 |
Questions, Oberazzi, December 9, 2006,
Flickr.com
|
Is it Henrietta Hausman or Henrietta Hanneman? What is the
correct spelling of a target ancestor’s name is a question that faces many
researchers. In this case, the person of interest bearing the mystery birth surname
is “Henrietta
Hausman or Hanneman Williams
Kreis” who was born in Pennsylvania and became the second wife of my great
grandfather, Henry Kreis. To answer this question, I needed to investigate Pennsylvania
genealogy resources.
In my
Oct 19, 2011 post, I
introduced my readers to Henrietta.
 |
| Received from granddaughter of Henrietta |
At that time, I had a theory (this was
early on in my research of this family) that “Hanneman” might be a variant or
misspelling of “Hausmann.” The main reason for this belief was the close
relationship between Henrietta and her father-in-law, John Kreis, that
continued long after her marriage to his son ended in divorce. John had married
two Hausman women; first Mary Hausman and after she died, Margarethe Hausman. Because
of marriage patterns at that time and people having smaller marriage pools, it
is probable that these two women were related. Furthermore, if these two Kreis
wives were related to Henrietta, it would explain why she would include John
Kreis in her household for twenty years.
Another reason in favor of the Hausman spelling is that the
1900 Chicago, Cook, IL US Census gives Nettie’s (Henrietta) brothers’
surnames as “Housman” which could be a misspelling or an Americanization of
“Hausman.”
I decided that I must delve deeper into family records in
order to make a strong case for the true surname of my great grandfather’s
second wife.
In my earlier research on the Hanneman/Hausman family, the
seminal document I found was the
1880 Newark, Essex, NJ US Census. This showed Henrietta in her birth
family with her parents, Fred and Emma Hannaman (spelling variant of “Hanneman”
in this census) and her siblings.
In this early research phase on the Hannemans, I had
concentrated on Henrietta, her brothers Charles and Frederick (as she lived
with them in Chicago in 1900) and her twin, Louisa. Somehow brother Henry had slipped
past my scrutiny. In these sibling searches, I found no indication of where in
Pennsylvania any of them were born. Also, I found no Hausman/Houseman connection.
Months went by. In December of 2014, I decided to do some
more research on the Hanneman/Hausman question. I returned again to the sibling
list and realized I had ignored Henry. He
was listed as age 12 in the 1880 Newark, Essex, NJ US Census. I went to Family
Search and searched “Henry Hanneman.” Well, that search turned out to be gold! The
1870 Texas, Wayne, Pennsylvania US Census came up.
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1870 Census
questions: 1870 Questionnaire,
|
The household of “FredK and Emma Hannaman” appeared
with two children: Gusta, female age ten and Henry, age one. I had not seen this
census record before. This one document gave me three new pieces of
information:
 |
Carbondale, Pa.,
between 1870 and 1879,
Fowler & Bailey, Boston Public Library, Flickr.com. |
- The birth place in Pennsylvania of Henry (and perhaps the
other children): Texas, Wayne, PA (Texas township is near Honesdale and
Carbondale, all of which are close to Wilkes-Barre and mentioned in different
family documents.)
.jpg) |
“An old
bird-eye map of Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania, United States”,
1889, Fowler, Downs
& Moyer,
|
This corresponds with what Joan Van Hise Dirner, a
granddaughter of Henry Kreis (and my cousin, now deceased) told me about her
Hanneman family origins in this country. Joan heard a family story that the
Hannemans were in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania at one time before they came to
New Jersey.
2. The name of another child of Frederick and Emma: Gusta.
3.The city/district in Germany where Frederick Sr. was born:
Hanover.
This Wayne County, PA census record also told me that the family surname, as far back as 1870, was
“Hannaman”, a spelling variant of “Hanneman.” It looked more and more like
“Hanneman” was the family surname.
