Questions

A few inconsistencies/inaccuracies have emerged by this point regarding the Wedel family.  I have a feeling these issues may be tied together somehow, but I can’t say how just yet:

            1) Maria’s and Carolina’s names and ages on the Weimar manifest

            2) Identity of the mother of the young Wedel children on the Weimar

            3) Who was Johann Andreas Nachtigall and was he related to the Wedel family?

GRANDMA lists the following children of Peter Jacob and Katharina (Nickel) Wedel like this:

            1) Susanna, (05/14/1873 – 1958) (Married Andreas Ratzlaff

            2) Henry, (03/16/1875 – 04/21/1875)

            3) Eva, (05/29/1878 – 09/10/1879)

            4) Maria, (03/05/1881 – 03/20/1935) (Married John Andrew Nightengale)

            5) Carolina, (12/25/1881 – 10/17/1941) (Married Heinrich Unruh)

            6) Anna, (09/26/1885 – 1895)

            7) Elisabeth, (11/11/1887 – 01/28/1963) (Married Abraham Nightengale)

            8) Agnetha, (03/29/1890 – 10/14/1972)

First, the manifest of the SS Weimar lists Maria and Carolina travelling with the Wedels, but does not list Elisabeth or Agnetha at all.  According to the information in GRANDMA, both Maria and Carolina were in their 20’s and probably married by 1907.  Maria married Andreas Johann Nachtigall and Carolina married Heinrich T. Unruh.  If they were married by 1907, their last names wouldn’t have been listed as Wedel.  As far as I can tell, there are no Nachtigalls (Nightengales) or Unruhs (aside from the Benjamin Unruhs) on the Weimar manifest.  Also, the ages of the girls listed on the manifest are not correct at all.  Maria and Carolina both would have been about 26 years old in 1907 but the manifest lists them as 19 and 12. 

On the other hand, Elisabeth and Agnetha don’t appear to be listed on the manifest at all.  Their ages would have been 20 and 17 at the time.  Is it possible that the names “Maria and Carolina” were substituted on the manifest for Elisabeth and Agnetha’s correct names?  If so, why?  Is the information in GRANDMA incorrect? 

The next problem regards the 2 Wedel children that are listed in the Weimar manifest and confirmed by Marie (Ratzlaff) Penner.  The manifest lists Maria (age 6) and Heinrich (age 4), travelling with Peter and Katarina Wedel.  Marie (Ratzlaff) Penner, who was about 9 at the time of the emigration, tells us that these children were Peter and Katarina’s grandchildren.  Their mother, one of Susanna (Wedel) Ratzlaff’s sisters (left unidentified by Marie (Ratzlaff) Penner) had died and her husband, the mother of these 2 children, was away completing forestry service in 1907.  Therefore the children travelled with their grandparents.  Marie (Ratzlaff) Penner confirms the ages of the children listed on the manifest.  Who could the mother have been?  From GRANDMA’s list of Peter and Katarina Wedel’s children, all are accounted for and none appear to have died after having 2 children.  Maria, Carolina, Elisabeth and Agnetha are all documented as living in America.  Is there another Wedel daughter not listed by GRANDMA who died prior to 1907? 

In 1922, Andreas Ratzlaff sent some type of food remittance to a brother-in-law who remained in Russia.  The only possibility for this brother-in-law is the surviving father of these 2 children – the husband of the deceased Wedel daughter who was completing his forestry service in 1907.  No other brother-in-law of Andreas Ratzlaff could have still remained in Russia by 1922.  A postcard that was in the possession of my grandfather, Albert Ratzlaff, shows that Andreas Ratzlaff sent a food remittance to a Johann Andreas Nachtigall on February 10, 1922, via American Mennonite Relief (AMR) http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/A4572.html/.  Johann identified Andreas as his Schwager (brother-in-law), and listed his address as Pordenau, Sud-Russland (South Russia) (Pordenau was a village in the Molotschna Colony).  Johann indicated on the postcard that his family consisted of himself and his wife (“Mann & Frau”) and 1 child under the age of 15 years:

Did Johann remarry after the death of his first wife (the Wedel daughter) and reside in Pordenau, Molotschna after he was discharged from forestry service?  We know Maria Wedel’s husband’s name was Andreas Johann Nachtigall, and he would have been Andreas Ratzlaff’s brother-in-law.  Could Andreas Ratzlaff also have had a different brother-in-law named Johann Andreas Nachtigall?  Two brothers-in-law with almost the same name?  I also have copies of some letters that my grandfather kept with this postcard.  The letters are being translated at this time by the Mennonite Library and Archives at Bethel College in North Newton, KS.  Hopefully they will lend some information to who Johann Andreas Nachtigall was.