Havana Holzgrafe History Mystery

Evansville Holzgrafe Family

When I began my research into the Holzgraefe family three years ago, I noticed several branches of the family which immigrated at various times and settled areas from Richmond, Virginia to Sydney, Australia. My ancestors settled in Evansville, Indiana and immigrated from Haddenhausen, Minden, Nordrhein-Westphalia, Germany. As I researched the heritage of my ancestors and that of those who married into the family, I learned that for two generations my ancestors married into families who also immigrated from the Haddenhausen area. This was the case for many immigrants who want to keep their close ties to their homeland and friends.

Havana Holzgrafe Family

I have often researched the Holzgrafe family who settled in Havana, Mason, Illinois. The patriarch of the family was John William Holzgrafe who was born in 1809 in "Hanover" as it recorded in a family Bible. He and his wife had many children especially sons who were all given the first name of George and known by their middle names. There was  lot of information on the family on Ancestry.com and in the history of Havana as they had a great impact on the agricultural and city life there. I really did hope there would come a time when I would be able to find where they came from and how they might be related to my Holzgraefe family. 

Uelzen Holzgrefe Family

Thumbing through old documents I received from my Mother from her days of Holzgrafe genealogical research, I found a letter written by the late Dr. Robert Earl Holzgrafe of Evansville, Indiana. I never had the chance of meeting Dr. Holzgrafe, but my mother was in correspondence with him in the '80s. Dr. Holzgrafe was the Holzgrafe History expert of his day and was on the front lines of the research frontier. He even made a trip to Germany with a genealogical friend to meet the Holzgrefe family of Uelzen, Germany. The letter told of his findings in Germany which were sorely disappointing. Little did he know, he was looking in the wrong city. The Holzgrefe family of Uelzen were kind to him and wished him luck in his research. They offered him what they could of their history in the town and even gave a family tree. He included a copy of this tree in his letter to my mother which I have studied time and again. Holzgrefe cousins marrying each other, one Holzgrefe born in Uelzen and died in Quakenbruck, another died in Ohio and was a Major in the Salvation Army. The tree was very interesting, but yielded no fruit. I found the one who came to Ohio. He died with no posterity. 

The Crossroads

The other day, my understanding from the research done on my branch of the family, my research into the Havana, Illinois Holzgrafe family, and the family tree from the Uelzen Holzgrefe family all came together at a crossroads. I decided to look at the families of the wives these George Holzgrefe boys were marrying. George Heinrich "Henry" Holzgrafe married Anna C Deverman. The Deverman family came to Illinois from the area around Quakenbruck, a small town in the providence of Hanover. Other Deverman family members in Illinois married into the Heye family which also came from the Quakenbruck area and can be found on the family tree of the Uelzen Holzgrefes. So, I though I cannot prove it, I believe the Holzgrefe family which originated in Uelzen, moved to Quakenbruck and then to Havana, Illinois is not the same family as my Holzgrafe ancestors. The tree in Uelzen goes back to 1766. It could still be possible that the two families are related, but it would be very far into the past.

Proof

Proof? I have none. Only coincidental and circumstantial evidence. It seems very likely that the Havana Holzgrafes came from Quakenbruck, but the records in Quakenbruck from 1775-1835 are not available to me at this time. I have contacted the church in Quakenbruck in hopes that they may be able to help me find records indicating that Holzgrefes did live there and that John William Holzgrafe was one of them.

Pitfall

The only pitfall in my theory, aside from its assuming nature, is that the name is spelled "Holzgrefe" on the tree from Quakenbruck and Uelzen and yet it is spelled "Holzgrafe" in the Havana, Illinois records. But perhaps the family was illiterate and didn't know how to spell their own name. After all, German accents are hard to understand. Perhaps Holzgrefe sounds a lot like Holzgrafe. 

And so this Havana Holzgrafe History Mystery continues...