Unknown Gomersheimer (abt. 1780 - abt. 1812)

Born about 1780 in Warenburg, Volga Region, Russia

Descendants

Died about 1812 at about age 32 in Warenburg, Volga Region, Russia

Profile manager: Julie Mangano [send private message]

Biography

Unknown Gomersheimer was a Volga German.

Unknown Gomersheimer has German Roots.

This unknown Mr. Gomersheimer was the first husband of Anna Elisabeth, father of Michael Gomersheimer. There were no people in Grimm with that surname. I'm in the process of checking other Volga German villages to see if I can find him or a possible parent.

While going through the 1767 Census Index, I found a Johann Heinrich Boehmersheim in Warenburg, band 4, page 323. This seems to be a real possibility as a match for his surname. Look at the two names written next to each other.

• Boehmersheim
• Gomersheimer

The letters B and G sound similar, and with a longer name like this, it's easy to understand how the census taker may have incorrectly written down what he thought he heard. Johann Heinrich Boehmersheim could have been this man's father, or he may have had sons old enough to be his father. I checked the 1798 Census of the German Colonies Along the Volga and there were no remaining Boehmersheims in any of the colonies. They may have shortened the name to Boehmer or Boehm. Complicating this search is the fact that the original name in Germany appears to have been spelled Bommersheim, or some shortened version of this alternate name. The umlaut and the H seem to be new introductions to the spelling.

This unknown male Gomersheimer / Boehmersheim is not specifically listed in the 1834 census, but his son Michael is.

Research Notes

Here is one example of a record with the alternate spelling of the surname. ^[1]

Name Johann Henrich Bommersheim

Event Date 1713

Gender Male

Birth Date 06 Jul 1713

Birth Year 1713

Christening Date 13 Jul 1713

Christening PlaceBellersheim, Germany

Father's Name Johann Wilhelm Bommersheim

Mother's Name Ann Elisabetha

I looked up Bellersheim on a map; it can be found at these coordinates:

• Latitude 50°27'10.9"N (50.4530200°)
• Longitude 8°50'16.8"E (8.8379900°)

It is north of Frankfurt by about 37 miles, 56 miles from Darmstadt, and offers the compelling village with a similar sounding name: Bellersheim. ^{[2] [3]} This record was noted here only to show the alternate spelling of the name and the similar village name. He is not a match for the Johann Heinrich Boehmersheim who immigrated to Russia and settled in Warenburg.

Kulberg Reports

According to the Kulberg Reports, Johann Heinrich Boehmersheim was a weaver from Darmstadt. ^[4] He traveled to Oranienbaum with his wife Anna Sophia and five children:

• Johann Georg, age 20
• Catharina Margaretha, age 18
• Christina Margaretha, age 10
• Johann Philipp, age 6.5
• Johann Heinrich, age 3

If Johann Heinrich was 20 when his first child was born, and that child was 20 in 1766, then Johann Heinrich Boehmersheim was born around 1726. This makes him about 41 or older at the time he and his family immigrated to Russia.

The family departed from Luebeck on the ship called Die Vergelte Weintraube with their recruiter Le Roy, arriving in Oranienbaum on 15 June 1766. After arriving in Oranienbaum, new German immigrants were processed, took an oath of allegiance to their new country, and usually spent about nine months to a year in temporary quarters until the following spring when frozen rivers melted and it was slightly less treacherous to begin their journey to the Volga River. Many people did not survive that first winter in Oranienbaum, and still more perished on the journey to their new home.

Journey to Warenburg

The village of Warenburg was founded as a Lutheran colony on 12 May 1767 by Le Roy and another recruiter with former residents from Brandenburg, Darmstadt, Holstein, Prussia, and Württemberg. These new residents were recorded in what is loosely called the Volga German Transport List. ^[5] Interestingly, none of these Boehmersheim family members appear in this list, which seems odd since they are mentioned in the Kulberg Reports.

That said, if his wife and children became ill, some of them even dying, his journey to Warenburg may have been delayed and he may have tagged along with another group without his name being officially added to the transport list.

1767 Warenburg Census ^[6]

Family # 13

Head of the Household Johann Heinrich Böhmersheim, age ?, Lutheran farmer from Darmstadt, Wilsbach?

