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After
we had taken along my son Jan
(360)
back to Germany, I started to search the internet for the name
Schoppenhorst in the USA. Finally, I found a webpage that deals with
emigrants from the Münster, Osnabrück,
Bielefeld, and Hannover
region. Unfortunately, I was not able to find the page again, maybe it
was “Genealogy Data” that
is not accessible any longer. But relics of the still existing entries
in the search engines suggest that it could have been that page. Here
you could learn that a couple called Herman Wilhelm
(29)
und Anna Maria
Elisabeth Schoppenhorst, born Schröer, emigrated to Warren,
Missouri around 1830-1840. During these inquiries the impression
occurred that maybe all Americans with the name of Schoppenhorst could
descend from these two. But inquiries are difficult here. For example,
in the case of Anna Maria once the birth date is given as 1786, another
time April 12, 1802 is mentioned. Very soon I had to find out with what
kind of problems ancestry research is forced to deal with: Wrong
birth entries, varying spelling of names, that were only written down by
ear, always the same first names like Herman, Wilhelm, Heinrich that
were given to the sons in varying order but were not always written down
completely. That way Heinrich Herman Wilhelm is once called Herman
Wilhelm, once Heinrich Wilhelm, and yet another time Herman Heinrich. Or
when a man got married twice and the second wife had nearly the same
name as the first one, as, for example, is the case for above mentioned
Herman Wilhelm. Whereas today it is even discussed whether he got
married to a third woman with the name of Schröer. During their
research Cathie Schoppenhorst and Jane Denny discovered
that the order of his children and their birth dates can be only
explained by a third Mrs Schröer. But so far this is only speculation. |
