Arndt family records/Stolp

Arndt is a common name in Pommern.

They aren't all related to us.

We don't know much about our Arndt relatives who stayed behind.

Two brothers of our ancestor August Arndt b. circa 1853 in die Loitz, Kr. Stolp. Pommern came to the US, but we have also lost contact with them. We don't know:

Their names

Where they settled

Whom they married

When they emigrated

(except that it was prior to 1913)

So there are also some Arndts relatives both in the US and in Germany whom we don't know.

Finding them isn't easy.

We've copied every familiar surname from the civil marriage records for Stolp, Pommern and surrounding villages from 1874 to1878, looking for the marriage record of our ancestor August Arndt so that we would be able to connect to his progenitor. We did not find his marriage and will have to expand the search to include 1879 -1881.

We discovered something that may work out.

There was an August Arndt living at #56 Königstrasse in the city of Stolp in both October of 1876 and April of 1877.

He was only a witness at marriages on those dates so there is not a lot of additional information about him in the documents.

We know that he was twenty-seven years at old both dates so his birthday would have to be in the months May through September.

Our August was named for the month in which he was born - August.

It makes the witness August born in 1849.

We aren't sure of the birth date of our August, but it was estimated at about 1853.

That's only four years off.

The witness August is listed as a glaser (glazier in English).

We know from other family marriage records that our August was listed as an arbeiter (worker).

These two classifications of occupation are not mutually exclusive.

The German's used arbeiter to mean someone who was gainfully employed, not to imply a someone who did menial labor.

August could have been an arbeiter who was a glaser.

Another witness on the October 1876 marriage document was Friederich Schwartz a twenty-nine year old shoemaker who also lived at the #56 Königstrasse address.

It might be that these are two bachelors sharing an apartment in Stolp. It's a big assumption and may not be true, but if it is true, it would mean that the witness August was not married.

Our August had his first child in 1881 so it would be likely that he was unmarried in 1876.

Just because our August was a farmer when raising his family it, doesn't mean he was one all his life.

We know our August did not own the farms they lived on.

So whether the witness August is our August or not, it's true in any case, our August as a young bachelor could have gone off to earn a living in the big city...in this case Stolp.

This exercise of trying to fit together the pieces of the puzzle is all speculation, of course.

Nothing is proved in this way.

In fact, in may be totally uncommon to have a trade in one's youth and then become a contracted tenant -farmer when raising a family.

If it turns out that witness August is just another one of those many Arndts from Germany that is not our kin, it's interesting but of no value to us.

However, this is not a dead end. It's more like an intriguing cul-de-sac.

There are other Stolp records we will be looking at, regardless of whether we keep the witness August in our family or not.

But if the witness August is our August we may have a connection here to our ancestry.

The marriage August witnessed in October 1876 was of a bride named Arndt.

If the bride is August's sister, the marriage record identified the bride's parents and those would be the names of our ancestors too.

If this is our August we not only will gain another set of grandparents but a great aunt as well.

If anyone reading this information has anything further to add about your knowledge of August Arndt, no matter how small, please pass it along.

We are in the right jurisdiction because the towns mentioned are the ones from our family records.

We're coming across the names of families who intermarried with ours.

Höppner

Steingräber

Trapp

Klohn

Birr

Beer

Hoffmeister

The records from Stolp look like a family reunion