oldenburg-l - Nachricht 2008-01 00196

[Nancy Peeples <bouy(a)pobox.com>]

Thanks Debra for the reply.  The Miller name has been on many of the church
records that I have looked at.  Do believe that he even buried a few if
memory serves correctly.  The names you mentioned are also familiar and as
you know there are still a lot of German names in Charleston.  If you ever
come across anything on the Doscher/Bierfischer line I would be grateful for
any information.  I am living in Charleston now.  Don't know how to explain
there attending St. Matthews and not keeping the German culture.  Not one of
my father's 7 siblings knew anything about the grandparents before they came
to this country.

Bouy

-----Original Message-----
From: oldenburg-l-bounces(a)genealogy.net
[mailto:oldenburg-l-bounces(a)genealogy.net] On Behalf Of D.L.
MacLaughlan-Dumes
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 1:34 PM
To: Oldenburg-L
Subject: Re: [OL] Doscher/Bierfischer


On Jan 26, 2008, at 8:38 AM, Nancy Peeples wrote:

> Are there any others on this site whose relatives came to the south  
> from
> Germany.  My great-grandfather came to Charleston, South Carolina  
> around
> 1865-70.  I have had wonderful help from this site on tracing the  
> family
> back to Germany.  His name was Diedrich Martin Doscher b 12 July  
> 1841 in
> Sellstedt Lehe Hanover, Germany.  He married after coming to the USA
> Fredericka Marguarite Catherina Bierfisher b. Feb. 1844 Hatton,  
> Oldenburg,
> Germany.  They were Lutheran and met at St. Matthews German Lutheran  
> Church
> in Charleston, SC.  Charleston had a large German population and  
> many of the
> clubs that have been mentioned on this site were also here.

My great-great-grandfather Ludwig Müller was the pastor of St.  
Matthew's in Charleston for fifty years, so I'm pretty familiar with  
it. Sermons were in German until the late nineteenth century and  
church records were also recorded in German.

Ludwig was from Fischbach near Zweibrücken in Pfalz, so no connection  
to Oldenburg that way, but his offspring and those of my other German  
ancestors in Charleston (Jatho from Hannover) married several  
Oldenburg immigrants, the Melchers and von Ovens, who were from  
Kloppenburg and Bockhorn.

I have a small collection of church records from the St. Matthew's  
archives---perhaps 500 or so names---and while Hannover is the most  
common emigration origin for this congregation, Oldenburg seems to be  
well represented too. I'm working on a project to transcribe the names  
I have and enter them into a searchable database. If anyone here is  
interested I'll let you know when it's ready to search.

> There were no real German or other
> large ethnic neighborhoods in Charleston so people were assimilated  
> quickly.
> My father remembered some of his great aunts and they all spoke  
> German no
> English.  As far as I know my grandfather did not speak German at  
> all nor
> did any of his 8 children.

 From what I know of my own ancestors, most of the immigrant families  
still spoke German at home but the first generation born in Charleston  
were more inclined to English. Some switched to the other German  
Lutheran church in Charleston, St. John's, because its sermons were in  
English.

Some of the Germans in Charleston were also part-time inhabitants of a  
town called Walhalla, about 250 miles west of Charleston, where German  
language and culture were encouraged.

> I do not know why Martin left Germany to come
> here especially in that time frame.  There were other Doscher's  
> already in
> Charleston but none that we have determined to be close kin.  My  
> father also
> said that you did not let people know you were German when he was  
> growing up
> so the family never discussed anything about their lives there nor  
> did they
> keep any German customs.

That surprises me because of the exact opposite situation in my  
families around the same time in Charleston. It would have been pretty  
hard to hide their German ancestry when the church liturgy was in  
German.  But not all families are the same.

By the second Charleston-born generation I think English was pretty  
firmly established, and this was part of the decision the St.  
Matthew's congregation made to offer English as a primary language,  
though well into the early 1900s the church records were still kept in  
German.

Regards,
Debra
http://sakionline.net/familypage
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