After this lucky break from Henry, I did more research and
found him (in the
1910 ,
1920 and
1930 Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne, PA US Censuses) showing that, unlike his siblings, he
returned to Wilkes-Barre as an adult and lived there the rest of his life.
 |
Map
of Luzerne County, PA, US with township and municipal
boundaries from US Census
website
|
In
the 1910 Wilkes-Barre Census, I found that Henry’s brother, Frederick, was living in his
household and the surname for all was “Hanneman.”
Invigorated and
re-energized by my luck with Henry, I wanted to know more about the Hanneman
family. I started my search anew. In ancestry.com under “New York, Passenger
Lists, 1820-1957,” I found a listing for Heinrich Hanemann and his brother
Friedrich, arriving in the US on 13 April 1866. This document was the oldest
and closest to the old country that I had yet seen and thus the strongest
evidence that the surname was indeed “Hanneman.”
Having done so much on-line research, I decided I also needed
to consult some local sources. Since I live at quite a distance from
Pennsylvania, I decided to follow my own advice from my
Oct 19, 2011 post:
“…
when you are doing out of state research, someone actually living in that area
can be very helpful. That person can
visit archives or other record depositories to search for information. An
in-person search is much faster than ordering records by mail. Not all records
have been digitized or are available on the computer. And a local person may
know of places to research in the area that you have not thought of.”
Now that I had decided to go local, how did I find a
researcher? A quote from my
March 12, 2013 post gave me just the information I needed:
“…the next time you are researching an ancestor in a geographic area that is new to you, be
sure to start with the Family Search
Research Wiki. Not only will you find a thorough introduction to many
records and where they are located for your target area, but you never know
what hidden treasures are waiting for you.”
 |
Family Search
resources, Diane Cordell, June 25, 2012, Flickr.com
|
First I went to the
Pennsylvania State Wiki at
FamilySearch.org. Half-way down the
page is a map showing all of the counties. To see a wiki on any of the
counties, you simply click on the county name. In my case, I clicked on “Wayne”
as that is where Wilkes Barre is located. Below is a diagram of the county:
 |
Map of Wayne
County, Pennsylvania, United States,
from US Census
website, Wikimedia.
|
On the left side of the Pennsylvania State Wiki page, you
will find a menu bar which lists major topics of interest, including church
records, court records, history, and newspapers among others. But I was looking
for local professional help. The topic “Repositories” caught my attention, and
the subheading “Societies” seemed a
likely place to check.
 |
| Wayne County Historical Society, used by permission |
The first institution listed is the
Wayne County HistoricalSociety, located in
Honesdale, the birth place of
Henrietta’s brother Henry Hanneman. On the side bar of the first page of this
website, you can click on “
Genealogy,” and you will find the
Professional Research
Package. For a $40 fee, you can purchase two hours of research. The website
lists many of the sources available at the Society. I discovered that the site makes it easy to order research
services on-line when I made my request for two hours of research on the
Hannemans. During an e-mail conversation with the researcher, I attached
documents I had already found and a history I had written on the family. Unfortunately,
the researcher could find no additional records of the family’s time in Wayne
County.
 |
Sysiphus, oil
on canvas, 40 x 40, 2014,
Milan Rynt, 15 September 2014, Wikimedia
|
As you can see from this post, living far from a state where
your ancestors once lived is not an insurmountable obstacle to research. Local
societies often offer on-site services for a fee. And an easy place to locate
these local institutions is the Family Search Research Wiki.
A lesson I re-learned again while doing this research
(Hanneman or Hausman?) is to always check records for each of the siblings in a
family. You never know what you might find. In this case, Henry Hanneman’s
records, a brother of Henrietta, brought me information I had not found from my
research on his brothers and sisters: his birth place in Pennsylvania and most likely the birth place of his siblings.
In conclusion, in order to answer the question, is it
“Henrietta Hanneman” or “Henrietta Hausman,” I searched for documents on-line
and enlisted the help of local researchers in Pennsylvania. Hanneman (or some
variant such as “Hannaman, Hanaman etc.) appears on every record except the one
census document which listed the family as “Housman.” From all the records I have accumulated, the
evidence strongly suggests that “Hanneman” is Henrietta’s correct surname.
category: genealogy professional
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