I copied this information from a web site to gives an idea of German, Prussia immigration. The info is below. The pictures. This is part of my families story. Some say they where west Prussian. Some say they where polish. Others say that my ancestral family was German. Records are sketchy at best. I have not found much info on before my family came to Canada. My family immigrated to Ontario Canada in 1844. They left Hamburg Germany stopping in Liverpool and onto Ottawa in the year 1844. before this date there is no information as yet on the Mielke family. I was researching about five years ago and it fell to the wayside. Being in isolation because of an illness outbreaks across the world has given me time to pick up on research again.

I did a DNA test here a couple of months ago. Just to see if it would come out to what my research was saying. The one I did with 23 and me seemed to be way off, but it did connect me with some of the family I have on my list who had done the DNA as well. I then did a silly thing and did the ancestry DNA test. They where spot on about the family and where I was from. Also pointed out that a first cousin I know was related to me. Not on the Mielke family but of the Leasa family. I will get into them in another story.

So now I decided to fill in my tree on the ancestry website. It is public there so anyone can see it. Dates are private on people who are still around so please do not worry that I have shared your info on line. As I filled in a name I started to get hints from the website. It brought more information to me and has added some things I had not gotten before when I put down my pen on these books years ago. Alas nothing more has come in hints from the Mielke family though. I do have so much more on my hubbies side of family with help from the website. a few from another part of my family on my mother’s side. But as I said theMielke family is sketchy when I look for them. There are so manyMielke families out there though. I have contacted with people in Australia and in the states who have the last name Mielke in their tree. I have not found the connection to them though.

So now for a little boring info I copied on Germany. Just to give an idea of how they may have live. What they had to go through. But you never really know do you.

Timeline:German history can be divided into the following time periods:• The First Reich 843-1806• The Second Reich 1871-1918• The Weimar Republic 1919-1933• The Third Reich 1933-1945• Post World War II and the Reunification of Germany 1945-1990-Present

Germany was a conglomerate of nobility areas including kingdoms, provinces, duchies and principalities. In 1789 there were over 1,700 independent German States. Germany did not exist as a “nation” until 1871. Social standing defined one’s rights and obligations in pre-1900 German society. The belief system was the Nobles were to protect, the Clergy were to pray and the Peasants were to work. Your station was believed to be determined by God and therefore unchangeable – upward mobility was almost impossible. Farmers were tenants rather than land owners and feudalism empowered those who owned the land. The largest land owners were the nobility and the clergy. As landowners, the Manor Lord was responsible for protecting his serfs. In return for cultivating the land, the serfs were obligated to provide to the Manor Lord: labor, produce, military service and taxes. As serfs, they could not marry, change occupations, or move without the permission of their Lords. Feudalism existed in some parts of Germany up until WW I.

The Protestant Reformation: 1517-1648:
Though the ground work was laid by many, the Protestant Reformation officially began in 1517 when Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Several wars came about as various rulers embraced differing religious views. The conflict ended 1648 at the close of the Thirty Years’ War through the Peace of Westphalia. Many Lutheran parishes began keeping records around 1540.

The Council of Trent and Counter Reformation: 1545-1563:
In response to the rapid growth of Protestantism, the Catholic Church convened the Council of Trent to clarify Church doctrine and establish Church policies. The Council was held in three periods consisting of 25 sessions, spanning almost 20 years. In session 24, it was decreed that a record must be kept of marriages and church sacraments, resulting in the keeping of Catholic parish registers around 1564. Another part of the Counter Reformation in the 1550’s involved pressuring many noble lords to control heretics within their jurisdictions. This resulted in the imprisonment, torture and death of Protestants. Thousands of non-conformists migrated, sometimes hundreds of miles, to areas where they were allowed religious freedom.

The Peace of Augsburg: 1555:
The Peace of Augsburg was the treaty between Charles V and an alliance of Lutheran Princes granting legal status to the Lutheran religion within the Holy Roman Empire. The Peace established Cuius regio, eius religio, “Whose realm, his religion”. The religion of the ruler dictated the religion of his subjects. Subjects who did not agree with the specific Prince’s decision were granted a period of time in which to move to another nobility jurisdiction to worship as they chose. Calvinist and Anabaptist groups living under the rule of a Lutheran or Catholic Prince found themselves in danger of being charged with heresy. Cuius regio, eius religio represented a subtle shift in power and went against the previous Catholic teachings that the king should faithfully obey the Pope. The new decree placed the religious leaders, to a degree, into a position of subjection to the will of the rulers. The Peace of Augsburg was shattered by the Thirty Years’ War.

