Introduction

Knowledge is lost over generations.  In the United States, information prior to immigration is often sparse.   Friedrich Wilhelm Haneckow arrived in America from Germany in 1874.  Until recent times little was known about his origins and background.

My interest in tracing the origins of Friedrich Wilhelm and his wife, Marie Charlotte Goetsch is long standing.  Years ago, on a family vacation, I was introduced members of the Lamb family at their farm near the town site of Hagansville in Belknap township, Presque Isle county Michigan.  They were related to two of Friedrich Wilhelm’s daughters:  Anna Augusta Marie and Pauline, both of whom married two brothers in that family.  I was a history minded teenager and they were happy to share what they knew. They showed me old photographs, one said to be of Friedrich Wilhelm in a uniform with ceremonial fringe on his headgear. 

They did not know where he was from, other than it was in East Germany, or perhaps the territories lost to Poland after World War II.  The family was described as farmers, with a German word that I have long forgotten.  When I asked if the word had connotations with the nobility, I was told  “In Prussia, it meant you had one more pig.”  


Over time more specifics emerged.  Friedrich Wilhelm’s Michigan death certificate (1909)  noted he was born in a place called Battin.  The certificate also stated that his father was also named Friedrich Wilhelm and his mother was Gertrud Karsten. 

Some theorized that Battin might actually be Stettin, the former German port city now known as Szczecin, in Poland.  Others forged a speculative link between Friedrich Wilhelm and the Hankow family of Prenzlau, in Brandenburg, utilizing records available through the Church of Latter Day Saints.

The advent of the internet brought more clues.  I came across an entry from the Amtsblatt der Regierung in Potsdam that recorded a land transaction by Friedrich Hanekow of Battin, dated December 13 1872.  I also found a manifest from the first leg of Friedrich Wilhelm and Marie’s voyage to America (Hamburg to Hull England)  in 1874.  It also listed Battin, a village in the Uckermark district of Brandenburg, near the city of Prenzlau, as their point of origin. 


I focused my searches on the Battin / Prenzlau area, using as many permutations of the last name as I could imagine.  


I found Prussian emigration records for a Wilhelm Henrich Erdman Hahnikow and his wife Wihelmine Christine (Schulz) who departed he village of Bietikow, near Prenzlau, for America in 1872. I traced them to Macomb county Michigan, near Detroit, where they settled.  To this day, descendents, spelling their last name Hanekow (no c,) still live in the Detroit area and elsewhere.  Almost certainly they were related to Friedrich Wilhelm Hanekow but it is not yet known how.

 I discovered a 1924 directory entry for Pauline Haneckow,  a kleinrentnerin (small pensioner) from Bussow (not to be confused with Brussow,) in Kries Friedeberg, Neumark , (now in Poland).  I also came across a reference to an article that appeared in the Heimatkalender fur den Kries Prenzlau 1929 (1928) titled Mutter Haneckow als Erzieherin (Mother Haneckow as an Educator).  Intriguingly both used a spelling current to the United States. 

Battin, Bietikow and Prenzlau are in close proximity to each other.  Bussow was further east, but still in the general region. I was honing in, but the answers remained out of reach.

Through Facebook I was able to contact members of the Hanikow family in Germany.  They trace their roots to the village of Tremmin, West-Havelland in Brandenburg.  Given the obvious similarity of names and shared Brandenburg origins, a connection appears likely, but prior to Friedrich Wilhelm’s generation. 

Eventually I felt I had gone as far as I could.  Barring a trip to Germany, I needed assistance from a professional researcher who could visit archives.  Someone with the skills to find the pertinent records and the background to appreciate their context.

 Marc Jarzebowski , a researcher in Berlin, was exactly the sort of person I was looking for. ( https://www.jarzebowski.de/en/home/ ,  https://www.facebook.com/DMJresearch )

I contacted him in August 2014. He thought a visit to the church archives in Berlin would bear fruit.  Upon  investigation, he found out that the Battin church records were in Brussow, two hours the north of Berlin.  Brussow’s were some of the few Brandenburg church records that had never been microfilmed.   He set up an appointment for a visit in October.

