Friedrich Riedesel (1816)

This Friedrich Riedesel was born around 1816 near the city of Stralsund in western Pomerania (Vorpommern). One secondary source pinpoints his birthplace as Glewitz (a village near Stralsund); there are other references to a  a place called Campe/Camper/Kamper which is at best a wide spot in the road. Local church records are spotty and have not been recorded by the LDS. We do know that the family name existed in this area by the 1500s and that the spelling varied between Riedesel and Rietesel. I have found no birth record for him so do not know any of his ancestry.

What we do know is that family arrived by the ship Main, out of Hamburg, in Quebec City in 1863. It left Hamburg on May 2. On board were Friedrich and Marie with children Caroline 23, Sophie 14, Wilhelm 9, and Marie. They appear to have gone on to the United States by 1864. The oldest daughter, Johanna, was not on this ship but is probably the “Anna” in an 1870 Census record.

Like many other emigrants from the Stralsund area, they settled in Dundee, Kane County, Illinois west of Chicago. Who they already knew there, we don’t know, but it is a safe bet that they were part of a chain migration. Both Friedrich and Marie disappear from public records I have between 1880 and 1900. Secondary sources I have seen give her place of birth as Nossendorf/Demmin, also in western Pomerania. I have the names of five children but more were likely.


Descendants