What city in Germany could “Schuermanburger” refer to? [closed]

Question

Trying to trace a great great grandparent believed to be from Saarland and found a potential entry at below source (Michael Deschang, line 3) but the indexed place of residence doesn’t seem to exist by that name today.  What could this be referring to?  Many thanks!

family search url for source: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-81DW-4PB?i=169&cc=1368704&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AJ6RL-JP1

Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897 (National Archives Microfilm Publication M237, roll 600); Records of the U.S. Customs Service, Record Group 36.

Comments

Could this be it?

https://www.schaumburgtownship.org/about/our-history/

Answer 1

The passenger list shows 4 Deschangs moving to the USA in 1892:

• Michael, father 46 y.o. (* 1846)
• Catharina, child 10 y.o. (* 1882)
• Susanna, child 9 y.o. (* 1883)
• Maria, child 8 y.o. (* 1884)

Now to the records from the registry office Orscholz, Saarland:

Parents: Michel Deschang and Magdalena nee Boesen

Children:

• Catharina * 16 Oct 1880 (sub registry office Freudenberg, residence Bethingen)
• Susanna * 10 Sep 1882 (sub registry office Freudenberg, residence Bethingen)
• Peter * 28 Jul 1885, + 4 Sep 1885 (sub registry office Freudenberg, residence Bethingen)
• Maria * 28 Jul 1885, + 17 Sep 1885 (sub registry office Freudenberg, residence Bethingen)
• Anna * 7 Jul 1888 (sub registry office Freudenberg, residence Bethingen)

Comments

Registry office Orscholz:

Michel Deschang * 8 Jun 1845 (sub registry office Freudenberg, residence Bethingen)

Parents: Johann Deschang and Anna nee Geier

Registry office Perl: 19 Dec 1879

Widower Michel Deschang (first wife Maria Gasthauer) from Bethingen and widow Magdalena Boesen (first husband Johann Hoffmann) from Kesslingen.

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There are also some birth documents from Orscholz of children from Michel and Maria Deschang.

The documents I found in ancestry.de. If you need some or all I can copy and send you the documents.

If you create profiles for the person I can add the documents directly to the profile or you PM me and I will send you the document to your personal e-mail.

Now my theory:

Bethingen is only 7 km away from Schwemlingen.

There are no more birth records of children and there are now death record from Magdalena in Bethingen. And there is no Magdalena as wife on the passenger list to the USA.

The family moved from Bethlingen to Schwemlingen. There they got at least one additional child called Maria (like the deceased daughter) in 1886 and Magdalena died there. Then Michel decided to immigrate.

The problem is that I couldn't find any records from Schwemlingen online. To be sure about my theory you need these records. But before they will be put online I see no easy way to get a confirmation about my theory.

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And I forgot: A Happy New Year

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Oh wow! Thank you for all of this! Had no idea they were second marriages. I’ll go ahead and make the profiles for everyone today so you can attach things.

Your full theory, however, isn’t quite right because Lena had another child here in the States and is present in records until the 1940 census - she is living with my relative (Anna), then lives with the younger son, then lives with one of Catharina’s children.  It is strange that they didn’t all come together, but now that I have a firm spelling of their last name as well as firmer dates for things, I can hopefully find the second crossing.

Again, many thanks for finding this! And a very Happy New Year to you as well!

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Just wanted to say -- families often didn't come across together.  Sometimes older siblings would go, and later bring across younger ones and sometimes even their parents; I believe this is what my mother's father's oldest sister Pauline Elsaesser did.   Or the father of a family would go and establish himself in America, and might also take some of the older children with him, while the mother and all or most of the children stayed behind until he could send for them; this is what my mother's maternal grandmother's father did -- except his wife then died in Switzerland, and the children were brought over by an aunt and uncle.

Answer 2

Hi Benjamin,

could you please upload a copy of the passenger list here or provide a link to an public source.

I don't know how to read your source.

There is no German location called Schuermanburger. But it could be a transcription error. Maybe we can have a look on that page and try to read. Sometimes it helps if more than one person try to decipher that old handwriting.

Comments

I had a look into ancestry; there existed a lot of persons with the name Michael Deschang in the Saarland and in the Alsace.

It would also be good to have an estimated birth date.

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Thanks Dieter - I’m not sure how to upload the image I have here but I found it via familysearch.org.

As for other info to maybe help narrow the list of Michaels down, the Michael I’m looking for was married to a “Lena Bosen” and had my great great grandmother Anna sometime around 1886-1888.  I’ve also confirmed they had an older daughter Catherine around 1880-1882.  They arrived here in the states by 1892 as a boy Augustus was born over here.

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Here’s a cropped image

Edit ...

I am not sure if the image will display. When I pasted it, it was there, but I cannot see it now.

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It is definately not Schuermanburger. It could be Schaumburg. But Schaumburg is in Lower Saxony and not in the Saarland.

The name Michael Deschang is a common name in Saarland.

Concerning the passenger list his birth date is 1846.

There are born two Michael Deschangs in Saarland 1846. One in Orscholz and one in Perl.

Do you have any idea what the parents' names were?

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It could be the village Schwemlingen in the Saarland.

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Unfortunately no, I do not have any information further back.  I was hoping to trace where they were living/some of the children’s births to be able to narrow down a church records search for a marriage document to get parent names.

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Re: the record you found in Orscholz - what collection/source is that from?  I have a document that is from Orscholz which is hard to read but I believe it is a birth record for my great great grandmother so, that Michael birth record you found might be him.

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I will add the information later in the afternoon. I found exact the same children of Michael in the records.

I will post the info and my suggestion.

Answer 3

Mary Schuerman (born Burger) was born in 1875 in Illinois.

Fred Schuerman born 1871 married Barbara Margaret Burger.

Answer 4

The only thing I can come up with is Schoenenburg, now Schoenenberg-Kubelberg, not far from Zweibrücken in Southwest Germany. Saarland is just to the west of there. There is a Wikipedia entry which I tried to copy and paste here but it did not work.