Sometimes it feels like you've struck gold. That's exactly how I felt tonight in my quest for our family geneology. I have been filling out our extended (very extended it seems at times) family on the Brammer side.
I guess I should start out by saying that after reading Uncle Herbert & Uncle August's writings on life growing up I left with the impression that our Great-Great Grandparents Han Heinrich & Anna Maria Brammer (Alice's Mom's Parents) had 4 children and I lost track if they had left Germany with all 4 or if 2 died before they came to America. The bottom line is, I took from it that only 2 of their children had survived: our (Great) Grandma Stahnke and our (Great-Great) Uncle George.
The other night I was looking over some of the documents that Uncle August had gathered from Churches in (what was then East) Germany and translating them (I never thought my one semester of college German would come to any use - boy was I wrong. Mom and Dad - every cent you paid to my college education paid off in my ability to translate. Damn, I'm funny.) and I read the names of the 4 children of Hans and Anna: Wilhemine, Otto, George and Dora. (kay, so each of them had extremely long names, but you know what I mean. So these names ring a bell for me, both the German Passenger list and the New York entry passenger lists show Wilhelm and Maria coming to America in 1884 with Minna, Otto, George and Dora. Now I'm doing the big "Huh".
THEN I find the name Wilhelmina Lessman on the website that has the Gravestones for the Evang Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Church in Nebraska for a Wilhemina Lessman with a note that says her maiden name is Brammer and I'm like: HOLY SHIT!! I can't beleive this is happening: not only is there a sibling that I didn't know ever survived, but they lived and married and had about a billion children. Okay, so I'm super sarcastic.
So I'm following Minna's family on ancestry.com and decide to pursue one of her Children named Mary Martha Lessman. Well, Mary married a gentleman named James Kophamer (a name I've seen before) and there is this Picture:
Holy Crap! That's Aunt Bertha on the far right, and that sure looks like Uncle Anson on the far left. Wait a minute! I've been looking at snapshots from this wedding for over a year! This is the wedding of Grandma Alice's Cousin Mary to John Kophamer. Finally I know who is in these pictures:
These are the Wedding snapshots of Grandma Alice's Cousin Mary Lessman to John Kophamer, or our 1st Cousin twice removed. These were posted on Ancestry.com by our 3rd cousin. I need to reach out. I have read the name Kophamer so many times on pictures and eslewhere that I am so thrilled to make the connection to how they relate to us.
Man do I just LOVE doing this!
East germany? where was the Brammer from. I know they are all common names except for Kophammer. It' a good thing getting names to faces.Iam not sure I remember where Lutjens come from, either. but I have seen them in Luneburg stadt area. I saw it at Ostheide. And Bergen. Some settlers Nebraska too by Schlaphof. I think it drew me to your blog.
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