Ok, so I guess it’s been around a year, maybe more since my grand-father passed away & as our family has gone through my grandparents belongings, they’ve come across an old Lutheran Hymn book w/ our last name spelled “Schoffelmann”. First name I can’t quite make out, mainly b/c it’s type is some funky lettering & there’s a little bit of wear and tear on it. But it got me thinking again about my family history.
On the research I’ve done so far, I’ve found out that my great-grandfathers name was John and his dad’s name John as well. He first came to the United States back in the late 1800′s.
Then I started thinking about that old Hymn book, with our last name being spelled with two N’s instead of one – so I Googled it – and wow, most of the results were in the German language. I’ve done many searches on “Schoffelman”, only for most of them to show a limited number of results – but this site seemed to open the door a little bit more – http://www.sdhistory.org/arc/naturalizationarchives/firstpaperslist.asp?start=83981
This site and my many other searches still hasn’t gotten me into contact with any one from my family tree back in Germany, but my hope is that some day I’ll that lead I’ve been looking for. So if there’s anyone in the family out there that’s had better luck than I have, please feel free to email me or comment.
~tj
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