I was heartened by the setback.  It made sense.  If the records were never microfilmed, it explained the elusive nature of their subject.  It also justified my decision to seek help.  No amount of internet searching would have found them.  I was cautiously optimistic. 

On October 28 I got the following message from Marc:

Hello Dan,
The Battin research today at Bruessow was very successful. I'll send you the report and the photos tomorrow,
Marc.

I was giddy with anticipation. 

The report arrived the next day.  Divided into marriages, baptisms and deaths were the records of the Hanekow / Hahnekow / Haneckow family of the village of Battin, written first in German, and then translated by Marc into English.  Friedrich Wilhelm’s baptism entry looked like this: 


1828 Nr. 15, Friedrch Wilhelm, den (8) achten December, fruh 8 acht Uhr, eheilch, Christian Friedrich Hanekow, Bauer u. Kirchenvorsteher, Anne Christine geb. Kersten, verehl. Hanekow, Battin, den vierzehnten (14) December, Ewald, 1. Jungfer Friederike Rube, 2. Bachelor Johann Fahrenwaldt, 3. Jungfer Marie Kersten, 4. Bauer Friedrich Flashaar, 5. Junggeseil Gottfriedt Flashaar.

Followed, in English, by:

Nr. 15, [name:] Friedrich Wilhelm, [date of birth:] Dec 8, 8 am, legitimate, [father:] Christian Friedrich Hanekow, farmer and churchwarden, [mother:] Anne Christine born Kersten, married Hanekow, Battin [date of baptism:] Dec, 14, [pastor:] Ewald, [godparents:] 1. Virgin Friederike Rube, 2. Bachelor Johann Fahrenwaldt, 3. Virgin Marie Kersten, 4. Farmer Friedrich Flashaar, 5. Bachelor Gottfriedt Flashaar.

After decades pondering their existence, they were suddenly in sharp focus.  Speculations and rumors were dispelled, confirmed or clarified.   On Friedrich Wilhelm’s death certificate (1909) his father’s name was listed as also named Friedrich Wilhelm.  The church records clarified that he was Christian Friedrich Hanekow,  famer, sheriff and churchwarden.  His mother, Gertud Karsten on the death certificate, became Anne Christine Kersten.  Friedrich Wilhelm had four brothers and six sisters.  Close reading revealed their joys and sorrows.  By sorting through the many godparents their social network emerged.  I spent hours placing entries in context to each other.

In the meantime, unbeknownst to me, a cousin of mine, Don Haneckow, and his wife Johanna were pursuing a very similar line of research.  They were able to establish, beyond a doubt,  Friedrich Wilhelm and Marie Charlotte's passage on the ship Greece between Liverpool and New York.  In December 2014 they visited Battin.  It is likely the first time a descendent of Frederick Wilhelm and Marie Charlotte had returned to their point of departure.  They searched civil records and visited the ruined church in Battin.  The grave yard no longer existed as such, but nearby they found a newer cemetery with reproduced markers of relatively modern vintage.  Three are for  names that appear in the retrieved Battin church records.  Who placed the markers is a mystery, but implies that there still might be Haneckow relatives near Battin.

What follows is an attempt to place the information from the church records into the larger framework of time and place.  I will continue to pursue information with Marc Jarzebowski, Don Haneckow and others  and plan to update, expand and revise this piece as more  information becomes available.   

-Dan Haneckow, Portland Oregon

Anyone who would like a copy of the retrieved Battin church records report, or has comments, corrections or insights can email me at dhaneckow (at) comcast.net.  


A note on orthography.  The last name has been spelled many ways, both in Germany and America.  The Battin church records utilize four:  Hanekow (no c) is used exclusively in the records from 1824 to 1862, with periodic usage thereafter to 1876.  Hahnekow makes its appearance in 1865 and stops in 1876. Haneckow (with c) appears in 1876.  It emerges as the exclusive spelling after 1897 (the last church records are from 1901).  It can be assumed that spelling spread from Germany to America, where it became common after 1910 (Friedrich Wilhelm's and Marie Charlotte's grave stones in Belknap Township Michigan spell it as such).  Hahnikow appears once, in 1882, in the entry for Anna / Anne Christine’s death.  



Battin

Battin is visible on the map, south east of the city of Brussow.  Nearby is the village of Bagemuhl were various members of Anne Christine Kersten’s family lived.  Also on the map is the village of Bietikow, south east of Prenzlau, where Wilhelm Henrich Erdman Hahnikow / Hanekow and his wife Wihelmine Christine (Schulz) departed from in 1872 for the Detroit area.

Battin (pronounced Bat-tine) is a small farming village in the Uckermark district of Brandenburg.  Administratively it was merged into the adjoining village of Grunberg in 1973.  Since 2001 it has been part of the township of Brussow.  

 Photo by Marc Jarzebowski.

"Battin seems to be a village at the end of the world. The country road is a dead end here. The region is dominated by fields, cattle and modern wind engines. The church is a ruin after a fire, the cemetery doesn't exist anymore”. –Marc Jarzebowski, describing his visit there on October 28 2014.

 Church yard entrance and the ruins of the church in Battin.  Photo by Marc Jarzebowski.

Church ruins in Battin.  Photo by Marc Jarzebowski.

Battin dates from medieval times or earlier.   It is mentioned as Batyn  in a document from 1316 referenced in the book Pommersches Urkrundenbuch V, 249, and again in Landbuch des Herzogtums Pommern IV.  (source: http://www.architektura.pomorze.pl/    )

The earliest parts of the church in Battin, now a ruin, were built in the late middle ages.

The Uckermark region was once home of the Ukrani, at tribe of Polabian Slavs (also known as Wends) which settled in the region from Eastern Europe, displacing Germanic tribes, beginning in the 6^th century.  The area was pressured militarily by both the Holy Roman Empire and Poland for control.  In the 12^th century it was ruled by the Pomeranian dukes, vassals of the Duchy of Saxony.  Gradually the region was Christianized and Germanized, but Slavic origins can be seen in place names ending in “ow” and “in”.  Over the next three centuries control of the Uckermark shifted between Brandenburg, Pommeria and Mecklenburg before being secured by Brandenburg in 1448.

Brandenburg was devastated during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) a conflict between Protestant and Catholic that would involve the Holy Roman Empire, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, the Dutch Republic and France.  “For the people of Brandenburg, the war meant lawlessness, misery, poverty, depravation, uncertainty, forced migration and death.”  Christopher Clark wrote in Iron Kingdom, the Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947.  


The Uckermark was particularly hard hit by the conflict.  In a 1652 survey, it was noted that in Locknitz, some ten miles to the north of Battin, 85% of farms that had been in operation before the war were still deserted.   Battin’s church was partially destroyed.  

After the war, the most devastated areas were repopulated by Dutch, East Friesan and Holstein immigrants.  In 1685 Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg - Prussia invited some 20,000 persecuted French Calvinist Huguenots to settle in areas whose population had not recovered.  Battin was chosen for the location of one of the Huguenot colonies.

The church in Battin was restored in the early seventeen hundreds, sometime after the arrival of the Huguenots.  The tower was completed in 1743.  In the Haneckow entries of the Battin church records Huguenot last names appear with regularity as spouses, godparents and pastors.

At the end of World War Two, Battin’s church was heavily damaged yet again.  In recent times the ruin was stabilized for use in cultural events.  

A google earth view of Battin.

Battin.  Photo by Marc Jarzebowski.

Grave markers in the new cemetery, Battin. December 2014.   Photo by Don Haneckow.



