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Note: christian heinrich 'henry' burmester was the recognized immigrant patriarch to new york city of a u.s. family. very little else was known about him within the family until the internet era. by the time his study reached fruition, we found he had a significant ancestry, full of triumph and tragedy. a known date of 1862/3 to canada became the ringing initial clue as we discovered the family in port of hamburg emigration records. several divergent stories came down regarding the immigration: either a storm took the youngest child(ren) overboard, or they were all a step away from death in an epidemic. what we found was that c.h.burmester and family, of the area near lubeck, were denied passage on the <i>sir robert peel</i> to nyc 4 days before boarding the <i>gellert</i> for toronto. this would imply disease; the ages of the 3 youngest children are underreported upon boarding the gellert, the names appearing for the last time. the storm story is thought to have been an attempt to hide the tragedy at toronto; a year earlier the ship had been quarantined there with 42 cases of smallpox and 4 deaths. this time, the ship's manifest apparently never made it to canada. however, port of toronto records began polling arrivals on sea conditions immediately after the gellert's arrival, with early entries reporting smooth seas and calm sailing. we commissioned uwe boldt of the lubeck family history society to find our family there, and enough documentation surfaced to provide a significant profile; henry was the son of hufner (farmer with at least 1 hufe, or hide, of land, the amount taken 30 days for 1 man to plow) jochim heinrich burmester of gulzow, lauenburg, schleswig-holstein, and maria-louise eleonore vogel of schwarzenbeck, granddaughter of goettinger medical school president dr. rudolf augustin vogel. his mother died when he was 4 and his father was dead by his 10th birthday. he appears in ratzeburg at domschule gemeinde, where he was confirmed in 1835. at his 1846 wedding in ratzeburg to johanna maria sophia 'sophie' rosenthal of lubeck, he is described as a citizen of the town and a brewer. at his emigration, he gave his occupation as 'oekonom,' (economist) which is a clever term for householder. the toronto city directory of 1863/4 lists him as a cigar-maker; he may have agreed to this work earlier, in hamburg, in order to achieve passage. a significant source on henry burmester's ancestors is <i>die vorfahren der elisabeth burmester</i>, the ancestry of his sister, by wolfgang billung for the schleswig-holstein famly history society, 2003. billung carries the burmester story back to early 18th-century hamburg where records show they came from. we had known that henry was deceased by about 1900, when he doesn't appear in family christmas photos. nyc records reveal henry died 1884 of athsma. his death record lists his mother as 'sophia leonore' which may have been intended to mean 'sophie eleonore,' with sophie being a generic nickname roughly equating to 'housewife.' henry's attending physician was dr. alexander kettembeil, whose daughter would marry henry's son william 3 years later. henry's descendants include as of 2005 a number of skilled entertainment artists and a los angeles fire chief, as well as a number of interesting personalities.
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