Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Lilje

• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Sep 12 2017, 5:37:11 UTC

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We previously thought that Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Lilje (1836 - before 1912) had shipped off his sons Henry and August to the USA while he stayed in Germany. However according to this record on Familysearch he was aboard the "America" in Oct 1884.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-898L-3P8?i=1670&cc...

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https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KDSQ-1KD

His son Henry has a passport application where he also states that he went to America aboard the "America" in Oct 1884.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-99DD-K55P?i=113&cc...

So it looks as if they all went to the USA together.

During that era only the head of the family was listed on ships manifests, and the manifest for the SS America doesn't list the number of persons in a party, as some manifests do. On son August's 1896 application for Naturalisation he also states he went to the US in 1884 although he gave the date as May 1884. Possibly the entire family went over in 1884, and that (since there are no records of Heinrich subsequently in the US) he returned to Germany before too long leaving his two sons in the care of his brother, Pastor Christoph Lilje in Oak Harbor. Whether his wife went over, or he was already widowed in 1884 is an open question. The Gerdau church death register may hold that answers regarding the deaths of both Heinrich and his wife Dorothea.

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Lilje b.1836, the brother of [Johann 'Christoph' Lilje] & line in South.Africa [Johaann Heinrich Christoph Lilje]..

We know that Johann H W died before 1912 because his brother Christoph's Ohio obituary points out that he had only one living brother in Germany and that was Heinrich Friedrich who died in 1912 several months after Christoph.