Overall development
About 2 years ago I started the research of the emigrants whose destination were the United States in order to locate them and find their descendants. Beside the search in https://www.ancestry.com the research in the old newspapers on https://www.newspaper.com was a great source of information as well as the cemetery information on https://www.findagrave.com. As additional tool I used https://archives.com which uses a combination of various sources. Although I not fully understood how the systems did put the results together it was a great first source for further investigations in the family.
In addtion I was able to add substantial ancestry on my wife’s side due to the online availability of catholic church records.
All the figures given below are based on an update done on June 30, 2024.
Emigration from the Haerten and in total
Searching for the known emigrants from my hometown area, the Haerten, consisting of the cities, Immenhausen, Jettenburg, Kusterdingen, Maehringen and Wankheim, additional emigrants were discovered, which are not recorded in the book of Dr. Schmid and where the church records didn’t contain any hint about the emigration. The total no. of the recorded emigrants from the Haerten reached 1.089 persons. From this emigrants the death place is known for 593 (54,45%) persons and the burial place is known for 365 (33,52%) persons. You see there’s still some work to do in order to find the remaining persons.
As expected the women are more difficult to find as they change names with the marriage. If they are not mentioned in the obituaries of the siblings, it is more of a lucky punch if you find them. Different spellings of the name doesn’t make it easier. From some emigrated families there is absolutely no trace to find. Quite a high number of families could be well documented also with the support of family members I was able to get in contact.
The majority of the emigrants have settled in the states of Ohio (185), Michigan (59), Indiana (46), Pennsylvania (38), Iowa (34) and New York (30). On county level these are the top hotspots:
- Ohio: Williams County (71), Crawford County (36), Cuyahoga (12)
- Michigan: Washtenaw County (13), Clinton County (12) and Saginaw County (11)
- Indiana: Blackford County (12), Allen County (6) and Spencer County (5).
Kemmler emigrants
Beside the majority of known emigrants I have discovered quit a no. of new emigrants mainly coming from the Eastern European countries which need further investigations. Among them are as well some Jewish emigrants from Latvia, Russia and the Ukraine which also need additional research about their linkage to the Kemmler name.
From the 330 recorded Kemmler emigrants 262 emigrated to the U.S., 18 to Romania and 14 to Switzerland.
For 37 persons I’m currently missing any information about their parents and I would need to research other information sources to link them to the existing ancestry trees.
The majority of the emigrants came from Wankheim (24), Ohmenhausen (20), Betzingen (18) und Goenningen (18).
Kemmler in the USA
Starting point for the research were naturally the known emigrants from the Haerten area and in the counties of Tuebingen and Reutlingen.
It turned out that the research I had performed in Hessen about the Kemmler lines in the area of Burghaun and Rothenkirchen as well as in the surrounding cities was extremely helpful. It allowed me to link the found persons directly to their German ancestors.
In Hessen there are no family register sheets as in Baden-Wuerttemberg, where the emigration was usually recorded. In that area exist only baptism, marriage and death register records were normally these events are not recorded.
The official emigration records in the state archive of Hessen only cover a very small portion of the people who emigrated.
Currently I have recorded 6.171 persons which are born with the name Kemmler or the typing variations Kemler, Kimler and Kämmler, Kaemmler.
Thereof 3,577 (58%) persons were born in Germany and 1,514 (24,5%) in the USA. From the 749 persons with unknown or not recorded birth places is quite likely that most of them were born in the USA. The remaining persons predominantly were born in the Eastern European countries.
In Germany 2,483 persons were born in Baden-Wuerttemberg and 931 in Hessen and 52 in Nord-Rhein-Westfalen. On city level Rothenkirchen, Hessen (417) is the top place, very close to Wankheim (415), Goenningen (375) and Ohmenhausen (187) all in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.
From the 1,514 persons born in the USA, 358 were born in Pennsylvania, 282 in Illinois und 104 in New York. On county level McLean County, IL (81), Allegheny County, PA (55) and Luzerne County, PA (44) are in the top three. On city level the top four are Pittsburgh, PA (42), Lancaster, PA (32), Le Roy, IL (3o), and New York, NY (28).
The map I have made to display the places where the name Kemmler and its derivatives can be found is regularly updated with the current data. Please use this ArcGIS Online link to access it: https://arcg.is/0PS4eq
