Part 92b – Brunhammer Genealogy – A New Start

Good After Midnight,

As a number of you know, an initial part of my forage into genealogy; research and data collection were my first efforts with the Brunhammer Family. My reasoning at the time… the Brunhammers presented a stable, location-centric family. I being an immigrant and citizen, I thought that it would be "easier" to learn of an American family and their genealogy as I was living in the United States. It meant to me that I would have American resources at my finger tips, so-to-speak. I also thought that it may be easier to search after a unique surname, Brunhammer, versus my most common one, Smith.

Well that idea lasted back until 1875 and 1876, when the first Brunhammers, the Brunhammer line that I had decided to research, landed at Philadelphia. And that's the beginning of the story… the short version.

Mrs. Marie Bruhammer, (great-great-grandmother Mary Brunhammer), arrived in the United States and disembarked at the Port of Philadelphia on the 17^th of May 1876. Great-great-grandfather Jacques, (also known as Jacob) had to have been there to meet his family when they got off the steamship Amérique, (inserted above), after sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. All things-being equal they, Mama Marie and her six children boarded the Amérique at Le Havre after having traveled approximately 733 kilometers or about 460 miles across France from near Mulhouse.

Traveling in steerage with great-great-grandmother Marie were Charles – 12, Eugène - 7, Jules - 6, Jacques - 5, Marie – 2, and Camille - 1. As the years pass in the United States their names would be Americanized to Mary, Charles, Eugene, Geies then Julius, Jacob, Mary, and Thomas. Great-great-grandfather Jacques also becomes known, at times, as Jacob. The voyage began in Le Havre and proceeded across the English Channel to Plymouth, England and then across the Atlantic possibly to New York and then on to Philadelphia.

In our search we have not been able to find any migration information as yet for great-great-grandfather Jacques, but subsequent documentation confirms that he was most definitely in the United States, in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. As his family arrived in Philadelphia in May of 1876, we searched all passenger manifests hoping to find his arrival at a prior date. But the search has been to no avail, especially in light of the fact that we have not been able to find the records and manifests for the last four months of 1875. A trip to the National Archives in Philadelphia confirmed to us that the records for those four months are missing. And so a dead end… but he did come to the United States, and we have documented proof that he did live here.

The following are the introduction page and page listing the Bruhammers from the 1876 Steamship Amérique passenger manifest.

Sources: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1800-1882. 
Micropublication M425. RG036. Roll # 425_94. 
National Archives, Washington, D.C., and

Ancestry.com, Philadelphia Passenger Lists, 
1800-1945 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA.

My transcription of the 1^st image –

____delphia….

Name of Vessel, Steamship "Amérique".
Nation of Vessel, France..
Name of Master, A. Pouzolz..
Port Sailed from, Havre & Plymouth..
Number of Aliens, 176..
Number of Citizens, 88..
Consignees, Louis de Bébian..
Owners, General Transatlantic Company of Paris.

And my transcription of the 2^nd image –

No. – 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250
NAME OF PASSENGER. – Mrs. Bruhammer Marie, -d.- Charles, -d- Eugéne, -d- Jules, -d- Jacques, -d- Marie, -d- Camille
AGE. – 33, 12, 7, 6, 5, 2, 1
COUNTRY OF BIRTH. – Alsace, d, d, d, d, d, d
LAST LEGAL RESIDENCE. – Alsace, d, d, d, d, d, d
COUNTRY CLAIMING ALLEGIANCE – Alsace, d, d, d, d, d, d
OCCUPATION AND REMARKS. –
- no, no, no, n

The "d" or similar mark represents "ditto". Notice also how "Alsace" is designated as a "Country". And of course, this means some more research...

And this begins my research and search of the Brunhammer Genealogy. Feel free to comment or email me. Also feel free to subscribe to my Blog and receive current notifications of postings.

Enjoy,

Jim