The Thirty Years’ War and Peace of Westphalia: 1618-1648:
The Thirty Years’ War was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. The land was ravaged; homes, churches, and crops were destroyed. In Baden, one-half of all the buildings were razed, with its population forced to live in caves. Famine and disease followed the devastation and nearly one-third of the population of Germany died. In the Palatinate, it is estimated that only 50,000 of the original one million inhabitants survived. Population shifts occurred. Swiss immigrants settled in the decimated areas of Baden and the Pfalz. Youth were encouraged to marry young in order to work the land and re-populate the country. The Peace of Westphalia officially ended the Thirty Years’ War. The Reformed Church (Calvinism) received legal status as a state religion.

1799-1815: Napoleonic Wars:
The Napoleonic occupation wrought changes in German rule and record keeping, though most only remained in effect while Napoleon was in power. Napoleon enforced separation of Church and State and by 1806 had dissolved the Holy Roman Empire. He abolished serfdom in the areas he conquered and implemented civil registration – once again separating the affairs of Church and State. The French Republican Calendar was in use from 1792 to 1805. Most of Napoleon’s changes were reversed upon his defeat. Serfdom was reinstituted in many areas of Germany and civil registration was not mandated on a national level until 1876, (though in many areas the local governments saw value in reporting birth, marriage and death records and required clerics to submit a yearly copy of their church registers). The Gregorian calendar replaced the French Republican Calendar by 1806. Napoleon’s reign ended at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

Emigration Prior to 1800:
Influences on emigration/immigration prior to 1800 were religious persecution, economic, environmental conditions, (wartime destruction, severe weather, droughts, and famines), political conditions and the enticements of America – land, money and freedom. In 1762 Catherina II Empress of Russia opened areas within Russia for German colonization. During the American Revolution the Hessians fought for England and the Palatines fought for the Colonies. Many soldiers remained in America or were given land grants in Canada. In 1781 Joseph II of Austria opened the area of Galicia for German colonization and provided for religious tolerance of Protestants. As a consequence, thousands of families, mostly from the Palatinate, immigrated to Galicia and settled in newly-founded German-speaking communities in the country or as craftsmen in the cities.

Emigration after 1800 and the Industrial Revolution:
Some influences upon emigration after 1800 were mass production and overpopulation. The Industrial Revolution began in the 1830’s in Germany, though it was not until the 1870’s and 1880’s that it truly succeeded. A population shift occurred in Germany. People who a generation before had earned their living off the land flooded the larger cities to work in factories. Mass manufacturing threatened individually hand crafted items and goods. Political changes also affected internal emigration and immigration. The repeated calls for freedom, democracy and unity from the middle and upper class led to the failed Revolution in 1848. Faced with the choices of imprisonment or death, many of the educated and skilled middle class emigrated from Germany to America and other countries. In the 1700’s in many states in Germany it was illegal to immigrate. By the 1820’s immigration was legalized and in the 1840’s-1850’s many areas, on a governmental level, encouraged the emigration of the poor. The improvement in the conditions, cost and modes of travel had a positive effect. The voyage to American became more convenient and less expensive. By the mid-1890’s the number of immigrations decreased and internal mass migrations within Germany increased. Of all of the ports used by German emigrants, only the Hamburg Passenger List, post-1850, has survived. Fragments of records of other ports have survived.

So now that you have read all this boring info on Germany up until the 1850s. Something you probably didn’t want to read in the first place. It gives a little in site into how my great great grandparents lived. They may have been farmers. They may have lived under a clan or a ruler and all of the money they made went straight to the ruler of the area. I can only imagine what their life may have been like. Not many records where kept in that time.

The reason I am getting into this again is because of a tv show. I am not hooked on it but it is giving me some in site into how the people lived back many centuries. It gets me thinking about how my ancestors had lived. How many wars where raised because an emperor wanted more. Or how many feuds went on because of someone’s land should belong to someone else. Oh the tv show is Outlander. Watching kings being exiled and wars being fought over who should be king. How people where killed for the good of a king and their beliefs or religion. Being shot or hanged because you had your own opinion, but it was wrong to the opinion of the time. It just makes me think. In countries you still hear about the savagery of how they live their lives. So many people killed just to help a cause that may not even be the right thing. It makes me love Canada even more.

My husbands family is Scottish. They say further back are from another country, but I have not found that out yet, It makes me think what his family had gone through before they had immigrated. I have researched his tree as well and will get into it as well in a different post. For now I go with the Mielke family. I also ordered a DNA for him to do. It should be here any day now for him to spit in a tube. Hopefully I will be able to find out more once the DNA is done.

