Family members return to roots in Germany

FORT LORAMIE — A delegation of more than 50 local area residents — all with ancestral roots to Germany — recently made a journey to Lohne and the surrounding area looking to research the home towns of their ancestors and to learn about all the reasons why Germans chose to emigrate to the United States during the 1830’s.

In 2019, a similar group spent time doing the same thing in search of ancestral roots. At that time, they were all descendants of Heinrich Poppelmann who emigrated to Berlin (present day Fort Loramie), Ohio, United States in 1836. The group was comprised of 45 Poeppelmann family members. A highlight of that trip was the live connection with 40 family members who traveled to Northwest Germany to meet with Poppelmann’s in Germanyand over 500 relatives in Ohio who participated via live stream.

Based upon the success of that trip, the follow up trip was planned. The delegation visited Garrel, Cloppenburg, Damme, Vechta, Neunkirchen Vorden and other towns in the area. Many local names are of interest to the group includied Poppelmann, Albers, Hoying, Heitkamp, Bruns, Meyer, Pleiman, Puthoff, Sherman, Borchers, Hilgefort, Bornhorst, Barhorst, Drees, Bensman, Rethman, Hoying, Eilerman and others.

The group visited the ancestral home of the Poppelmann’s located in Grandorf, Germany. This is the present day home of Heinrich and Angelika Poppelmann. The property has been in the family name for over 700 years and was visited by the last group.

They also visited the ancestral homes of the Barhorst, Sudhoff, Borchers, Bornhorst/Bruns and others. Another stop on their tour was the Emigration Museum in Bremerhaven. This is the port where thousands of Germans left to come to America from the 1820’s to the early 1900’s including the Poeppelman family and the majority of other local families.

They went on tours of the Heritage Village located in Cloppenburg, Germany. The museum/village recreates a village and homes that existed during the early 1800’s in Germany and helps to understand the conditions of the local people at that time.

They visited the Poppelmann Plastics Company located in Lohne, Germany. This is a successful company that has operated in the plastics industry for the past 75 years. It is privately held by the family.

Some of the group visited Bergmann Farm Machinery who has been in business well over 100 years. They also visited various Catholic churches where the ancestors were born.

Other visits on the Legacy Tour included the cities of Munster and Bremen.

The event is a continuation of a life-long dream for Diane (Poeppelman) O’Connor who originally traveled to Germany as an exchange student in 1974.

According to Poeppelman, “During that trip, I was able to obtain a document of Poeppelman family history dating back to the 1200’s when our ancestor, who was a serf was involved in saving the Archbishop of Osnabruck’s life when he was attacked by highway robbers. For his bravery, he was granted his freedom and was able to own land and build a life for himself. This history has piqued a life-long love for family history and genealogy and years later my husband John and I were able to visit the farm and meet the present day Poeppelman’s who live there. It is such a wonderful feeling to make this ancestral journey for all of those traveling this year and I now have close to 100 people that have been able to check out their family roots.”

Immediately prior to the trip, most of the same people started in (Trip A) Munich for the Oktoberfest, and traveled onto Dachau, Eagle’s Nest, Neuschwanstein Castle, Salzburg, Dresden and Berlin. Directly after the ancestral trip (Trip B), about half the group continued on and did a Viking Cruise (Trip C) from Amsterdam to Basel, Switzerland. I think for all of them, this was a trip of a lifetime.