Immigrant Ship NUREMBERG

Our Bernhard ancestors came to America aborad the ship NUREMBERG that arrived at New Orleans 23 March 1861.

The NUREMBERG was built by William Perrine,Williamsburg, New York, in 1854, for Charles Sagory, and was launched before September 1854. She was registered at New York 12 September 1854. Dimensions: 1086 tons; 180 x 37.5 x 24 feet (length x beam x depth of hold). She was intended for the Havre-New Orleans emigrant trade; her name was meant to appeal to German immigrants. She sailed in the Havre-New Orleans trade until at least 1861. The U.S. Civil War and the danger of Confederate commerce raiders forced many sailing lines to curtail or cease operations and to sell unneeded vessels.

On 27 March 1863, the NUREMBERG was sold at Le Havre by her American owners to the Hamburg shipping firm of Joh. Ces. Goddefroy & Sohn, who on 4 April 1864 registered her at Hamburg under the name BEAUSITE.

History Masters of the Ship
1855-1856 L. Melman
1857-1861 Gustavus Schneidau
1863-1869 C. J. S. Bruhn
1870 F. C. A. Storm

Voyages:                       Arrived
Havre-New Orleans          17 Oct 1855
Havre-New Orleans          21 Apr 1855
Havre-New Orleans          5 Apr 1856
Havre-New Orleans          21 Apr 1857
Havre-New Orleans          7 Dec 1857
Havre-New Orleans          28 Aug 1858
Havre-New Orleans          5 Feb 1859
Havre-New Orleans          18 Apr 1860
Havre-New Orleans          29 Oct 1860
Havre-New Orleans          23 Mar 1861
Le Havre/Hamburg          1863
Hamburg-Moreton Bay     5 September 1863
Hamburg-Moreton Bay     22 October 1864
Hamburg-Moreton Bay     6 February 1865
Moreton Bay/Callao         23 May1864/65
Moreton Bay/intermediate ports/Antwerp                                      22 August 1866
New Orleans/intermediate ports/Callao/Chincha Islands, Peru         1867/68
England/intermediate ports/ ...                                                    1869/70

The BEAUSITE ex NUREMBERG was condemned and sold at Montevideo in 1870.

I have no record of a picture of this vessel as either the NUREMBERG or the
BEAUSITE, one may exist in Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte
(http://www.hamburgmuseum.de/welcome_e.html or the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum
(http://www.dsm.de/DSM/edsm.htm) in Bremerhaven

 This history is based on information contained in an E-Mail from Michael Palmer
to TheShipsList-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2002 11:15 AM

Thanks, Michael

Kornthal Families sailing on the ship NUREMBERG

Several families who settled around Kornthal Church arrived in New Orleans Mar 23, 1861 aboard the ship NUREMBERG sailing from the port of Harve, France. These families were all from the village of Weingarten and had attended the same Evangelical Reformed church in Weingarten. The church records were preserved in the Protestant Church Archive in Speyer and a microfilm copy is available. These families include Bernhard, Duerkheimer, Foehr, and Sauerbrunn. They were related through marriage in Weingarten and some of their descendants intermarried in America.
  


A note on spelling of the names- in the church records Bernhard and Sauerbrunn are spelled the same as we spell them now. I have not found the Bernhard surname spelled Bernhardt when referring to our ancestors. There are many unrelated families who spell the name with "dt", but I have not found links between them.

In the German records Duerkheimer is spelled with an "umlaut u" - Ü - making the German spelling Dürkheimer. This spelling is difficult to pronounce for most non-Germans so it led to the large number of different spellings found in American records. Substituting "ue" for Ü is common and accepted practice in Germany. That is how  Duerkheimer came into common use in Union County.

Similarly, the name Foehr was spelled Föhr in Germany and was pronounced "Fair", thus leading to some records showing the name as Fehr. Substituting "oe" for ö is common and accepted practice in Germany.



Weingarten Evangelical Reformed Church where our ancestors worshipped, married, had their children christened, and were buried, viewed from the north

 Weingarten is located on the left (west) bank of the Rhine River about 10 miles (16 km) west-southwest of Speyer.  Weingarten translated means literally "Wine Garden" and is translated as "Vineyard".  While researching Weingarten I discovered that there are at least five villages in Bavaria and Baden so named. It was confusing at first but once the correct names were found, it became obvious which was the correct village.

Arms of the village of Weingarten

Part of the confusion came from stories I had heard that Weingarten was in Bavaria. Bavaria is located in the mountainous south part of Germany, east of the Rhine River. Our Weingarten is WEST of the Rhine. It turns out that the Kingdom of Bavaria controlled the area around Weingarten from about 1800 to 1874, but it was never a tightly integrated part of the Kingdom. Many laws and customs were different west of thew Rhine in what is called the Pfalz region.

List of Kornthal immigrants from page 7 of the passenger manifest of the ship Nuremberg, arriving at New Orleans from Harve, France 23 Mar 1861:

167	Durkheimer	Daniel	38
168	Durkheimer	Eva	38
169	Durkheimer	Jacob	16
170	Durkheimer	Valentin	9
171	Durkheimer	Peter	4
172	Hellmer	Joh.	26
173	Sauerbrunn	Jacob	45
174	Sauerbrunn	A. Maria	44
175	Sauerbrunn	George	16
176	Sauerbrunn	Eva	15
177	Sauerbrunn	Thomas	14
178	Sauerbrunn	Fred ^c	12
184	Fehr	Fr ^k	42
185	Fehr	Elise	42
186	Fehr	Peter	19
187	Fehr	Eva	17
188	Fehr	Marie	15
189	Fehr	Cath.	10
190	Fehr	Elise,	7
194	Sauerbrunn	Val ^n	27
195	Sauerbrunn	Ch ^ana	27
196	Sauerbrunn	G ^ge	4
197	Sauerbrunn	Thomas	2
198	Sauerbrunn	Val ^n	3 mo.
201	Bernhard	Peter	55
202	Bernhard	Suzanna	39
203	Bernhard	Michel	28
204	Bernhard	Adam	10
205	Bernhard	Peter	9
206	Bernhard	Jacob	3

Kornthal Church and Apollonia Duerckheimer Scharf

Feb 11, 2011



This is a photo of Saint Paul's Church, located at Kornthal, two miles south of Jonesboro, Illinois. Many of Leon Bernhard's boyhood stories involved the Kornthal Church. 

