I have done several Blogs on the Revision Lists of Latvia. Most of the ones I have looked at have been in the German Colony of Hirschenhof where many of my mother’s ancestors lived. My mother’s mother was a Gangnus and that was a prominent family in Hirschenhof – at least for the number of people with that name if for no other reason.
From a review of my previous Blogs, I should be looking at:
- The 1782 Audit of Souls – also known as a revision list. From my recollection, this Revision List had different farm or lot numbers than the subsequent revision lists.
- The 1811 Revision List – only males are listed. So this is helpful, but not as helpful as the others.
- The 1816 Revision List
- The 1834 Revision List
This represents about 52 years and could contain about 3 generations worth of genealogical information.
Strategy for Research
I have found tht the easiest way to research these lists is by Ancestry. These lists are available elsewhere, but are not indexed. In the past, I have gone from the earliest Revision Lists to the later ones, to see how the families progressed. I then tried to summarize the information in a spreadsheet. Here is the format I used for my Fuhrmann ancestors:
This should be easily adaptable to the Gangnus surname.
My Gangnus Genealogy
It gets complicated as there were two Philipp Gangnuses who married two different Anna Evas! There are other complications, but I am hoping that the revision lists will straighter things out. 1782 is a good years as both Anna Gangnus and Johann Jacob Gangnus were young children then.
Johann Jacob Gangnus Born 1777
I ended up looking at the Raduraksti Site for information. After searching a while, I found this:
Here is the family I was looking for:
I have included the farms on either side. Here we see a second son, Johann George and a few other people living in the house. I can’t really figure out their last names at this time.
Actually, it appears that the other Philipp is living next door at Far #28, so that is a bonus. I was expecting Anna to be 2 years old, but she shows as 1/2 here.
When I compare the Philipp Jacob Gangnus family with my Ancestry Tree, I get this:
Here I have put the two families into a spreadsheet:
I was thinking that I descended from Anna Eva Gangnus, but it was actually her older sister, Charlotta Maria that I descend from. So, in these two close farms are 6 of my ancestors. I have them outlined in green. In my previous Blog, I looked at a match my mother had with a descendant of 4 year old Johann Gangnus above.
However, I now suspect that the first column ending in Maiga could be wrong. Not seeing Jacobina Magaretha in the Revision List does not prove that she was not a child of the couple above, but it does bring this line into question. Further, the couple would have been quite young when she was born. Having said that, the Gangnus Genealogy book published in 2003 has this genealogy.
1811
This is the revision year without women. First, I see that Philip Jacob is still around:
His first wife, Anna Eva Niclas dies, and he remarries in 1789. He has 4 sons living with him. Two of those sons have their own sons apparently. I think that one son moved to Farm 92.
Next, I need to find Philipp Gustav Gangnus who was born in 1747. He must be on the next farm:
By this time, Anna Charlotta was married to a Schwechheimer and had 9 or 10 children.
Here we see that the Gangnus patriarchs are still around. My ancestor Johann Jacob who was 4 is now 32 and has a son Gottlieb.
1816
A mere 5 years later. I started by looking at Farm #30 where I see that the widower Philip Jacob Gangnus is still living at age 60:
Here the men are on the left and the women are on the right.
Philipp Jacob’s second wife died in 1811, so does not appear here.
I have from my tree that that Jacon Gangnus married a Boehler as his first wife. He has Gottlieb and George by 1816, but Gottlieb died young. This does not fit in well with my Ancestry Tree:
There are three Georges in this tree. I assume that the George in the Census most closely matches Georg Michael by birth date. Gottlieb must be Philipp Gottlieb. I may have some of the relationships messed up here:
The relationships are a bit complicated due to a three generation household. It’s nice to get a peek into where my Gangnus ancestors were living in 1816. Here is a photo taken by a distant Rathfelder relative of a Rathfelder house in Hirschenhof:
I’m sure that you would have to imagine things looking a bit newer in 1816. Here is another view of the house from 1930:
My assumption is that this was a working farm at the time. It looks like the orientation of the barn has changed.
Gustav Gangnus in 1818
The above was from my Gangnus side. My Rathfelder side also has the ancestor of Gustav Gangnus. I have that he died in 1818, but another tree has his death in 1820. This latter date is more likely due to the 1818 Revision List:
I can’t make sense of the 15 year old boy. Here are the women:
I am not sure what the note is after Anna Christina’s age of 14 or why the ages are out of order. Is the 14 meant to be 1/4? I will take that to be the case. The Gangnus genealogy book I has Anna Christine born 1 Jan 1816.
The picture I get is of an elderly farm couple living with three generations of family, ready to pass the farm on to a son. Here are Farms 30 and 31:
Farm 31 appears to have been further divided.
Is there a stream going through the two farms?
1834
1834 finishes our 52 year tour of the Gangnus Family in Hirschenhof, Latvia. This is now 18 years since the last Revision List. The Farm numbers are now in Roman Numerals:
Philip Jacob has passed in 1818. This revision also has family numbers. 10 seems to be the number for Gangnus. There are fewer women on Farm #30:
For some reason, they missed the maiden name of my ancestor Jacob which should be Biedermann:
Note: only one name I have for her in my Tree matches which is Julianna and if she was born in 1802, she should have been 32 years old in 1834.
This shows that 6 children of Jacob were living in the household. The oldest 4 were from Jacob’s first wife Jacobina Boehler.
The 1834 Revision List Vs. My Ancestry Tree
Here are children from Jacob’s first wife:
From Jacob’s second wife:
Here the younger children had not been born yet. I descend from the eldest of the second wife.
Gustav’s Farm in 1834
Gustav passes in 1819, but here is the picture of Farm #31:
Here, the family numbers play a part as we have Family 10 (Gangnus) as well as Family 15 (Fischer) and 14 (Schwechheimer). I see what happened. Johann the son dies in 1821, leaving no male Gangnus of that generation. Johann was perhaps a widower at the time as no wife is shown. So there is a lot going on here.
Anna Charlotte Maria Gangnus Schwechheimer
I think I may have covered her in my Blog about the Schwechheimers, but here she is in 1834 on Farm 11:
Charlotte is 52 years old. There is also a Fischer on this property (Family 15). On the next page, there is someone from Family 16, but he had since passed away:
Here is Farm 11:
Charlotte moved from Meschlaider to Stinken!
The 1850 Revision Lists
I neglegted to mention above that there are also 1850 Revision lists, this brings us up 16 more years or 68 years from the original Audit of Souls. This is easily three generations of the Gangnus Family. This is making the Blog quite long, but hey, it does cover 68 years of genealogy – and from two different lines of Gangnus.
The 1850 List notes Charlotte’s death in 1847 at Stinken Farm 11:
Farm 30 in 1850
Jacob is still holing on to Farm 30 in 1850 at age 71:
Here are the women of Farm 30:
I’ll try to get this on to my Excel Spreadsheet to see if I can make sense of it.
This is a little confusing as I have that Juliane Biedermann dies in 1845. In fact, I have that Charlotte who was born in 1845 was Juliane’s youngest child. Further note is that my ancestor Johann Philipp had not married yet. He marries in 1855 and has my great-grandmother in 1856. My great-grandmother Maria Elisabeth Laura Gangnus marries in 1873:
This appears to be Maria or Marie as the older woman perhaps in Riga around Christmas:
Summary and Conclusions
- The Revisions Lists are like the Census and give a good snapshot into the Gangnus Family in Hirschenhof between 1782 and 1850.
- Between my lack of knowledge of German and my ability to read the writing, I am sure that I am missing some information from these Revision Lists.
- The connections of the farm listings and age at previous Revision Lists helps to link the information together.
- It would be interesting to compare these revision lists with DNA matches
- This is my 700th published Blog!