Origins of the Hausdoerffer Family

Dedicated to Sidra, Stefanie, Tyrus, Judith, Atalaya, Lindsay, Mira
and to Laurie, William Tyson, John, Stefanie, Sarah,

HI, my name is Alexander. I am a relative of yours from Germany and I´d like to tell you a short story of how you are related to these guys:

This is the family of pastor Hermann Hausdörffer, who lived from 1849 - 1920 in Braunschweig, Germany. From left to right you see his wife Elsbeth, (born Reuter), his little son Reuter (named after her family), his taller son Heino, sons Wilhelm und Alwin, father Hermann und at the right edge daughter Elisabeth. The picture is from 1892.

One of the children, Wilhelm, born in 1879, went to the see as a cabin boy. Later he became 1st officer on board the passenger liner „Milwaukee“ und finally he became a captain of the `Hamburg-Amerika-Linie´, a company that ran ships connecting Europe and the USA. Wilhelm married Stefanie Sitter from Alsace/France and settled in Hobboken, USA.
Later they had two sons: Sigismund Wilhelm (your grandfather resp. great-grandfather, born 1913) and Gerhard (your grand-uncle resp. great-granduncle, born 1916).
Gerhard lost his life in Italy during the last world war, in 1944. He had no children,
Sigismund Wilhelm was more lucky and lived for 98 years. You know him rather as Bill. I met him in 1988 during my first visit to the United States.

So why are we relatives and how am I related to pastor Hermann Hausdörffer?

Well, another of the children on the picture above was Reuter. He is my grandfather. His daughter Erika was my mother.
That´s how we are connected!
Erika sadly passed away this January, leaving all those recordings of our family history, including many historic pictures and documents. One day I may tell you more about the parents of the pastor and his wife. And what became of their other children...

best regards
Alexander


Me with my parents Erika and Alfred some years ago