Kornthal Church

His Aunt Bertha lived about 200 yards northeast of the church and he would often play there as she had no children of her own and doted upon her nephews and nieces. Kornthal was the cultural and spiritual center for the Austrian/German immigrants who settled in Misenheimer Precinct in tthe 1850's and 1860's.                                                              Peter Bernhard and Mary Scharf farmed a 17-acre field just north of the church. The church today is not used for regular services, but is maintained by contributions from private indivuals. The church grounds are lushly shaded and bring to mind the socials and activities that were held here in the past. When Leara and I visited here in 2009, we were able to go inside and enjoys the quiet and peace inside. There is an old pump organ inside and Leara played several hymns from old hymnal we found on the top of the organ. When we visited, we were visited by the adjacent farm owner, a descendant of Michael Hehenberger, one of the founders of the church, who took a personal interest in our visit.  Checking the internet lead me to find a listing for The Kornthal Union County Memorial, Inc., Kornthal Church Road, Jonesboro, IL 62952

Apollonia Duerkheimer

One of our ancestors, Apollonia Duerkheimer, takes center spotlight today. She worshipped at the Kornthal Church and her children attended Sunday School there. Records of her life and relatives in Germany were difficult to locate. Daddy always said her name was Durkheimer and that she came from Weingarten. I have found her maiden name spelled a number of different ways in the records, including Berkheimer, Darkheimer, Dearkheimer, Derkheimer, Deustchheimer, Dierkheimer, Duerckheimer, Duerkheimer, Duerscheimer, Durckheimer, Dirkheimer, Dunkheimer, Dürkheimer, Durkheimer, and Durkhimer.

Her obituary was published in the "The Jonesboro Gazette" 25 Feb 1916: 

"Appolonia (Duerckheimer) Scharf died 23 Feb 1916, at the home of her son, Philip Scharf, in Jonesboro, aged 90 years, 11 months, 13 days, and was buried in Ebenezer Cemetery. Her funeral was at the Methodist church. She was born 10 May 1825, in Weingarden (sic), Germany. She was confirmed in the Lutheran Church as a girl. In 1853 she moved to Chilicothe, Ohio, and married there in 1854 John Bauscher. They had one son, John Bauscher, deceased. She married in 1857 August Scharf, who died in 1867. They had six children, five of whom were living, Philip Scharf, Frank Scharf, August Scharf, Mrs. Mary Bernhard, and Mrs. Emma Goss. She also left 30 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren."

Recently a number of parish register records from the Weingarten area have been published on the internet. While searching through the register for the Evangelische Kirche Weingarten (BA. Germersheim) I found documentation that answered a number of questions raised by previous research in American records. Weingarten, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany). The original records are held in Protestantischen Landeskirchenarchiv der Pfalz, Speyer, Bayern, Deutschland.

I have not found her emigration records, but 1880 census records in Union County showed Daniel

Duerkheimer and Apollonia Duerkheimer Scharf living next door to each other on farms in Misenheimer Precinct, Union County, Illinois. This Daniel had arrived in the United States aboard the same ship as Peter Bernhard, Jacob Sauerbrunn, Freidrich Föhr, and Valentin Sauerbrunn. The ship Nuremberg had sailed from Le Havre, France and arrived at New Orleans 23 Mar 1861.

Just yesterday I found the birth records linking Apollonia and Daniel Duerkheimer. Daniel Duerkheimer was born 2 Nov 1823 in Weingarten to Johann Phillip Duerkheimer and Maria Catharina Deubel. Appollonia was their last child, born 10 Mar 1826 in Weingarten. I was also able to locate reords for a total of six children born to this couple. Apollonia was named after an older sister Apollonia who was born 26 May 1816 and died 17 Jun 1816. One of our Apollonia's sons was named Phillip after his grandfather.

New Blog - Genealogy and family history

This blog is intended to provide a way to share genealogical "finds", ask questions, and develop leads. I hope it will be entertaining and well as useful.

My father used to say that he and his southern Illinois relations were "Hard Headed Dutchmen" refering to their stubbornness and German ancestry. I guess I am stubborn too, as I won't give up on tracing our ancestors. I searched for thirthy-five years to find the birthplace of Georg Peter Bernhard, my GG Grandfather, before I finally made a breakthrough. Once I made that connection, progress has been amazing.

My particular ancestry includes lines that go back to Germany, France, Norway, England, Scotland, Poland, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Ulster, and others. The past is truly a "Heinz 57" mix of cultures. There are Lutherans, Catholics, Calvinists, Puritans, Presbyterians, Campbellites, Hugenots, dissenters, Mormons, Baptists, and Methodists all jumbled togrther to make an american pedigree. Generally our ancestors were farmers, trademen, preachers, teachers, patriots, Tories, and soldiers, with a smattering of gentry mixed in after they emigtated to the New World.

Comments and questions are welcome.