Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Response- Ancestors Who Lived a Life of Hardship

 If you haven't viewed the ever-so-popular Genealogy blog- Genea-Musings, check it out sometime because he shares of a lot of good information, tips and tricks of genealogy. One of his weekly posts is titled Saturday Night Genealogy Fun where he presents his audience with a genealogical question. Last night's question was: 

Ancestors Who Lived a Life of Hardship

1) Which of your ancestors lived a life of hardship or sadness? Who had few possessions or resources, involved in violence or war, lived through a famine, or suffered forced immigration? 

2) Share about one or more of your ancestors who lived a life of hardship in your own blog post or on your Facebook page. Be sure to leave a link to your report in a comment on this post. 

You can read Genea-Musing's full post Here.

Here's my response to this question:

The first person I instantly thought of was my 3rd great-grandfather, Gerhard Heinrich Jeckering. Gerhard was born on 02 Feb 1829 in Hanover, Germany. There, he worked as a carpenter. He immigrated to America before 1855 with his wife Maria Elisabeth Kluneman (1830-1912). 

Census records show that for some time, Gerhard and Maria Elisabeth went by more "American" names- George & Elizabeth. Although, on their gravestones, it has their true names.

I can imagine moving to a new country, not knowing the country and basically starting from scratch. In 1870, Gerhard was 41 and still working as a carpenter, living with his wife, 6 children and several other families. It's apparent that they don't have a lot of money. I can imagine that Gerhard wanted to trade professions, find one that would allow more freedom for him and his family because by 1880, he had purchased land, built a grocery store with an apartment upstairs for his family to live in. The store was called Jeckering Groceries, Flour & Feed. 

I did a separate blog post about the plot of land that Gerhard purchased, you can read it Here. 

Now, I don't know what Gerhard's net worth was when he passed, he was by no means rich but to have a successful business to pass down to your eldest son, that's pretty good, but it took many many years to get there! 

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