was Lutheran or Catholic. Familysearch.com has no record of the marriage, but the Mormon genealogy library does have microfilms available of all of the churches in Schirgiswalde and Bautzen. A possibility for finding the birthplace of Henrietta is that her sister Wilhelmine's obituary might tell her birthplace, but I haven't had time to search for it yet. Although Henrietta's obituary states that she was born in Maido, Prussia, Maido does not exist. There is not town called Maido. Maybe there was at one time, but it is more likely a misspelling because I can read German well, and have researched many old maps of Prussia and found no city called Maido or found any city spelled differently that would sound that way when said aloud. Even people in Germany on the OWPreussen mailing list can't find Maido; they've tried to find it for me, and everyone disagrees on which towns it could possibly have been. They come up with towns all the way from Germany to Ukraine, and the only thing they have in common is that they start with an M. So, if anybody has any clues as to what cities William and Henrietta are from or how I could find out, it would be greatly appreciated.