The Fehmarn Cousins Newsletter

Issue #5 May 1999

We have moved the web site to a new URL at
http://www.fehmarn-genealogy.com

This new site will give us much more room to grow and many new features, which I will be able to take advantage of. Please take the time to bookmark this new URL address.

HOW MANY RELATIVES DO YOU HAVE?

Have you every thought how many people you come from? Or maybe you would like to know about how many people you will be looking for in your family tree. Or maybe you know someone who says, "Oh, my aunt has our family history." Here is a fun fact to share with people.

YOU
2 parents
4 grandparents
8 g grandparents
16 gg grandparents
32 ggg grandparents
64 gggg grandparents
128 ggggg grandparents
256 gggggg grandparents
512 ggggggg grandparents
1,024 gggggggg grandparents
2,048 ggggggggg grandparents
4,096 gggggggggg grandparents
8,192 ggggggggggg grandparents
16,384 gggggggggggg grandparents
32,768 ggggggggggggg grandparents
65,536 gggggggggggggg grandparents
131,072 ggggggggggggggg grandparents
262,144 gggggggggggggggg grandparents
524,288 ggggggggggggggggg grandparents
1,048,576 gggggggggggggggggg grandparents
2,097,152 ggggggggggggggggggg grandparents
4,194,304 gggggggggggggggggggg grandparents
Now from the looks of this graft John will have a very large database of
names by the time he gets done.

Tressie Hughes
Your Newsletter Editor

Variations in First Names

In the last newsletter I wrote about the variations in the spelling of surnames.  This month I will talk about the given names and the various spellings of the same names and how they have changed in the records.

Often you find your ancestor’s given name spelled a variety of ways in the records.   Much was because each different record keeper spelled an ancestor’s name differently.  Another reason is that through time names evolved.

It not uncommon to find ones ancestor born Garderuth, married as Gerdrut, and died as Gertrude. Or Triencke’s name appearing as Catharina years later.

Below is a list of some of the more common variations of given names in the Fehmarn records.

Antje, Ancke,  Annecke, Anna
Dorthe, Dorothea, Doris
Elsche, Elsabe
Gerdrut, Gerdruth, Garderuth, Gardruth, Gertrud,  Gertrude
Grete, Margaretha, Grechen
Malena, Lena, Magdalena
Marieck, Maria
Merentz, Emarentia, Emerentia
Setje, Lucia
Talcke, Telsche
Till, Tille, Mathilde
Triencke, Trinke, Trina, Catharina

Anthon, Anton
Cai, Kai, Kay
Detlov,  Detlev, Detlef
Drews, Andreas
Fridrich, Friedrich, Friederich
Frantz, Franz
Görges,  Georg
Hinrich, Heinrich
Jochen, Jochim, Joachim
Jörgen, Jürgen
Tewes, Ties, Matthias,  Matthäus
Michel, Michael
Marx, Marcus

Thank you
John Kostick, your webs host.

LEMKENHAFEN
Now a fishing village - Long ago a Middle Age city

This is but a part of this wonderful document. I hope you will have the time to read and enjoy the whole thing at http://www.fehmarn-genealogy.com/lemkenha.htm

A local history contribution
By: Peter Wiepert, Bisdorf/Fehmarn
Supplied by the Bruce Wood family
English translation by: Else Bügge-Wood

Lemkenhafen is now a fishing- and laborer’s village on the island Fehmarn in northern Germany, but at one time, until after 1510 it was a town with Hanseatic law "Lübsche Recht", having their own mayor, ‘Bürgermeister’ and council, with their own city seal, (a lamb stepping to the left, with a Holstein nettle leaf. A copy of the seal is stored in the museum in Neustadt, Holstein.

It can still be found on some of the old documents, for instance, in the year of 1466, during a debate of the sworn-in council men, in the city of Lübeck, where it is stated: ‘+ sigillum + consulum + de lemmeken-havene’; in the center one can see the above mentioned lamb and on each side of the nettle sign, two figures looking like two fish. Furthermore the seal can be seen in an old document from the high court in Lübeck, of the year 1487. Two farmers from Fehmarn, (Jakob Wilder from Gollendorf, Fehmarn and Claus Thomas from Wenkendorf/Fehmarn), were to have appeared in an inheritance case with ‘eneme gescholdenen ordel’, which interprets as follows: "The spoken judgement decides, that a mother is closer to being entitled than a sister of the deceased father.

