Or as she was called by the family, Mina.

Mina was born in Dömitz, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany on the 28th of June in 1820 and was baptized two days later.1 Her parents were Johann Christoph Wilhelm Sachs and Ursula Margaretha Sophia Schult. In her picture on the right, she looks exactly like I would want a great grandmother to look, including that impish little smile.

Recently I have been able to search the indexed church records of Dömitz and expand Mina’s tree a few generations. So here it is now.

We have some pretty interesting German surnames to add to our family: Lütken / Lüthgen / Lütdan (apparently no one knows how to spell it), Schlein, and Schult. Schult has been on the surname list for a while, but these recent finds in the church records, make me more certain that the name is not Schultz, although I did see it in one record as Schulten.

Mina lost both of her grandmothers before she was even born. Of her grandfathers I have been unable to ascertain when they died. And, unfortunately for Mina, both of her parents were dead by the time she was almost 16 years of age, her father dying about 2 months before her birthday in 1836. She did have two sisters and one brother all older than her, the youngest of her siblings was 19 when they became orphans.

As none of her siblings were married when the last of their parent’s died, I am assuming that they were taken in by relatives until they were. Her sister Johanna married the next year to Christian George Heinrich Strempel.

In 1820 Mecklenburg abolished serfdom. While it is a good thing that this happened, it had  unintended side affects now that land owners were no longer responsible for the people who lived on their land. They reduced the amount of housing that was available, so the former serfs no longer had a place to live, land was not available for them to buy and farm for themselves, and work became much harder to find. About 250,000 people left Mecklenburg in several different waves of immigration. Many went to the United States, the rest went to other cities within Germany itself. The conditions at home left them very little choice. “Almost every third person from Mecklenburg left their home country, almost 90 % of them came from rural places.”2

Of great interest to me, is finding the answer to the question of how Mina and Friedrich Karl Isserstedt, who was born in Hessleben, Sömmerda, Thuringia, Germany, met. They were married somewhere in Germany, and came to America with 3 of their children who were born in Thuringia (where Hessleben is located).

Was Friederick in the military and somehow ended up in Dömitz? Did Mina leave home because of the conditions in Mecklenburg and end up in Fred’s neck of the woods? I am hoping I can find the answer to these question with more digging. I would especially love to find out where they married as there is no record in Dömitz of their marriage. It doesn’t mean they weren’t married there, just that I can find no record if it.

In 1855 the Isserstedt family left their residence in Wandersleben3 and made the long trip to America. Sailing from Hamburg to the port of New York. Eventually ending up in Plymouth, Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, where together they carved out a new home from the wilderness and prospered.

OBITUARY Mrs. Wilhelmine Isserstedt nee Sachs, one of the oldest settlers in this area, died on Friday in the home of her daughter, Mrs. Emilie Hamm, near Medford, at the age of over 70 years. Her husband, Mr. Friedrich Isserstedt, died about a year ago. She was born in Doemitz, Mecklenburg-Schwerin on 26 July 1820, and came to America in 1855 with her husband. At first they lived on a farm in the Town of Sheboygan Falls. Later they lived in the city for a time where Mr. Isserstedt has a shoemaker business. Then they again moved on a farm in the northeastern part of the Town of Plymouth. They lived there many years when they moved on the farm formerly owned by the deceased Chr. Komen where they lived until Mr. Isserstedt’s death. She is survived by a son, Mr. Fred. Isserstedt, in the northeastern part of Town Plymouth; three daughters, Mrs. Henriette Hoppe and Mrs. Emilie Hamm, Medford, and Mrs. Minna Kaestner, Town Plymouth. Another daughter, Mrs. Amanda Hoffmann, died several years ago. The funeral was held in Town Rhine on Sunday.4 [died 13 Aug 1899]

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Sources:
1. Sophia Catharina Willhelmina Sachs baptism, Taufen, Hieraten, Toter, Konf. 1835-1852 vol. 2, entry ?3, (1820) page 12, Stadtkirche Kirchenbuecher Church Records Evangelical Lutheran, Doemitz, Mecklenburgische, Sippenkanzlei, Mecklenburg-Schwerin: FHL Film #69078, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
2. http://www.emecklenburg.de/Mecklenburg/en/emi_intr.html
3. According to the passport records from Hamburg. Wandersleben is near Gotha, which is also in Thuringia, where their only son was said to have been born. Staatsarchiv Hamburg. Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2008. 373-7 I, VIII A 1 Band 00.
4. Wilhelmine Sachs obituary, The Plymouth Post, Plymouth, Wisconsin; [reprinted in ‘From Here and There’, 17 August 1899, page 1??, Historical Research Center, Inc., Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin].