The Ancestry of the Krückebergs of Union Township, Adams County, Indiana
Where the Documentary Evidence Begins
In 1849 the family of Johann Heinrich Krückeberg emigrated from the village of Berenbusch, Schaumburg-Lippe, and settled in Union township, Adams County, Indiana. The following year the family of Carl Friedrich Krückeberg also left Berenbusch and joined them.
The trail of documentary evidence that reveals Berenbusch as the place of origin of these two Krückeberg families leads backs to two documents:
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the family certificate of the immigrant Carl Friedrich Krückeberg[1], and
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the Immanuel Lutheran, Decatur Indiana, founder’s biography of Johann Heinrich Krückeberg[2]
The provenance of the first document is given in its opening sentence: "Laut Angabe des hiesigen Kirchenbuchs…" (according to the local church register). The parish village of Petzen is identified at the bottom of the document:
Die Übereinstimmung vorstehender Angaben mit den hiesigen Kirchenbüchern bescheinigt den Auswanderern unter Anwuenschung des göttlichen Segens — sub fide pastorali
Petzen d. 23sten September 1850 Pede vacanti der vikarirende Prediger
Fürstentum Schaumburg Lippe.
L. Schwerdtmann von Bergkirchen.
English translation:
The foregoing statements are hereby certified as conforming to the local church registers and are issued to the emigrants with best wishes for God’s blessing, under pastoral authority.
Petzen, 23 September 1850. The parish being vacant, the acting pastor.
Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe.
L. Schwerdtmann of Bergkirchen.
While the provenance of the biography is not given, both documents are strictly religous profiles composed soley from the contents of the Petzen church register records involving the family members. They serve as an unofficial index of the Petzen parish records they reference. This is extremely helpful because the Petzen parish registers contain neither an index nor a table of contents.
They were Verwandte (Relatives)
We know that Johann Heinrich Krückeberg, who immigrated to Adams CO Indiana in 1849, was related to Carl Friedrich Krückeberg, who arrived there the next year. While there are many clues to their familial relationship in the Petzen church records, we can quote Carl Friedrich Krückeberg himself on this topic. When he petitioned the Schaumburg-Lippe Rentkammer requesting to sell his holding at no. 18 Berenbusch, he wrote:
As I intend to emigrate to America with my entire family, where several relatives of mine already reside and are doing quite well, I have sold my small new-settler holding, No. 18 in Berenbusch, to the shoemaker Wilhelm Meier, a native of Evesen, presently residing in Röcke.