Freker
Ancestors of Johann Heinrich Freker and his 3 wives:
Group sheets (click Surname List or Name Index to find group sheets)
My Ruskauff-Freker-Mohelnitzky Family Tree at Ancestry.com
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Emigration from the Osnabrück area to the United States By Prof. Dr. Antonius Holtmann
The Insbruch/Inssbrueck/Innsbruck rumor
The Freker and Ruskauff family and ancestors of Johann Conrad Ruskauff and Anna Elisabeth Freker never lived in Innsbruck (or Insbruch/Inssbrueck) which is located in Tyrol, Austria. The "Insbruch, Hanover" rumor started with a pre-1992 Diocese of Pittsburgh letter which had a false transcription of Pittsburgh church records. The records at Pittsburgh are not allowed to be photocopied, so one can only rely on the skills of the person transcribing records at the diocese office. When we requested more research in 2007, the town was correctly transcribed as "Osnabruck, Hannover." One baptism record was transcribed as "Besendorf" for the town "Bissendorf."
In Germany, the records for this family were found by me in the county of Osnabrueck (Osnabrück), in the state of Niedersachsen. This area of Germany was formerly known as the Kingdom of Hanover (or Königreich Hannover).
Research in Germany - Vogel or Broxtermann?
Family information in the 1970s from relatives in Wisconsin showed that Johann Freker's wife was named Anna Vogel. Many researchers have this Vogel name written in their family tree. In a quest to find more information, research was done in the archives in Germany on numerous occasions.
But the Vogel name was not found! Microfilm records in the church archives in the county of Osnabrueck in the state of Niedersachsen in Germany show that Anna's last name was Broxtermann.
The name Vogel was not a real common name, nor was it found in baptism or other church records in regard to the Freker family. In 2008, one Vogel name was found the Glane cemetery, and one large tombstone in Osnabrück.
In 2008, many Broxtermann names were found in church records (town Oesede/Kloster Oesede), in cemeteries (in Bad Iburg, Sentrup, Borgloh), and business names (in Bad Iburg and Osnabrueck) in the county of Osnabrueck.
The reason for the Vogel - Broxtermann name mix-up could be this: A son of Anna Broxtermann and Johann Heinrich Freker was Georg Heinrich Freker. He was married to Maria Louisa Ruskauff. Their daughter, Louisa (Anna Elisabeth) Freker (born 1852) was married to John Vogel in 1876. These family lines made their residence in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was Louisa and John Vogel's daughter, Georgia Vogel Kleinmann, who was known to her second cousins in Wisconsin.
The above Ruskauff-Freker combination can be easily confused with another child of Anna Broxtermann and Johann Freker. Their daughter, Anna Elisibeth Freker, was married to Johann Conrad Ruskauff in 1846. Around 1865, Anna and John and their large family moved to Wisconsin where 2 more children were born (14 in all). These children and their children were in contact with their second cousins in Pittsburgh. Some of the children later moved back to Pittsburgh, and some moved to California.
As can be seen by a postcard from 1907, written by Rose Marie Bradley (writing from Pittsburgh) to her cousin Henrietta Mohelnitzky (living in Wisconsin), Rose Marie told of the news that their second cousin Georgia Vogel of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was recently married.
If anyone has documents which show that John Freker's wife was Anna Vogel instead of Anna Broxtermann, please Contact me.