In the Inner Sea of Lemkenhafen there is still a certain place called the "Church Stone" ‘Kirkensteen’, where up to the year of 1930 several large boulders were stacked, which resembled an old stone wall or an old stone foundation. At this place were many human skeletons recovered, in 1839, 1868, 1881, and 1906. People thought that here at one time was a churchyard with a burial place for the middle aged city of Lemkenhafen.  In the earlier centuries shippers, shipbuilders, grain merchants, also well situated grand farmers ‘Großbauern’, often owned graineries or storage sheds in different harbors of Lemkenhafen, Suelsdorfer Orth (now called Orth), which were called "DINNS". The word Dinn is now lost in the vocabulary of the island, only known to a very few old Fehmarn citizens.  They were mostly three to four panels wide, the same in length and were "framework buildings" ‘Fachwerkständergebäude’, with walls out of clay and were supported by steaks, "fagots [woodwen logs] and poles, or also bricks made out of clay and strong oaken supports, the floors were made of thick floor boards; The upper floors were being supported by heavy carriers, called ‘Hövständern’. At the rear of the building, for boats lying in the pier, was also a trap-door up- and down-stairs, called the "Hell- and Heaven- trap-door". Long wooden slides, called ‘Schnurren’, were used to transport the loads from the bins into the boats. If a sack got stuck, a "Dinner" [a laborer working in the Dinn] would push the sack with a long stick, having a hook on the end, called the ‘Schnurrnstaaken’ in Low German. The boat- and shipping people from Lemkenhafen belonged to a special guild [association], which shipped the grain and other goods. The sailboats that laid for anchor in the pier, (couldn’t reach the bulwark, because of the low water level); were loaded and unloaded from the trap- doors of the storage "Dinn" via slides and lifts. When the Baltic Sea became free of ice in the spring, they would load the first sailing ships with grain, grits and barley, while the price was higher than a few month later (but this could backfire and the opposite could happen), as it was for instance in the year of 1807, when wheat, in the month of June, raised 2 Marks higher than in the month of February, per Fehmarnsch ton, [that was 220 pound]. At such instance the merchants had the advantage and also the risk of disadvantage by speculating price changes. When the farmer’s grain was delivered short before the boats were to leave, the delivery was often late. The merchant and shipper "Joachim Rahlff", mainly because of such a situation, ran into a crisis around 1814/1815, while many a grand farmer ‘Großbauer’ had purchased grain [to speculate price changes], especially the chamberlain and judge, as representative of the land, he had acquired rather advantageously. The Fehmarn citizens, at that time had to carry quite a load of war debt. It fell very hard on the single farmer. The wealthy farmer was in hopes, that with all the grain they had purchased in advance and the debts of the none-paying smaller farmers, would bring great wealth to the rich. The grain merchant and shipper Joachim Rahlff, who was born 1756 in Gammendorf/Fehmarn, built the windmill in Lemkenhafen in 1787 and he died 1830. He also built the estate "Neuhof" before that. You can still see the date it was built on the "Tögbrett" under the head of the mill called the "Waterhüschen", that is the covered trap under the roof of the mill. Those were marvelous days on the land of Fehmarn, for here was so much wheat and barley ground into grits and other cereal and shipped out. In Bergen, Norway they used to say: "Femersk Gröt smaker söd, og er dajlig Föde," (old Norwegian). The grits from Fehmarn tastes sweet and is a very nourishing meal. They often paid 1 - 2 pennies more per pound for the grain from Fehmarn than they did the other grain. In the spring of 1804 eight sailboats, belonging to the shipper Rahlff, sailed out loaded with grain going toward Norway. One shipper from Neujellingsdorf by the name of "Serk" could make such a profit in the year of 1804, from just two ship loads of grits, delivered by Mr. Rahlff’s boats in Lemkenhafen, going to Norway; that he decided to build himself a home near Bergen and lived there. Some of his descendants are still living there. When Joachim Rahlff died in 1830 and his son Juergen inherited the mill, 5 to 6 miller journeymen, in German: ‘Müllersgesellen’ and several other hired hands were kept very busy milling the large heaps of barley that had been delivered by the farmers. As soon as the Baltic Sea was ice-free, they had to start loading the sailboats. The mill became the basic foundation of the Rahlff grain- and wood sales enterprise in Lemkenhafen; it kept expanding as the years went by. The many varieties of lumber was purchased in Finland or East Prussia; smaller portions were purchased in Svendborg, Lübeck and Rostock, as previously mentioned. Gradually a few sailboats were built or bought, - More granaries and wooden storage sheds were erected. Joachim Rahlff and his wife were otherwise mighty lucky. Their 12 children prospered, several went to Denmark and became respectable and successful people. Many descendants are still living there. For the Rahlff kin the mill was always the provider. It never rested, had to turn night and day, summer and winter, almost without rest. In the year 1909, wind-miller "Serk" took over the mill; he came from an old generation of millers living on the island Fehmarn. The times for millers were getting gradually worse, until now, in 1960 it is all over. What is left now, is the mill in Lemkenhafen, serving as excursion object to view, when interested tourists are visiting the island. Lemkenhafen was through the centuries a special commercial place for Fehmarn. In the year of 1680 several shippers from there, received a grant of 15 ships from Denmark, each carrying 20 loads. One load of grain amounted to ca. 24 tons, 1 load of lime ca. 12 tons, 1 Fehmarn ton was
220 Pound, German pound. Many sailboats on Fehmarn were built in Lübeck or Neustadt, some in
Svendborg on the island Fuenen. In 1714 the shippers "Claus Roge" and "Hans Thiele" from Lemkenhafen, had their ships: "Sankt Nikolaus", "Die Hoffnung", - Claus Koess, his giant ship "The flying Jakob" built in Neustadt. As the farmers and property owners from the villages had their house- and farm-brands, so did the shippers have their own ship-brands, ‘Marken’ in German, ‘Karr-Teeken’ in low German; which were like the ‘Hausmarken’ and carved into the beams of the ships. When ships from Lemkenhafen entered the harbors in Mecklenburg, people in the restaurants would say: "here comes a rich grits- and grain shipper from Fehmarn!" And in Copenhagen the people would say in gesture: "Copenhagen, Fredrikshavn and Lemkenhafen sail to make great fortune," The shipping- and fishing-village Lemkenhafen has sent many an ambitious young man into all corners of the world, men, who were adventurous and not afraid to stand their man, endured all obstacles life ever handed them. But not only seafarers, also other ambitious people were born on this island, like for instance the US bank president "Ferdinand Wilhelm Lafrenz", who in the new land "God’s own acres", achieving to become a "Low German Poet" Ferdinand Wilhelm Lafrenz, (3.25.1859/58?), was raised by his uncle in Gollendorf/Fehmarn and grew up there herding the cows and the sheep on the farm. In 1873 he emigrated to the U.S., first he lived in Chicago, where he worked as a bank assistant, went to the "Bryan Stratton" school, where he later became an instructor in commerce. In his free time he worked for newspapers, publishing in the High- and Low-German language. In 1881 he published his collection of "Low-German poetry" and called it "Nordic Sounds",‘Nordische Klänge’, it was received with assenting approval. It was the first poetry book in "Low German", published in America. On Nov.4.1881 the great Low German poet "Claus Groth" gave his warm-hearted compliments to the new American poet with these words: "May your book be as pleasant as neighbor "Lafrenz", [she lived next door to "Groth" in Landkirchen/Fehmarn], - on a spring day, as fresh as grass milk, and sweet as grass butter, with a summer air and home-land flair." Lafrenz wrote in his "Nordic Sounds" about his memories of Fehmarn in poetic rhymes as well as cheery verses and short stories. Later he published a few more booklets in the English language. From Chicago he moved with his family to the state of Utah, he became a lawyer and later president of the "Surety-Co in NY" - he became a rich man, died in Long Island. - He visited his home island twice, once in 1932, afterward I have corresponded with him in the low German language for years. When the Matthäus Wiepert home in Niendorf was torn down in 1919, F. W. Lafrentz purchased a few beams and planks with carvings, it reminded him of his home in Fehmarn, he had it erected as decoration in his garden on Long Island. In Lemkenhafen has never been a ‘Dingstein’ or a prehistoric "thinkstone" in the open, which means that the city was ruled by "hanseatic" law from Lübeck and not ruled, like in primeval settlements on the rest of the island, but rather a younger harbor development.

