Need help with Magdalena Huckenberger dead end.

Question

I have reached a dead end with Magdalena Huckenberger. The only sources I have found for her are her two marriages, first to my ancester Martin Kerstetter in 1744, and second to Johannes Muller in 1760, a year after Martin's death. Both marriages were in what at that time was Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the first, at least, in Lebanon Township. I've gone through what few tax rolls there are for Lebanon Township in the 1750's looking for any name resembling Huckenberger without luck. Maybe I'll go through the rest of the townships too, but I wanted to see if anyone could help me find ANYONE with a name like that either here or in, probably, Germany in the relevant time period. Note that Ancestry.com profiles say she was born about 1701 in Obergimpern, Germany but without any supporting sources. Obergimpern was where Martin was born, but that doesn't mean she was too. And given that she remarried in 1760, I have doubts about the 1701 date too. Nevertheless, I thought I'd mention it. I can't find anything about her second husband either. Thanks for any help you can offer.

Answer 1

Please also take into account Switzerland: it seems like the name has also a base there: 

https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=100&q.givenName=magdalena&q.surname=hu%2Aenberger&c.birthLikeDate1=on&f.birthLikeDate0=1700 

specific: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:66V3-M165   and   https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FVN5-R86  as possible persons. Still a found person is no proof of evidence.  

Any luck with ship records ?

Comments

I didn't think of wildcarding my search like that, thanks! Switzerland would be a new one for me. I wonder how I can prove any connection with my Magdalena, if there is one?

No ship record has turned up in my search, but maybe if I do some wildcarding? I'd dearly love to find a family ship record.

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May be a connect could be made if some other family members (parents/siblings) would be found in the US as well. Unfortunately I failed to find any in that time in the online databases in Pennsylvania, I think Nebraska is to far off.

On the other side I was thinking also that Huggenberger or Huckenberger, could be also a German Hagenberger or even  Hakenberger (soundex) and then you will be overwhelmed with eastern German records...

So in the end we need to know more then her name and a guessed birth date to make a good connect in Germany. Any surrounding relative of her would help. I am fully aware that the records on your side of the oceans are as sparly at that times as ours. So needle in a haystack :-(

Answer 2

The name distribution map gives no hits for Huckenberger, but a few for Huggenberger in the region around Oettingen in Bayern: https://nvk.genealogy.net/map/1890:huckenberger,1890:huggenberger

Matricula has records for all the villages in that area. Maybe you'll find something there?

Comments

This is a cool tool I didn't know about before, thanks!

I'll look into Matricula. I wasn't aware of it until now.