Surname: Hinz

Detail from the death certificate of Louise Hinz Buss

born 1854, died 1932

The Hinz surname comes to me via my grandma Gertie (Margreta Tjode Hedwig) Buss. Her grandfather was:

• Ludwig Hinz. Well, maybe that was his name. We'll study that in a minute. His wife's name is not known, nor are the dates of his birth or death. For now, let's just say that he was my great-great grandfather, and move on.
• Louise Hinz, who was born 17 March 1854 in Poland. A secondary source gives the place name Ladoest, but my cousin Mary and I have been unable to find a place by that name. We've considered the possibility that it may have been Lodz, but we haven't pursued that yet. Louise married Ferdinand Buss on 11 April 1881 in Fargo, North Dakota. They were my great-grandparents. I never met Louise--she died 11 April 1932 and was buried at the Protestant cemetery one mile west of Sheldon, North Dakota, three days later.

Now, about Ludwig, or what's-his-name. He had three daughters who emigrated separately to the U.S. In the detail from daughter Louise's death certificate, above, her birthplace is given as Poland and her father "Ludvig Hinst" is said to have been born in Germany. The informant was Edward Buss, Louise's son.

But let's look at her sisters' death certificates:

Detail from the death certificate of Eva Heinz Schmidtke Froemke

born 1850, died 1941

The informant on daughter Eva's death certificate was Mrs. Albert Froemke, Eva's daughter-in-law, who gave Germany as Eva's birthplace, and Poland as the birthplace of Eva's parents. In addition, she's named Eva's father Mike instead of Ludwig.

Detail from the death certificate of Amelia Hinz Kuehn

born 1879, died 1945

The informant on daughter Amelia's death certificate was Amelia's husband Ludwig Kuehn. He gave Russia as the birthplace of Amelia and both her parents, and he didn't know her father's first name.

Reader, let's not even get into the 29-year gap between the oldest sister and the youngest, except to say this: Louise, Eva and Amelia are sisters, according to family tradition, but it's possible that Amelia is actually a half-sister.

My cousin Mary has worked on this line quite a bit, and I'll share her findings with you in a later post. But to date we still don't have the records we need to answer our questions. Reader, if you recognize these names and can help us in our search, we'd be most happy to hear from you.