There is a heraldic picture of the Pofahls, see above. Johanna Pofahl found the picture. The interpretation of this heraldic picture is still lacking. Whoever has a good story : please provide it, so it can be put here. The Pofahl family has its origin in Pommern / Pomerania, formerly in the East of Germany, now partly Germany, partly Poland. Most probably the name has its origin in the slavic word "Potalani", which means "hilly, with mountains" ("hügelig-bergig") or from an indogerman ("indogermanisch") word for "Leader" ("Herrscher"). Pofahls lived in :
Neukoprieben, area Neustettin
Jagertow, area Belgard
There is a Facebook group "Pofahl Cousins" .
There is good material on http://compgen.de/ , "Verein für Computergenealogie e.V.", "Willkommen auf dem deutschen Genealogieserver",
A search for "Pofahl" ("Metasuche") will give you an ever increasing number of references.
From the original area there were migrations to the West and to overseas. The first people went to the "new world" between 1770-1795. The second wave swapped over during the 19. century, the last wave left after world war II.
There is a "Pofahl Lake" in Nebraska, USA, Madison County, Latitude: 41.993894, Longitude: -97.3903282 (Maplet)
About 230 Pofahls were listed 2002 in the (internet-) phonebooks : 118 in Germany, 92 in USA, 22 in Brasil.
Some known chronics (remarks)
Johann Friedrich Martin Pufahl , * 17xx in Klebow
Friedrich Pofahl, * 17xx
Johann Pofahl , * ~1800 in Pommern
Friedrich G. Pofahl, * 1830 in Pommern (derived from Pofahls in Minnesota)
Rainer Pofahl, * 1952 in Eberswalde
ALL the 28 cemeteries in western Kenosha County & Wisconsin and many others are on line :
The web-site "Find a Grave" is useful for research not only in Kenosha, but in general.
There is a good way to find "Pofahl" people on the site "ourpublicrecords" :
https://ourpublicrecords.org/public-records/
Johanna Pofahl from Refrath near Cologne in Germany did some research and has a large archive.
There is some info on the Genealogy Homepage about the name http://genforum.genealogy.com/pofahl/.You find about 100 Pofahls, when you do a search on http://www.familysearch.org/.
Some Pofahls went to the USA with the following immigrant ships (shipname, date of arrival, name, age), e.g. :
Bark Meridian, 1857-09-16, Aug. W., 40, Henriette, 40, Justine, 15, Emilie, 12, Ferdinand, 9,
SS Victoria, 1878-04-25, Ferdinand, 33, Frederike, 33, Herman, 7, Robert, 3, Bertha, 6Mo,
SS Silesia, 1881-07-18, Ferdinand, 42, Auguste, 30, Theodor, 8, Bertha, 7, Marie, 3, Emil, 9, Anna 70
In July 2022 more than 40 Pofahls are listed in the online records of Ellis Iland, where the ships arrived : http://www.ellisislandrecords.org/ .
Because the ortographical skills of the people, who wrote down birth and death in the church books, varied, there is a high chance, that the name "Pophal" (160 entries in Germany phonebooks) was also used for the same people, depending who was in charge to write down history.
I was inspired to set up this "Pofahl" page by many contacts from people with the same last name. I invite everybody to contribute to this page. If you have corrections or additions : please send them.
Pofahls on the web:
Regina Maria Pofahl, auf Facebook
Patricia Adad Pofahl
Paola Adad Pofahl
Alfred Pofahl, Germany
Andrea (Pofahl) Clinard, Illinois, USA, Pofahl Family Tree
Edson Lauro Pofahl, Brasil
Lars Pofahl, Norderstedt, Germany
Martin Pofahl, 31162 Bad Salzdetfurth, Germany,
Rainer Pofahl, Schwedt/Oder, Germany,
Michael Katona, Australia (his mother is a born Pofahl) had pages in the WEB for some time
and myself :
Ekkehard Pofahl, Cologne, Germany
Access to data bases and free software to build family trees and genealogy records http://www.familysearch.org/ and http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/
There is a promising genealogy software PhpGedView : http://www.phpgedview.net/de/about.php
The software "The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding© ("TNG")" seems to be good :