Christian Friedrich Hanekow and Anne Christine Kersten

Christian Friedrich Hanekow was born in 1798, likely in Battin.  He was a small farmer, or cottager, as well as a church warden (Kirchenvorsteher) , a lay church official.  He also held the positions of Schulzen (sheriff) Gerichtsmann (juror) and Gerichtsschulz (court sheriff).  Schulz in German translates to a local law enforcement official, bailiff, magistrate or village mayor.

Anne Christine Kersten (also listed as Anna Christina Kersten) was born in July 1803.  It is possible that she was from the nearby village of Bagemuhl  as members of the Kersten  family, godparents of her children, were listed in the church records as farmers from there.

Christian Friedrich and Anne Christine had ten children.

Christian Friedrich died in Battin on August 2 1866 at 7:30 am of nerve fever.  Anne Christine died in Battin on March 28 1882.

 The church in Battin as it appeared when Christian Friedrich Hanekow was a church warden.


The children of Christian Friedrich and Anne Christine:


Dorthea Louise Hanekow 

The first child of Christian Friedrich and Anne Christine was born in Battin on April 14 1824 and died on August 24 1824 in Battin.

Maria Hanekow  

Maria was born in Battin on March 19 1825.  She appears in no other of the retrieved church records.  She died on January 9 1913 and was buried in Battin.  (per Don Haneckow who photographed her grave marker on December 8 2014).  On the marker her name is spelled Marie Haneckow (later spelling, with c).

Marie Haneckow (Maria Hanekow) grave marker the new cemetery, Battin.  Photo by Don Haneckow.


Michael Friedrich Hanekow , married Marie Wilhelmine Hubener 

Michael Friedrich was born in Battin on February 9 1827.  He likely went by the name of Friedrich (and is probably the Friedrich Hanekow in the 1872 entry in Amtsblatt der Regierung in Potsdam ).

Michael Friedrich married Marie Wilhelmine Hubener on November 2 1869. Their children were: Auguste Emilie Johannna Hahnekow (January 11 1870-May 18 1870),  Anna Luisa Hahnekow (born 1871) and Emilie Marie Auguste Hahnekow, (born March 28 1874).  Her grave marker of was photographed in the Battin church yard by Don Haneckow on December 8 2014.  It notes that she died on April 8 1965, and that she was married to a member of the Sy family.  (Her uncle, Christian Hanekow, see further below, was also married to a Sy).

Emilie Sy, formerly Hanekow (born Emilie Marie Auguste Hahnekow), daughter of Michael Friedrich, grave marker in Battin.  Photo by Don Haneckow.

At the time of his marriage in 1869, Michael Friedrich was listed as a farmer’s son.  In 1897 and 1901 he was listed as an owner in Battin.



Friedrich Wilhelm Hanekow, married Marie Charlotte Goetsch

Friedrich Wilhelm was born in Battin on December 8 1828 at eight in the morning.  He went by Wilhelm (later William in America). The first three sons of Christian Friedrich all had Friedrich in their names.  The reverse order of Friedrich’s name, in contrast to his brothers, might be in honor of King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia.

In America the story was told that Friedrich Wilhelm was not himself a farmer in Germany, but in a clerical profession, perhaps something to do with law.  Nothing in the church records confirms or denies it, but as a younger son he would not have inherited his father’s farm.

Marie Charlotte Goetsch was born on June 22 1854.  Her father was August Friedrich Goetsch, a barber in Prenzlau.  

Friedrich Wilhelm and Marie Charlotte were married in Battin on February 15 1874.  It was the first marriage for both of them.  Three months later they emigrated to America.  They departed Hamburg on the ship Minerva on May 20 for Hull, on the east coast of England.  They traveled overland by train to Liverpool.  The Hull-Liverpool route was usual for German emigrants departing from Hamburg.  In Liverpool they boarded the ship Greece for the transatlantic passage.  They arrived in New York on April 14 1874.  from there they continued on to Rogers City in Presque Isle County Michigan.

Friedrich Wilhelm's letter of intent to become a citizen of the United States (1874).

