Heinrich (Henry) ROLFS

  General Notes:

http://www.erfde.com/gedcom/pafeng/pafg106.htm#1684

LOOKING FOR HENRY.


My interest in Family History, maybe I should say the passion began many years ago when I started researching my mother's family, it was a very enjoyable venture, made that little bit easier by the fact that mum's ancestors when they arrived in 1849, found their way out to Greensborough and didn't move much from that day on.
So it followed that I was born in that little town, the only thing different about me from the other children was that I had a foreign sounding surname, I grew up in my little Anglo Saxon community with the name of Valerie Rolfs.
As a child I was often asked, "Did I know where the name came from" and I was curious myself, but I could not find much satisfaction from my family, Gran would say brushing it aside " The family were Dutch" and so be it, the only oddments I gathered over the years was that this "Dutchman" was a sailor, and had jumped ship many years ago, I also knew dad had been born in Seymour in Central Victoria, as had my grandfather also ,and Mum and Dad had met and married when the family moved from Seymour to Greensborough .
And so the years passed, and with my own family grown, Family History became my passion and my mother's family was much easier to tackle than looking for a jumping Dutchman and the thought of looking for records in Europe put it in the too hard basket.
In the year 2000 I bought myself a computer to record all the knowledge I had discovered and to help me find more, although I remember being totally overwhelmed sitting in front of this brand new computer, thinking of the money I had spent and no clue as to how to use it, but what a joy it has been.
Then I was told of the Old Age Pension that was brought into being by the Government in 1909, but to qualify if foreign born you had to become a naturalized Australian, and so I went looking in the National Archives and there he was; Henry Rolfs of Seymour had been granted Australian citizenship in 1911.
Henry stated that he had been born in Bargen Germany, and had arrived in Australia in 1881 aboard the ship "Amalfi", and so began my search for Henry.
After much researching I found that Henry's ship did arrive in 1881 but there was no sign of him on the passenger list, so maybe he did as I was told all that time ago jump ship, the next we hear of him, he was working as a timber cutter in Central Victoria.. It was then he met my Great Grandmother Maria Rawson, Maria was an Australian born lass of Irish parentage who lived with her parents in Avenel just outside of Seymour and was at the time of meeting Henry working in a Boarding house in Seymour.
They married in 1888 in St. Paul's Church Avenel and then settled in Seymour where they raised seven sons, sadly their only daughter dying when only a baby ,so from then I was able to follow the family through time down to myself..
But this did not answer the question as to where Henry had come from, it did in part answer the reluctance I had encountered from my Grandmother to actually come out and say that Pops father was German, a sentiment leftover from the 1^st and 2^nd world wars, so I started looking for Bargen on the net and found at least three towns named Bargen, one of these towns was in the province of Schleswig Holstein, Germany so I very tentatively put a message on the Mailing Board for SH on Roots Web, asking if anyone out there had knowledge of a family named Rolfs.
Twenty four hours later I found the one man in the whole world who knew what I was talking about, I received an email from a man named Joern asking if I knew what Henry's parents names were, and there started five years of communication with Joern, he was an amateur historian whose family came from the same village as Henry and he was researching all the descendants of those original villagers, even to having his own website.
Joern did all the research on Henry in Germany, although when Henry was born, the village was in Denmark, so technically Henry was Danish.
Henry's Great, Great Grandfather Johann Rolfs was a Colonist in Friedrichsholm, Schleswig Holstein, Denmark; this means he was granted land by the Danish Government to farm. The land was swampy wetland under laid with peat, it had never been cultivated. To drain it, treat it properly to bring it under cultivation was a long hard process.
Johann and Engelke Rolfs had four children of which the eldest son Timm Rolfs became Henry's Great Grandfather, Timm was also a colonist in Friedrichsholm and he and his wife Trinke had six children, their son Hans also grew up in Friedrichsholm and married Trina Moers, they had five children but only one survived Henry's dad Timm.
So it was that in 1843 Hans and his family moved to Bargen on the river Eider, Hans, his wife Trina, his only son Timm and Timm's wife Christina, and here they purchased a house from Holm Claussen an ancestor of Joerns and Hans and Timm became Schiffers and Hoekers on the River Eider, this meant they owned their own sailing craft and traded up and down the river.
Timm and Christina had eight children born in Bargen and Henry was born there in 1857, all this wonderful information I received from Joern over the years but with Joern it was never a matter of 'if' you come to Germany it was 'when' you come to Germany and so I finally decided to take the plunge and go and look for Henry.
I flew to Frankfurt in 2005 and then travelled by train to Bremen, I thought I would see more by train, but it was a bit scary with no one speaking English, I was met by Joern's partner Birgit who took me to their beautiful home outside of Bremen, I stayed with them a week, during which time Joern took me further northwards to Bargen nearly on the Danish border.
We went first to Friedrichsholm to see the original house the Rolfs had occupied in the 1700's much changed of course but the owner of the house brought out a photo of the house the way it had been, complete with thatched roof, I now have a copy of the photo.
We then went to the church in Erdfe where the family have been christened, married and buried for generations.
When we entered the church Joern said to me "You can be sure you are walking in their footsteps when you walk in here"
In the church there is a model of a sailing craft about one metre in length, it was put there by the Schiffer Guild to honor the glory of god and inside the boat had been placed a list of signatures of members of the guild, and amongst them was the signature of Timm Rolfs.
Driving on to Bargen we came to the house that Hans had bought, it was situated on the banks of the river, a short walk down to where the boats would have been moored, as Henry grew up here, he too would have become proficient in sailing on the river and it would seem more than likely he was a seaman on the ship Amalfi when it docked in Melbourne and that he did indeed jump!
It was a wonderful trip, I am the most fortunate person in the world to have found Joern , when I got home he sent me a Family History of Henry's maternal side going back to the Twelfth Century and very pleased to inform me that he had discovered we were eighth cousins!
When in Bargen I filled a small bag with river sand and brought it home with me, then went looking for Henry's grave, which had not been visited for a long time I sprinkled the sand from his home over the grave and thought of the days when I wondered where the name came from and how I had found not only Henry but Johann, Timm, Hans and Timm Jnr. as well.
Henry's circle was completed.

Val Wilson
Great Granddaughter of Henry Rolfs.

Heinrich married on 14 Nov 1888 in St Paul's church, Avenel, Victoria, Australia.