Does anyone have any information on Henry Rong Family from Meckelburg Germany?

Question:

Does anyone have any information on Henry Rong Family from Meckelburg Germany?

he was born abt 1831 and was said to have changed his last name his wifes name was Rachel she was born abt 1835 and her mothers name was Margaret Frost.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: He came to the US in 1863.

Now here's the hinky part...in 1870 he shows up in Newton Twp, Miami, Ohio with a different wife...Eureka was her name. Rachel doesn't show up until 1880. The kids are almost the same, except eldest daughter is Amanda instead of the later Anna. Interestingly enough, though, his mother-in-law is Dora Frost and is living with them. So either Eureka and Rachel were sisters (the first daughter born in the US is named DORA, evidently after her grandmother) or Rachel and Eureka are the same person.

In1880 I did find your Henry living in the same county and with the (missspelled) place of birth listed as MacKelberg (s/b Mecklenburg). Joseph and Mary Frost and Willhelm and Dora Frost are their neighbors, with the same place of birth, and younger than Rachel just enough to be her brothers. The reason I believe this is that Henry and Rachel's children bear some of these same names.

The 1880 census is actually good news. If these were Rachel's siblings, then you have a point other than the name you think may have changed in order to do your search.

Many of the search engines in passenger list DBs just went down for maintenance. I'll check them later today and see if any of them show up.

If it were me, though, I would be finding out what church they went to when they baptized these babies and where they went to be buried. Whether Lutheran or Catholic, those records will be a goldmine to you...especially those pre-1870 because Ohio wasn't registering births routinely. Then check out the death records on each of these people and figure out the jigsaw puzzle of how they all fit together. In particular, was Rachel the mother of all those children, or the auntie of most of them?

Part II...

OK, on the Miami County GenWeb site I found his naturalization record. It's recorded by the probate court of Miami Co, page 6217. He used the name Heinrich Rongs. I have a feeling that would be close to the original German, which could have been Runge, Ronge, or Range. I don't see evidence of it changing. What is most interesting for your search, though, would be to pull the marriage record for his daughter Dora to determine if there were indeed two wives:

Rong, Dora C. M 1886 Marr Lic# 16947 Thuma, Jacob E. Mi

However, there's another piece of interesting record. In 1870, his mother-in-law was Dora Frost. In 1880 it was Margaret Frost. He has daughters named Dora and Maggie. In 1870 his wife was Eureka, but in 1880 it was Rachel. OK, so if Eureka died what happened to Dora? Ah...Dora is still alive and living very close. She's found living with Charles and Fredreca Schultz and their 5 kids in the same township of the same county. All the more reason to believe there were 2 wives, as there are clearly 2 mothers-in-law. All the more reason to look for church records.

BTW, the more I look at the 1870 and 1880 census records, the more I'm convinced most of the Germans from "MacKelberg" were interrelated. The naming tradition of the Germans was very stringent (oldest son name after father, next son after paternal g/f, then maternal g/f, etc) and the names of these children are repeated family after family. To see a second son and oldest daughter in 3 different families with identical names is VERY unique...too much of a coincidence.

I've also gone through all of the primary passenger lists from the 1860s and there's no sign of the Frost or Rong families. The Port of NY hasn't finished their transcription from Castle Clinton, so it might be a few years before we know if they came through there or not, but I also didn't find them in Baltimore or Philadelphia...not even New Orleans, though that's unlikely anyway.

The only census of Mecklenburg-Schwerin that I have access to is the 1867, so that won't help us since they already emigrated by that point. Give that another 5 years if you want an earlier census online, or see what the LDS has on film. Obviously the film won't be easily searched, but it may be indexed.

The other thing you might try is researching the Rotterdam and Amsterdam passenger records (not from the American side, but from the Dutch side). I never assume any German left from either Bremen or Hamburg. It was just as easy for them to leave from Rotterdam or Denmark. Mecklenburg was a much different duchy than say Prussia. Prussian rule was very dogmatic and rigid. It wasn't the same farther north and west.

Anyway, hope this helps a little.