Friedrich Wilhelm (William in the US) and Marie Charlotte had seven children: Anna Augusta (1874-?, likely died very young), August Wilhelm (1876-1949, married to Anna Augusta Marie Flurshutz), Pauline (1878-1933, married to Henry Lamb), Augusta Anna Marie (1879-1962, married to George Lamb), Albertine (1881-1976), Christian (1885-1916), Magdalene (1892-1892).

The Haneckow family in the United States that spells their name with a c, are descended from August Wilhelm.

Friedrich Wilhelm died in Presque Isle County on February 16 1909.  Marie Charlotte died on October 26 1903 in Rogers City, Presque Isle Michigan.  They are both buried at the St John Lutheran Church in Belknap Township on land they donated to the church upon its establishment (last name is with a c on both grave stones).


Louise Hanekow 

Louise was born in Battin on November 19 1830.  She died in Battin of consumption on October 16 1838. 


Christoph Friedrich Hanekow, married 1, Maria Dorothee Scherping 2, Auguste Pauline Thiele

Christoph Friedrich was born February 17 1833 in Battin.  He married Maria Dorothee Scherping on November 2 1862. Maria (born 1832) was the daughter of Johann Scherping, a farmer.  Their son, Gustav Friedrich Hanekow (1863-1868) died in Battin of scarlet fever.

Maria Dorothee died on April 18 1865 in Battin of pelvic inflammation.

Christoph Friedrich married Auguste Pauline Thiele in Battin on May 11 1875.  They had two daughters, Elizabeth Anna Pauline Hanekow (1876-?) and Gertrud Paulina Victoria Hanekow (born 1878).

At the time of his marriage in 1862, Christoph Friedrich was listed as a farm laborer in Battin.  In 1868 he was listed as a day laborer in Battin.  At the time of his second marriage in 1875, he was listed as a widower, small farmer (crossed out) and pensioner.  In 1876 he was listed as a small cottager.

It is not known when or where Christoph Friedrich died.

Christine Hanekow

Christine was born January 28 1835 in Battin and died May 13 1858 in Battin of consumption.

Ernestine Hanekow, married Wilhelm Friedrich Sauerman

Ernestine was born in Battin on March 11 1837.  She had a daughter, Elisabeth Ludovike (January 1865-February 2 1865) who died in Battin.

Ernestine married Wilhelm Friedrich Sauermann, a farm laborer in Battin,  on October 28 1876.  William Friedrich was the son of Christian Friedrich Sauermann, a day laborer in Battin.

Ernestine died in Battin on February 25 1907.

Ernestine Sauermann, formerly Haneckow (Ernestine Hanekow).  Photo by Don Haneckow.

 

Louise Hanekow

Louise was the second daughter of Christian Friedrich and Anne Christine to have that name.  She was born in Battin on January 27 1839 and died in Battin on January 26 1841.

Christian Hanekow, married Frederike Magdaline Sy

 

Christian was born in  Battin on November 10 1841.  He married Frederike Magdaline Sy  (born 1855) on November 23 1876.  Frederike Magdaline was the daughter of Johann August Sy .  The Sy family were Huguenot in origin.  Christian’s niece Emilie Marie Auguste Hahnekow / Hanekow also married a member of the Sy family (yet unknown first name).

At the time of his marriage in 1876, Christian was listed as a farmer in Battin.

Christian died on September 17 1898 in Battin.  At the time of this death he was listed as a farmer and church warden.

Hanekow (unnamed)

Christian Friedrich Hanekow and Anne Christine Kersten’s last child was a male, born and died on May 11 1843 in Battin.

 A portion of the old church yard in Battin.  Photo by Marc Jarzebowski.

Conclusion

Answers bring questions.  The church records mention a Peter Haneckow, whose relation to the rest is unknown.  Who was he? What of the time before the records or after?  Why were some grave markers recreated in the new cemetery but others are not, and by whom? (Don Haneckow is pursuing this).  Are there still relations in the Battin area?  It is my hope that this will be an evolving project.  Information, comments and insights are welcome.

Dan Haneckow 

dhaneckow (at) comcast.net