WHAT ABOUT FRIEDRICH-WILHELM COLBERG, JR.?
Following the successful discovery of the family of Johann Colberg, after many, many years of research, cousin Gerhard Kolberg and myself had now successfully traced the descendants of 6 of the 7 Kolberg brothers - August, Heinrich, Johann, Otto, Paul and Ferdinand. We were pleased with our success and pleased with the shared connection between ourselves. The question remained, however? What happened to any descendants of the eldest sibling of the 6 Kolberg brothers? Where had these descendants ended up? How would we begin to learn anything new about this family?
Gerhard and I compared our records and pooled our information. What we knew was the following:
1. Friedrich-Wilhelm Colberg, Jr. had been the second son of Friedrich-Wilhelm, Sr. and Henriette Amalie Colberg. He was, though, their first son to survive to adulthood.
2. We had the following photo of Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr. and his wife who are standing behind his parents with the date on the back of the photo as being 1898:
3. Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr. had been born September 28, 1852 in Klein Tuchen, Kreis Bütow, Pommern and he was christened at the Evangelical church in Groß Tuchen on October 3, 1852.
4. He and his wife supposedly had had at least 6 children, whose names were unknown.
5. He was to have stayed on the family farm in Klein Tuchen when brother, Johann, relocated to Berlin and his other five brothers immigrated to the US.
6. He died in 1918.
This was the extend of our shared information and was not much to go on.
Over the course of the next several years Gerhard and I both did some research in the LDS microfilms both here in Michigan and in Berlin. With this research, we did discover some further data.
Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr's wife was named Hermine Melchert. Together they had 7 children that we discovered, namely:
1. Martha Marie Franziska Colberg, born May 28, 1882 in Klein Tuchen.
2. Paul Willi Colberg, born December 25, 1883 in Klein Tuchen.
Then the family must have relocated to the nearby village of Zemmen in Kreis Bütow because the next 5 children were born there:
3. Fritz Wilhelm Colberg, born May 27, 1885 and died April 21, 1886 in Zemmen.
4. Erich Ernst Franz Colberg, born November 12, 1886 and died January 24, 1887 in Zemmen.
5. Ernst Friedrich Paul Colberg, born January 17, 1888 and died February 5, 1888 in Zemmen.
6. Max Friedrich Adam Colberg, born November 1, 1889 and died November 20, 1889 in Zemmen.
7. Clara Marie Emilie Colberg, born about 1893 and died February 10, 1893 in Zemmen.
This information opened up new possibilities for us:
1. With 5 of their 7 children dying in infancy was it possible that the oldest 2 children died as well before having any children of their own? We could find no records of that happening.
2. If the 2 oldest children DID live through adulthood and had children is it possible they died during WWI or even WWII when many German people were killed while fleeing from their homeland?
3. Was it even possible that there were NO descendants remaining from the family of Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr. and Hermine Colberg?
It became evident that we had reached a brick wall. However, I have learned more times than not that one should "never say never". There is always hope of learning something new.
A few years ago something fell in my lap that I hope proves to be a connection to any descendants still remaining today from the family of Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr. and Hermine Colberg. A cousin here in Berrien County contacted me and explained that she was a granddaughter of younger brother, Ferdinand Kolberg. She and her husband were involved in genealogy as well and wanted to meet with me. They came to my home for some discussions and to my surprise brought with them the German photo album of her grandfather, Ferdinand.
They explained that when Ferdinand Kolberg and his family came to the US in 1910 that Ferdinand had carried with him this old photo album. Growing up she had seen this album many times and the family here always referred to it as "Grandpa's German album of his Kolberg family". There were 21 photos contained in this album. All were professional cabinet photos and were in mint condition. They were all taken in Germany, some listed the photographer's name and location, some were taken in Bütow, some in Stolp (a neighboring county), some in Berlin and other areas as well.
They allowed me to borrow the album and I scanned all 21 photos into my computer and then returned the album to them. There were no identifications on any of these 21 photos. I e-mailed the 21 photos to Gerhard in Berlin and he immediately responded that 4 of the photos were from the family of his grandfather, Johann Colberg. There was a photo of Johann in his military uniform, another photo of the wedding of Gerhard's parents and two other photos of daughters of Johann Colberg. The other 17 photos were unknown to Gerhard.
Later Gerhard wrote me that he thought 1 of the unknown photos could have been a photo of Johann Colberg's mother, Henriette Amalie Kautz Colberg, perhaps at an older date than the above 1898 photo. When I examined the photo I agreed with him as it was obvious the woman in the photo was wearing the exact same hat and she seemed to have the same posture and expression as in the earlier photo. We decided to go with that assumption that this was a second photo of Henriette Amalie Kautz Colberg:
Gerhard even shared the photos with another cousin in Berlin but both he and Gerhard did not recognize any of the other 16 photos. This led us to wonder that if some of the photos in the album were from the family of Johann Colberg was it possible that some of the rest were from the family of Friedrich-Wilhelm Colberg, Jr. Was it possible that the first two children born to Friedrich-Wilhelm, Jr. and Hermine did marry, have children, grandchildren and did they share their photos with "Uncle" Ferdinand for his German album? We didn't know but there was no other explanation we could think of for the identity of these photos given the album was always known as "Grandpa's German album of his Kolberg family".
The remaining 16 unknown photos follow. It is my hope that by posting these photos here that perhaps someone will come across my blog and recognize a photo or two and we can move closer to learning more about brother, Friedrich-Wilhelm Colberg, Jr.:
Of these 16 unknown photos, several contain multiple photos of the same person, making it obvious that whoever they were they did share their photos with Ferdinand Kolberg.
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