Berndt
Nilandt and Metta
Lestering, both born about 1650 in Gemen (near
Borken), Westphalia, are our common ancestors in Germany to whom many
of us can trace our roots. So far, we have identified 10,147 individuals in our family tree,
including over 7,000 thousand that were born in America. This website follows
the history the Nieland family line from Berndt
Nilandt to his son Johann Daniel Nilandt
(b. 1690) to his great-grandson, John Bernard Nieland (b.1713), to his
great-great-grandson, John Daniel Nieland (b.1740) and so on down through
the generations to the present time. We have found even earlier Nielands
in Gemen and hope to prove that they, too, are our ancestors.
Most of the history data presented on this website
is about the descendants of John Henry Nieland (1809-1888) and Elizabeth
Osterhold (1812-1890), three of which immigrated to America in the late
19th century.
John
Henry Nieland (1809-1888) and Elizabeth
Osterhold (1812-1890) had five children—all
born in Eschlohn, baptized in Südlohn and raised in Ramsdorf, which
is located in the Westfalen
region of Germany. All of the children were called by their middle names.
Three of John Henry and Elizabeth Nieland's children immigrated to America,
where all three married, settled in the state of Iowa, and raised families.
Their two other children remained in Germany.
John
Gerhard Nieland (1840-1919),
the oldest child of John Henry and Elizabeth Nieland, married Maria
Christina Nienhues (1842-1881) in 1866. They
lived in Ramsdorf, Germany and had four children, including two sons
(Henry and Bernard) who emigrated to America. After the death of Maria
Christina, John Gerhard Nieland married Johanna
Aloysia Holtwick (1846-1895)
in 1881. Together they had three more children, including one son (Hermann)
who emigrated. All three of the sons who came to America settled in
Iowa, but Bernard and his family later moved to Minnesota. By the 1950s,
when two of the brothers returned to Germany for a visit, there were
more Nielands from this branch living in America than in Germany. This
website includes the names of about 1,170 persons in John
Gerhard Nieland's descendant tree.
Maria
Anna Nieland (1843-1919)
was the oldest daughter of John Henry and Elizabeth Nieland, and the
first of the Nieland children to emigrate from Germany to America. She
and her future husband, Gerhard Boes
(1837-1915), arrived in America 1867, were married here in 1870 and
eventually settled in Sac County, Iowa, near the small town of Breda,
in Carroll County. Anna and Gerhard Boes had nine children. There are
about 5,622 individuals in Maria
Anna Nieland's branch of the family tree that have been identified
so far.
.Maria Gertrude Nieland
(1845-1912), the middle child of John Henry and Elizabeth Nieland, remained
in Germany and lived in Ramsdorf. In 1873 she married Christopher
Bernard Funke (1838-1918). They had four children,
one of which died in infancy. We have very little information about
the descendants of Maria
Gertrude Nieland (we only have about 109 names in the ancestry database).
We hope that our German cousins will contact us to help fill out the
story of her life.
Maria
Angela Nieland (1849-1925)
the youngest daughter, who arrived in America in 1870, was the last
of the siblings to emigrate. In 1873 Angela married John
Henry Hoebing (1848-1934),
an American born in Illinois, and settled near Breda, Iowa, close to
the farms of her brother and sister. Angela and John Hoebing had eleven
children, only five of which survived to adulthood. In 1882, they lost
their four oldest children in a diphtheria epidemic. The Hoebings moved
to a farm near Okarche, Oklahoma in 1902. About 993 members of Maria
Angela Nieland's descendant tree are included in the ancestry data
on this website.
John
Henry Nieland (1852-1949) was the second of
the siblings to arrive in America in 1869 at the age of seventeen. In
1875 Henry married Anna Berning
(1854-1883), a young woman from Iowa, and they settled on a farm just
outside Breda, Iowa. Together they had five children. Following Anna's
death in 1883, Henry married Anna Köster,
(1863-1933) who had also emigrated from Germany. As Henry's wife, Anna
Köster Nieland gave birth to eleven children. At the time of his
death in 1949, at the age of 97 years, Henry Nieland had more than 175
living descendants. We have counted about 2,065 individuals in John
Henry Nieland's descendant tree.
Friederich Kipp (1859-1928)
was the grandson of Maria Adelheid Nieland (1793-1861)
and Gerhard Henry Lübbering (1798-1840),
and a half second cousin of our immigrant Nieland ancestors. This branch
remained in Gemen for several generations longer than the other members
of the family tree. This website includes the
names of about 65 persons in Friedrich
Kipp's descendant tree.
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© 2010, Kay Buelt Davis and Elaine Pappe Lawson. All rights reserved.