Wife Elisabeth Margaretha Böhmersheim, age ?, second wife

• If his eldest son Johann Georg survived, then he did not go with his father to Warenburg and probably shortened his name to Boehm. There is always a possibility his name was accidentally omitted from the 1767 census, so I would need to confirm this via a copy of the 1775 Warenburg census. If he does appear there, then he may have had a son around 1780 who was the father of Michael Gomersheimer, making him Michael's grandfather. There are about four ifs in this scenario that have to be true in order for Johann Georg to be Michael's grandfather. For this reason, his father Johann Heinrich is a more likely candidate to be the grandfather.

• Daughter Catharina Margaretha could have survived; she may have married either in Oranienbaum or soon after arriving in Warenburg where she resided with her new husband.

• It doesn't look like his wife or his three youngest children survived.

To recap, at some point between his arrival in Oranienbaum and his arrival in Warenburg, Johann Heinrich's wife died. Before the first census was taken in the latter part of 1767, he had remarried Elisabeth Margaretha. Although there is no reference to her age in the 1767 census, she would have had to be young enough to be able to bear children. There were no children living with the couple at the time of that census.

This means that at some point after the census, the couple had to have at least one child, a boy, estimated to have been born around 1780. It could have been earlier.

That boy grew up to marry a woman named Anna Elisabeth who may have been from Warenburg or Grimm. They had a son, Michael, in 1808. After the death of Mr. Boehmersheim before 1814, she remarried Johann Philipp Schott from Grimm. Their first child, a son, was born in 1815. Interestingly, they named him Johann Heinrich, perhaps after her first husband or former father-in-law. It's difficult to say that with any certainty since the pool of names Volga Germans used was quite limited, but it is interesting to consider.

There are no Böhmersheims in the 1798 census in Warenburg or in any other Volga German village. ^[7]

I have sent a note to the Warenburg village coordinator to see if I can find out more about the Boehmersheim family from the 1775 census. It may reveal the name of Anna Elisabeth's first husband.

The village coordinators for Warenburg are listed below.

Warenburg, Samara, Volga

Map 6, Quadrant D-5, 50 56 N 46 05 E

Ronald E. Brott B310

2411 Adams

Des Moines IA 50319

ron.e.brott@gmail.com

Sharon White W341

3285 E. Ruskin Court

Sandy, UT 84092

Slmwhite@aol.com

13 January 2019 Update

Heard back from Sharon White. There is no 1775 Warenburg census. The only records available for that time frame besides the 1767 and 1798 census records are birth records for 1795 to 1811. AHSGR has not purchased them yet. Miller-33353 03:02, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Sources

1. ↑ "Deutschland Geburten und Taufen, 1558-1898," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NC6Z-8F8 : 28 November 2014), Johann Henrich Bommersheim, 13 Jul 1713; citing ; FHL microfilm 1,336,650.
2. ↑ Places in the World, Bellersheim, Germany, Longitude and Latitude, see: http://bit.ly/2rizANi.
3. ↑ Google Maps, Bellersheim and Darmstadt Germany, see: http://bit.ly/2scdf3X.
4. ↑ Pleve, Igor. List of Colonists to Russia in 1766, "Reports by Ivan Kulberg," Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation, Saratov State Technical University; Published in Saratov, Russia 2010; page 74, Johann Heinrich Boehmersheim, Lutheran weaver from Darmstadt, document number 799, wife Anna Sophia; children: Johann Georg, age 20, Johann Philipp, age 6 years 6 months; Johann Heinrich, age 3; Catharina Margaretha, age 18; and Christina Margaretha, age 10.
5. ↑ Transport of the Volga Germans from Oranienbaum to the Colonies on the Volga 1766-1767. Translated and edited by Brent Alan Mai; Published by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1998. Gomersheimer and Boehmersheim surnames do not appear in this list.
6. ↑ Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767, Heerstellung: Mecke Druck and Verlag, 37115 Duderstandt; Published 1999; page 323, #13, Johann Heinrich Boehmersheim, Lutheran, farmer from Darmstadt, Wilsbach, and wife Elisabeth Margarethe.
7. ↑ Mai, Brent Alan; 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga, Volumes 1 & 2; American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, Lincoln, Nebraska; Published 1999 and 2005.

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