Now Federich and Minnie may have settle in Pembroke as Minnie had family already in the area. Minnie was a Krueger maiden name. Also spelled Crieger or Von Krueger or Kruger. Many different spellings and name. But you see there are Krueger’s already in the Pembroke area when Frederich and Minnie and Gustav age no more then five settled on a farm just east of Pembrooke. There are pictures in family albums, that I have seen, of Krueger family posing with Mielke family. So through a bit of researching have found some of the family of these Krueger family. They confirm the same stories as I have heard of the families being together in Pembroke.

Frederich and Minnie farmed in Pembroke for many years. I found the farm that they had worked. It is much bigger then when they had farmed it. Well I took pictures from the road from a description that dad had given me. So I think I got the right farm. I was in Ontario and took a trip with my son up to Pembroke one year. My son was not impressed as I was going to look at gravesites. Maybe visit with family in the area I did not know and just all out explore a little bit. And see what I could find.

There is still family in the area and I do some visiting. You believe that. This shy quiet person went to visit people I had never met before and chat about family past. They gave me stories and I did the same about my family. It was wonderful to hear about people who are related and I had never heard of before. The pictures I saw on these visit are such keepsakes to the family. I know down the line these pictures will be no more as younger family members will not know who they are and why they should have them. Always a sad thing to happen.

Gustav married in a church outside of Pembroke. Evangelical Lutheran church to a beautiful women named Minnie Koops or Kupsch if you want to go by the German spelling. Her family farmed just outside of chalk river. Gus and Minnie helped to work Frederich’s farm in Pembroke with Frederich and Minnie. When Gus and Minnie where given the gift of their third child. This is my father Walter. Gus and Minnie packed up the farm in Pembroke and loaded on a train and move to Ellice Twp in Perth county of southern Ontario. The family of Frederich and minnie, Gus and Minnie and children Alma Martha and Walter age not more then one year packed all belongings from Pembroke and purchased a farm in central Ontario. Hearing that there was good fertile land for sale there.

Minnie and Gus had six more children. Raised them on the farm just north of Sebringville. Nine children in all in this family. In this day and age to hear of large families like this. As the family grew and went on their lives of their own.

Frederich and Minnie passed on the farm in Ellice Twp. They are buried in St. John’s Lutheran church in Sebachill. Minnie was said to be blind for many years. I never met my great grand parents but have heard stories of them. I didn’t know my grand parents very well either. I was in the younger generation of the family and my grand parents were of the older generation. I heard stories from my sisters and brothers of their time with them. they sold the farm in Ellice Twp and built a house on my parents property. Where they lived until the death of my grandfather. My grandmother sold the property a few years later and went to live with my aunt in town. I would be about five or six when my grandfather passed. I can remember the pipe he smoked when he was in our house. And the mustach he had. Other then that I know nothing else. His adventures he had from a very young age traveling by boat to the new country to farming in Pembroke to farming in Ellice Twp. My grandmother lived to a great old age. When I was to be married she made the comment that I should never get married. I think she probably told everyone that. She was deaf in later years and missed many a conversation . Minnie and Gus are buried in the new cemetery in St. John’s Lutheran church sebachill.

The family was always close. All raising families in and around Perth county. Some had bought farms of their own. Others had worked in the city of stratford. But on any given weekend the families would get together and visit. The cousins growing and playing together. There was always family together and having a good time. Mind you there was the disagreements at times but they always came back together in the end. A great family unit of love. Always there if someone was in need.

Most of my aunts and uncles are gone now. Spirits of the past that haunt my memories. There is only one uncle and an aunt by marriage left of this large family unit. Cousin have spread and are not in contact much anymore. Funerals and marriages would bring us together. To chat about old times and life gone by. I still love to hear the stories, but they are far and in between now. being lost through the cracks as we are now the old family members now.

Isn’t this a beautiful picture. The family of Gus And Minnie Mielke on the farm in Ellice Twp Perth county Ontario. The family of Gus and Minnie Mielke. Children Alma, Martha, Walter, Esther, Albert, Florence, Dorothy, art and Fred. I am sorry may not have them in order, but this is love. A family unit that stuck together through thick and thin.

My life has brought me to travel afar to live. I was raised in Ontario and now live in British Columbia. It is not as big an adventure as the travels of my great grand parents, but an adventure it was. I can only imagine what brought them across the sea. A new country and new way of life and a new language to learn. They adapted and learned. They built a life, raised their family and they became Canadian building the country with their ideals and new ideals as well.

I guess my time of memory lane is gone for today. I love to share my family with you. I would love to hear stories back about family as well. If you are a mind to share.