Friday, May 4, 2012

Klotz arrival to the United States

I have done further investigation regarding the location that the Klotz family lived in Germany. In a previous post, I mentioned that this location is either Großen Burg, Rheinland, Germany or Großbeeren, Brandenburg, Preussen. I had seen it mentioned both ways, and was unsure as to which is correct. By looking up both of these locations on a map, I noticed that Großbeeren is actually really close to Berlin, which is where Carl and Henrietta's first daughter, Albertina (Tina) was born. Although this is by no means concrete proof, it has led me to believe that Großbeeren is the location that the family lived prior to their arrival in the US.

I almost missed a record located in Castle Garden's website. It listed a Carl Klotz arriving in New York in 1873 with his wife, Henriette. This fit my information perfectly. There were a few red flags though. The rest of his family was listed as Albertina (match), Kenhold (?), Jap (?), Minna (match), Max (match), and Gustav (?). I wanted to look at the actual record, so I went to Ancestry.com. There in the New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 database I found the following record:


here is the actual family:


It looked to be that the curious names mentioned above were transcription errors. This family was an actual match for my Klotz family: Carl Klotz, Henriette, Albertine, Ida, Reinhart, Minnie, Max, and Gunter. All of the ages also match my notes. (Note: I never had a Gunter as a child in this family. He is the same age as Max, so perhaps he is a twin that passed away early on.). Carl Klotz is noted as being a "Smith" (Blacksmith), which is the same occupation that Carl had in the US as well.

The Carl Klotz family is listed as being onboard the Parthia ship, sailing from Port Liverpool to the United States and arriving on 24 May 1873.

The next mystery is the location. This record indicates that this family is from...Holland. WHAT? My Klotz family has always stated that they were from Germany (or Prussia). This is still quite curious. It is a possibility that they lied (but why?), or maybe there was a misunderstanding? I think there are too many matches for  this not to be my Klotz family.

Parthia Steamship Card

No comments:

Post a Comment