In the "Waldemarschen Erdbuch" of 1231/32 with a list of the old villages on Fehmarn, Lemkenhafen is not mentioned yet. One must accept the hypothesis that the place was once the harbor of the very old village Lemkendorf, the ship’s wharf of the western church-district, in competition with the shipyard in Burgtiefe.  Old legends have it, that at one time there was land lying in the Lemkenhafen bay and those three villages sank into the bay. People have guessed, that the two still visible islands ‘grot un runn Warder’ (large and round isle), as well as other small islets in that area called ‘Büllten’, are left-over lands of the sunken villages.

Long time ago the so-called Petersdorfer Weg west of Teschendorf led over the Lemkenhafen Warder toward ‘Deepenhusen’, west of the harbor Orth, - where until 1875 the sailboats were anchored in the winter. These legends are not by no means documented and cannot be authenticated. We know of no
periods or dates when the storm-floods and other disasters in nature tore away land areas. In the’ Waldemarschen Erdbuch of 1232/32’ (old history book), three more villages are mentioned in the list of villages of Fehmarn that are not known to us today, they are "Utaes-Thorpe", "Dargan-Thorpe" and "Ratemaers-Thorpe", but we cannot prove that they were located in the Lemkenhafen area.

Cont. under the History section on the web site

Towns of Fehmarn
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