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The Netze (Notec) / Poznan Region of Northern Poland was a mixture of German and Polish speaking peoples. The Germans arrived here fairly early as the yoke of feudalism was lifting in Germany. This area is quite big and includes four areas that I am particularly interested in.

1. I am interested in Braunsfelde, Friedenberg, and Woldenberg in Neumark as that is where the Remus family was located after leaving Saxony. This began very early (in some cases about 1600) and many of these families moved on to West Prussia after the Great Northern War (ca 1720).

Many of my ancestral families seemed to have migrated into modern Poland prior to the Polish Partition of 1772. This likely means that they were invited in by the Polish noble families as many of the Polish villages had earlier been decimated in the Great Northern War. Items 2 and 3 list those families.

2. I am interested in the village of Szczepanowo (and related villages like Barcin) where my great grandmother Wilhelmine Haardwardt was born (and where the Andreas Pomerenke family lived also). My great grandmother's sister Amalie married into the Biedermann family; they were from this area too. The Biedermanns lived in Meirucin and initially attended the Parlin church (although I would guess they later attended the Kaiserfelde church). The Pommerenkes who traveled with the Haardwardt daughters above lived in Szczepanowo and Olscha near Mogilno. Later in the 1860's all the above moved to Volhynia and eventually in the 1890's to Canada.

Kreis Labischen was the county where the Haarwardt family lived in the generations prior to Wilhelmine Haardwardt's birth; they lived in Jesowo Hauland. Here is another clothmaker village, Tarkowo Hauland, from long ago. The Podjan family also was nearby in Rzywno.

3. I am also interested too in the cloth maker villages of Schokken, Radowanki and Rattai near old Kolmar cloth making center; these villages were home to the Krassin families. Near the above village was Kostrzyn, where the Martin Will family lived. Also the Martin Krassin family was in Kicin, Gottlieb Minge was born in Rabowitz near Schwerenz and other families in Jankendorf (Sokolowo Budzyńskie). These folks headed off to Volhynia arriving there in 1835.

Many of the other families of Faustindorf and later Romansdorf in the Ukraine were cloth makers who were first observed before 1800 in the Poznan area. These include the Hoffmanns, Lehmanns, Minges, Krassins, Henschels, Wills and Spitzers. However, the records in the Poznan area are spotty (Currently only I have seen only relevant records in the villages listed in the prior paragraph) so all the reasonable locations in the area will have to be searched in the future. The records for villages north of Poznan that need to be examined; they include: Obrzycko (Obersitzko), Szamotuly (Samter), Rogozno (Rogasen), Oborniki (Obornik), Pobiedziska (Pudewitz), Czerniejewo (Schwarzenau), Witkowo, Margonin, and even Poznan itself (Holy Cross Evangelical). So I will begin searching these records soon.

I am also interested in the village of Schoenlanke where the Schultz family of Alberta lived. They were part of the 1860's migration to Volhynia.

4. Also interesting is Gniesno since the bishop there had a great impact on the growth of Lutheranism and Murowana-Goslin near Posen because Karl Trugott Remus, noted pastor and author, was from the Remus family that attended that church and lived in nearby Przebedowo. 

The Remus family in West Prussia

The Martin Remus family of Danzig

Many families in Volhynia (but especially the Remus and Hoffmann families)

The Poll and Leverenz families of Vorpommern (the Baltic coast of modern Germany)

The ancestors of the Lundgren/Sanberg/Sanborg family of MN and SK

Would you like to see these places?

Remus@hawaii.edu