Karl Gustav Grust 1802 – 1872

A hundred and fifty years ago tomorrow, on 22 November 1872, my fourth great grandfather Karl Gustav Grust (1802–1872) died at the age of seventy at Neuruppin, a small Brandenburg town about 80 km northwest of Berlin.

He was a Tuchmacher (cloth maker); a skilled worker in the textile industry.

The collection of the museum at Neuruppin includes a Stammbuch der Tuchmacher-Meister zu Neu-Ruppin, Neuruppin, 1584-1887, a Register of master cloth makers in Neu-Ruppin, Neuruppin, with entries from 1584 to 1887.

The importance of the guilds declined when freedom of trade was introduced in Prussia in 1810, and there was a diminishing number of master cloth makers in the register from 1887. I have emailed the museum to ask if the register lists my fourth great grandfather Karl Grust.

Karl Gustav Grust married Charlotte Wilhelmine Berg in about 1829. They had at least four children during their marriage.

1. Auguste Charlotte Wilhelmine Grust 1830–
2. Emilie Louise Albertine Grust 1832–1832
3. Auguste Henriette Amalie Grust 1835–1893 (my 3rd great grandmother)
4. Karl Gustav Grust 1839–1901

His daughter Auguste Henriette Amalie Grust was born on 28 June 1835 in Neuruppin, Brandenburg, Germany. She married Karl Detlof Albert Peters on 10 March 1859.

Gustav Grust’s grandson, Gustav Waldemar Alexander Karl (Alfons) Peters was born on 11 December 1860 in Alt Ruppin, Brandenburg, 8 kilometers from Neuruppin. Gustav junior, known as Alfons, was the father of my great grandmother, Helene Auguste Minna (Peters) Manock (1889 – 1944).

Neuruppin:
1. Holy Trinity Church. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. Photograph by user A.Savin, WikiCommons
2. Old Gymnasium. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. Photograph by user T.marcusson, CC 3.0
3. Virchowstraße. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. Photograph by user Radler59, CC BY-SA 4.0
4. View over the Ruppiner See to the Holy Trinity monastery church on Niemöllerplatz. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. Photograph by user Radler59, CC BY-SA 4.0

The guardhouse at the entrance to the Friedrich Franz barracks in 1908

Neuruppin was a planned town first mentioned in 1238 and founded by the Counts of Lindow-Ruppin. It was fortified from the 13th century. In the Middle Ages Neuruppin was one of the larger north-east German towns. In 1688 Neuruppin became one of the first garrison towns in Brandenburg. (It remained a garrison town until the late 20th century; Soviet troops were stationed there until 1993.)

On the afternoon of Sunday, August 26, 1787, a fire broke out in a barn filled with grain and spread quickly. Only two narrow areas on the east and west edges of the city survived. 401 houses, 159 outbuildings, 228 stables and 38 barns, the parish church of St. Mary, the town hall, the Reformed Church and the Princely Palace were destroyed. Neuruppin was rebuilt between 1788 to 1803, following a new design with long wide streets and many squares.

Frederick the Great (1712–1786), lived in Neuruppin in his years as crown prince of Prussia.

In Gutav Grust’s lifetime Neuruppin is associated with a number of notable people including the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841), the novelist and poet Theodor Fontane (1819–1898), and the pharmacist and founder of Beiersdorf AG Paul Carl Beiersdorf (1836–1896). 

In 1875 the population of Neuruppin was 20,000.

Related post:

• G is for Gustav (concerning the grandson of Karl Gustav Grust)

Wikitree:

• Karl Gustav Grust (1802 – 1872)
• Auguste Henrietta Amalie (Grust) Peters (1835 – 1893)
• Gustav Waldemar Alexander Karl Peters (1860 – 1904)

G is for Gustav

One of my great great grandfathers on my mother’s side was Gustav Waldemar Alexander Karl Peters (1860-1904), the father of my great grandmother Helene Manock née Peters (1889-1944).

Some years ago, when I began compiling my family history, I learned that my mother’s maternal grandmother was called Helene Manock, and had the maiden surname Peters, but I had no access to records that might tell me more about Helene  and the people on her side of the family through whom I am descended.

In recent years increasing quantities of German birth, marriage and death certificates have been digitised and I have been able to use some of this material to assemble and document more of my mother’s side of our family history.

