Kraemer history

When I first started looking into family history, I was told by various people that Paul Kraemer had come to America with a brother who stayed somewhere in New York. This notion was reinforced by a note made by Iris Kraemer Umhoefer in her 1962 Kraemer family tree (updated 1983) where she said a step-brother came with Paul but stayed in New York. The original note is as follows:

Source: Iris Umhoefer, 1984. Family tree done by Iris Kraemer Umhoefer, 1962 and updated 1983.
Note: It appears that Iris had second thoughts about whether it was Boston; see the change to Buffalo. The note “Vogels in Buffalo?” was written by me thinking that perhaps some Vogels had emigrated earlier to Buffalo; The step-brother’s mother was a Vogel.

My assumption was that either story could be true. I had heard about the brother from my dad. I assumed that Iris had heard the step-brother from her dad, Edward, or perhaps her grandfather Peter. However, I needed to do research to see if it was true.

The first issue was whether a brother came with Paul.  Most of Paul’s siblings had died near birth or as children (see below). Two were infants that died at birth and an earlier-born Paul had died within six months. But Paul also had older brother named Christoph -the same name as his father. A search of death records indicated that father and son had died of pneumonia within a week of each other in 1854. So Paul could not have had a brother who traveled with him to America in 1866. All of his siblings and his parents were already dead. His mother had died earlier in 1831 giving birth to a child that died at birth.

Children of Christoph and Anna Gilg

Name	Birth*	Marriage	Death
Infant	30 Jan 1823	None	30 Jan 1823 at birth
Paul	7 Jan  1824	None	15 June 1824, 6 months
Christoph	30 Jan 1826	None	6 Apr 1852, 26 yr.
Paul	8 Nov 1828	Walburga Stangl, 23 June 1854	1 Aug 1897, 69 yr.
Infant	31 Dec 1831	None	31 Dec 1831 at birth

*Children were usually baptized the same day they were born because of high infant mortality, and the belief that if they were not baptized, they would not go to heaven in the afterlife.
Source: Source: Ederer (2008); Jung (1922-1926).  

But Paul did have two step-brothers who were still alive in 1866. George Michael was married and a railroad worker living in a town called Limbach.  The other brother was named Joseph. The key to whether a step-brother came with Paul was the ship manifest for the Teutonia on which the Kraemers came to America from Hamburg.  I searched the entire Teutonia ship manifest several times and never found the name of the step brother Joseph. In fact there were only two other Kraemers on the manifest besides the “Paulus Cramer” family – two unmarried young women with the name Kramer. The step-sister Anna Margaretha (see table below) was not among them. We do not know what happened to Joseph or Anna Margaretha but we do know that they did not come with Paul.

Paul Kraemer’s step- brothers and –sisters (children of Katharine Vogel)

Name	Birth*	Marriage	Death
Margarethe	24 Sep 1832	None	16 Jan 1833, 4 months
Margarethe Walburga	1 May 1834	None	27 Apr 1837, 3 yrs
Johan Baptist	24 Nov 1836	None	13 July 1868, 32 yrs
Anna Margaretha	2 June 1838
George Michael	11 Oct 1841	Theresia Schober, 16 Feb 1873
Joseph	17 July 1844

*All births at house #27 Irlach. Source: Letter from Dr. Paul Mai, Archivdirektor, Bischofliches Zentralarchiv, Regensburg to Herrn Professor Dr. Heinrich Reinermann, 16 February 1983; confirmed by Georg Ederer (2008), Jung (1922-1926).

The ship record below clearly shows that Paul Kraemer came with only his own family, which consisted of his wife Walburga, daughter Frances and son Peter. The disembarkation list in New York shows that a daughter, Mary, was born May 30, 1866 on the ship while at sea.

He also came with some neighbors from Irlach, but that is another story. The key point of this analysis is that Paul Kraemer did not come to America with a brother or a step-brother.

Excerpt from Teutonia passenger list, Hamburg, Germany, 14 June 1866

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Hamburg Emigration Office, 1982.

Name	City	Occupation	Age
Pronold, Georg	Tiefenbach	Weber	65
Pronold, Berhard	“	Weber	43
Pronold, Theresa	“	Frau (wife)	46
Pronold, Philomenia	“	Daughter	13
Zissig, Margaret	Grafen-ried	Woman	30
Zissig, Margaret	“	Child	7
Hanbeck, Johan	Muschenried	Arbr.*	24
Beets, Anna	Haag	Frau (woman)	25
Michael	Haag	Kinder (child)	1 ½
Cramer, Paulus	Irlach	Arbr.	37
Cramer, Walburga	‘	Wife	34
Cramer, Franziska	‘	Kinder (child)	7
Cramer, Peter	‘	Kinder (child)	3
Fischer, Christoph	Irlach	Arbr.	35
Fischer,Catherina	‘	Arbr	36
Fischer,Joseph	‘	Frau (wife)	4
Fischer,Johann	‘	Kinder (child)	6
Fischer, Margaret	‘	Kinder (child)	1 ½
Fichtinger, Walburga	Irlach	No occupation	18
Wachter, Johann	Irlach	Weber	45
Pregler,Margaret**	Haag		29

*”Arbeiter” means laborer, handworker, workman or workwoman, or general laborer.
**All of the other people above were on the same page of the ship’s passenger list except the last person. Margaret Pregler from Haag, was on a different page but also “between decks” on the ship. Haag is very close to Irlach and the other towns.  It is possible that Paul and Walburga knew Margaret Pregler because Paul gave 200 Gulden to unknown Pregler children of Irlach in his inheritance agreement.  We do not know why.
***Others on board the ship who ended up in Plain were the following: George Pronold, Tiefenbach,  Baiern, weber (weaver) 68; Bernard Pronold, Tiefenbach, Baiern, weber (weaver) 48; Theresa Pronold, Tiefenbach, Baiern, frau (wife), 46; Philomena Pronold, Tiefenbach, Baiern, dau.(daughter),13; Walburga Fichtinger, Yrrlach, Baiern, (no occupation) 18; Johan Wachter, Yrrlach, Baiern, weber(weaver) 45.

Although Paul Kraemer did not come to America with a brother, two Kraemer brothers who were second cousins to Paul Kraemer came to America from Tiefenbach, Bavaria, in 1852 and 1862 respectively. They ended up in Stearns County, Minnesota. We believe that Paul and Nicholas knew one another in Tiefenbach.