|
Click on picture to see a larger version
The spelling of our family name is not meant to be confusing, but research has revealed the name was spelled both ways in Germany and the United States. This probably has more to do with the local idiosyncrasies of the German language than any meaningful change in the spelling.
Our branch of the Seyser/Seiser family has been traced back to my great-great-great-great grandfather, Johannes Seiser, born about 1733. His birthplace is unknown, but he married his first wife, my great-great-great-great grandmother, Christiane Marie Rost, on 16 October 1755 in Schwerstedt, a small village near Erfurt in Thurginen, Germany. The next two generations of our family were born in the same area of Thuringen.
My Ur Gross Eltern (Great Grandparents), Johann August & Henrietta Engel Seyser, were the only members of their families to migrate to the United States. When they migrated in 1856, they left behind seven or eight brothers, a number of sisters and many nephews and nieces in Prussia. For many years I was unable to find any link with Seysers/Seisers living in present day Germany.
In May 2001, Klaus Sprung, of Anklam, Germany, found this site and we were able to link our common Seyser ancestors. Klaus' grandmother, Margarete Seyser, was Johann August Seyser's grandniece. This makes Klaus and I third cousins, once removed. It is always exciting to find new family members, and almost overwhelming to find them after almost 150 years. He has since provided me with a tremendous amount of vital information on early and current members of the family in Germany.
KlausÕ aunt, Edith Seyser Sprung, another grandniece of my great grandfather, related a family story she heard that the Seyser family migrated to Germany from the north Tyrol area of present-day northern Italy. She also related that an early member of our Seyser family was a friend of the famous German painter Philipp Hackert and also Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the German poet and philosopher. Unfortunately, there is no way to substantiate these stories.
Johann August was born 6 June 1823, the third son of Johann Christoph Seyser and Dorothea Sophia Schindler, in Prenzlau, Brandenburg, Prussia. His father, Johann Christoph Seyser and his family, had moved to Prenzlau, about 200 miles north east of his birthplace, Schwerstedt, Thuringen, sometime earlier. Henrietta Engel was born 15 April 1820, in Schapow, a small village a short distance from Prenzlau, Brandenburg.
In Prenzlau, Johann August studied and worked to become a Schuhmachermeister (master shoe maker), the same occupation as his father. He and Henrietta were married 6 July 1851 at the German Reformed church. Sankt Johannes, in Prenzlau. The first of their seven children, Emilie, was born in Prenzlau on 26 May 1852. A son, Johann August Herman Seyser, was born in Prenzlau on 9 June 1854. Four other children, Luisa, August (my grandfather), Ernst and Charles, were born in Wisconsin.
For some unrecorded reason, the Johann August Seyser family decided to pack up and migrate to the United States. They arrived at the Port of New York from Hamburg on 6 June 1856 aboard the vessel Suwa along with 204 other passengers.
The family settled in the Town of Greenfield, a rural (at that time) suburban area near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Johann August worked at his craft, but also dabbled in other things like real estate and as a wine merchant. At one time, from 1865 to about 1890, he owned 40 acres of land in Milwaukee near what is now 51st St. between Morgan and Howard Aves. He filed his intent for US Citizenship application at the Milwaukee County Court House on 8 November 1859, still spelling his family name Seyser. His Petition for Citizenship was filed and recognized in Milwaukee Municipal Court on 10 March 1870. By that time, again for some unrecorded reason, he had changed the spelling of his family name to the present day version -- Seiser.
Henrietta lived to be 74 while Johann August lived to be 84. Not much is recorded about their lives, but what is available indicates the family was moderately successful even though his handwritten Will revealed very few tangible assets at his death.
The Seiser Family Web Pages below were prepared using the computer genealogy program Reunion ©. Clicking on the link below will take those of you who are interested to a fairly complete list of all their predecessors and descendants along with some basic information on each person. There are also links in this process to the families joined to the Seyser/Seiser families thorough marriage.
The earliest recorded data for the Seyser/Seiser family is 1733. The earliest recorded date in the entire database is 1665.
I hope you find the site interesting. Your comments would be appreciated.
Neal Seiser
5404 Seven Mile Rd
Racine, WI 53402-9747 USA
Email: kneelsei@wi.net
Seiser Family Web Pages
|
|
| |
|