German genealogy is difficult for me, and not only the language.  Well into the twentieth century German printed documents used the so-called ‘blackletter’ typeface, difficult for an inexperienced modern reader of German to understand. I also find the handwriting of the clerks who filled in the various official forms quite hard to read.

Below is the marriage certificate of my great grandparents Helene Augusta Minna Peters and Emil Wilhelm Manock (1883-1966). They were married in Berlin on 30 December 1911.

Emil and Helene around the time of their marriage

Name Helene Auguste Minna Peters Gender weiblich Birth Date 5 Okt 1889 Age 22 Marriage Date 30 Dez 1911 Civil Registration Office Berlin VIII Spouse Emil Wilhelm Mancik Spouse Gender männlich Spouse Birth Date 30 Apr 1883 Certificate Number 1328 Archive Sequence Number 362 Register Type Erstregister from Berlin, Germany, Selected Marriages, 1874-1920 retrieved through ancestry.com

The certificate records when and where Emil and Helene were born and the names of their parents. Helene was born on 5 October 1889 in Prenzlau, about 100 kilometres north of Berlin. Her father was Gustav Peters and her mother was Agnes Helene née Stern. The clerk spelled Helene as Jelena.

Helene Peters, born out of wedlock in October 1889, was registered as Helene Augusta Minna Stern. In 1890 at the time Gustav married Helene’s mother Agnes Stern he declared her to be his daughter .

Name Helene Auguste Minna Stern Gender weiblich Birth Date 05/Okt/1889 Birth Place Prenzlau Brandenburg Deutschland Civil Registration Office Prenzlau Mother Helene Stern Certificate Number 444 from Prenzlau Germany births 1874-1901 retrieved from ancestry.com

On 28 March 1890 Gustav Peters and Agnes Stern married in Prenzlau, Brandenburg.

Name Gustav Waldemar Karl Alexander Peters Gender männlich Birth Date 11/Dez/1860
Age 29 Marriage Date 28/März/1890 Marriage Place Prenzlau Brandenburg Deutschland
Spouse Agnes Helene Louise Stern Spouse Gender weiblich Spouse Birth Date 31/08/1861
Certificate Number 27 from Prenzlau, Germany, marriages 1874-1923 retrieved from ancestry.com

 

From this certificate I found that Gustav’s full name is Gustav Waldemar Karl Alexander Peters. He was born on 11 December 1860 at Alt-Ruppin. His father was Karl Peters and his mother was Auguste Peters née Grust. Agnes Helene Louise Stern was born 31 August 1861 at Prenzlau. She was the daughter of Christoph Ludwig Friedrich Stern and Charlotte Juliette Stern née Schmoll.

Alt Ruppin  is at the north of the Ruppiner See and is now part of Neuruppin, which is on the western shore of the lake. Neuruppin, 60 km north-west of Berlin, is the administrative seat of the Ostprignitz-Ruppin district in Brandenburg.

Prenzlau is 95 km north-west of Neuruppin and 105 km north of Berlin. Prenzlau is the administrative seat of the Uckermark District in Brandenburg state.

In 1904 Gustav Peters died in Berlin.

Name Gustav Waldemar Alexander Karl Peters Age 43 Birth Date 1861 Death Date 25/März/1904 Death Place Berlin Berlin Deutschland Civil Registration Office Berlin IX Certificate Number 542 from Berlin, Germany, deaths, 1874-1920

From the certificate I can confirm he was born in Alt Ruppin and married to Agnes Stern. I am sure there other interesting details on the certificate but I need to spend more time deciphering.

In 1945 Gustav’s sister, Charlotte Minna Auguste Paasch née Peters (1869-1945) died in Hamburg. Her death certificate is easier to read.

Name Charlotte Minna Auguste Paasch Age 75 Birth Date 15/Mai/1869 Death Date 24/März/1945 Civil Registration Office Hamburg-Winterhude Father Karl Peters Mother Auguste Grust Certificate Number 233 Reference Number 332-5_9955 from Hamburg, Germany, deaths 1874-1950 from ancestry.com

 

Type-written certificates of course are easier to read. This sort of vocabulary helps:

• ohne Beruf = without profession
• verstorben = deceased
• Schuhmachermeister = master shoemaker
• Lehrer in Ruhestand = retired teacher
• Eheschließung = wedding

I am very grateful to the people on Ancestry.com who supplied and indexed the certificates I have been  using. I would have achieved much less without their help.

It frustrates to me to not know much more about my German forebears. However, I hope that more records that shed light on their lives will come available and that I will learn more about their lives.