Post a query (or information from any one of the above categories) on any VOIGT name or related family. Please give dates, and locations they lived. Try to give as much information as possible.
I do not have a direct VOIGT bloodline, but my Grandpa Emil Gohr had first cousins with the last name of VOIGT who lived in Iowa and Oklahoma. My grandpa died when I was only 9 years old, but I felt like I got to know him better after visiting several times with one of his first cousins, Fred Voigt, who lived at Tuttle, Oklahoma. On a three bus trips I made in 1977, 1978, and 1979, I also met quite a number of my other Voigt relatives who are scattered from Oregon to North Dakota to Minnesota, Iowa, and Oklahoma.
I am also grateful to my cousin, Don Sweaney, who moved to Springfield, Missouri (where I live) in 1998. His mother was Veneta (Voigt) Sweaney of Emmetsburg, Iowa. Veneta was the daughter of Charlie Voigt, and granddaughter of Fritz and Tina (Miller) Voigt. With Don's help I have recently (1999-2000) found some new leads on my Wegner and Miller families, and he has found additional information on his VOIGT family. He ordered some microfilms of church and civil records for Karnitz and Hoff in Pomerania which contain valuable information on the Wegner, Miller, and Voigt family lines.
I also have two other Voigt cousins who live in the Springfield, Missouri, area. One is Clara (Voigt) Peterson of Fair Grove, Missouri. I stayed in her home the first week I moved to Missouri until I could find a place of my own to live. Clara and her husband, Bob, have a farm and run beef cattle. Clara is the oldest daughter of Joe and Annie (Kishen) Voigt. She grew up in Oklahoma and northern Arkansas. Clara's mother, Annie Voigt, is still living at Harrison, Arkansas. She is 95 years old and still lives along. She will be 96 in January 2001. Clara's grandfather was Albert Voigt, the oldest son of Fritz and Tina (Miller) Voigt.
The other Voigt cousin who lives in Springfield, Missouri is Cathy (Scoville) Deckard. She is the daughter of Albertina (Engesser) Scoville, who lived here in Springfield, also. Albertina passed away in 1988. She was a sweet lady who I always enjoyed visiting. Albertina's mother was Bertha (Voigt) Engesser, also a daughter of Fritz and Tina (Miller) Voigt.
My earliest known Wegner ancestor is Ferdinand Wegner, who came from Karnitz in Greifenberg Kreis of the Szczecin Province of what today is Poland. This is in the area of Poland considered Farther Pomerania. Looking on a map, Karnitz is northwest of the town of Greifenberg and close to the Baltic Sea. One of Ferdinand's children, Albert Wegner, was born at Drizo, Germany (Pomerania), a neighboring town of Karnitz. Also nearby is the town of VOIGTSHAGEN which possibly could be a place of origin for all the many interconnected Voigts which are found in the Karnitz area. Ferdinand Wegner's stepdaughter, Albertina Miller/Mueller, married Friedrich "Fritz" VOIGT in Pomerania before the Wegner family immigrated to the United States.
I have compiled one genealogy book which deals with the Voigts, Gohrs, and Wegners. It is called The Voigt, Gohr, and Wegner Connection (1986).
I have also placed updated information on the above families on the WorldConnect site with Rootsweb. The VOIGT database can be accessed at: http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=g-voigt
The WorldConnect database I have set up includes not only the known descendants of Johann Friedrich David VOIGT (1800-1874) of Karnitz, Kreis Greifenberg, Pomerania, who married Caroline Henrietta VOLTZ. *(Note: These were the grandparents of Friedrich "Fritz" Voigt who married Albertina Miller.). It also contains some other Voigts from Dodge Co., Wisconsin which could possibly be related. Also some Voigts from Saxony who settled in Houston, Texas in the mid-1800s.
My book also has information on 2 different Voigt family Coat of Arms. I cannot vouch whether either of these Coat of Arms specifically was assigned to the families mentioned in the book (the Voigts of Pomerania and the Voigts of Saxony), but it makes for interesting reading.
The earliest traced ancestor of the Voigts of Karnitz (at least in the line of Friedrich "Fritz" Voigt who married Albertina "Tina" Miller) is Johann Friedrich David VOIGT, b. 10 June 1800 probably Kreis Greifenberg, Pommern, d. 9 August 1874 Karnitz, Kreis Greifenberg, Pommern. He married Caroline Henriette Voltz or Voeltz.
Here is a listing of most of their children, all born in Karnitz and recorded in the Karnitz Church records on microfilm:
Wilhelm Friedrich August Voigt (18 June 1848-11 April 1937)
Emilie Ernstine Caroline Voigt (7 May 1850-8 Aug 1850)
Hanna Emilie Elise Voigt (3 Jul 1851-31 Oct 1851)
Albert Friedrich Ferdinand Voigt (16 June 1853-13 March 1923)
Johann Friedrich Ferdinand Voigt (18 Dec 1855-30 Dec 1855)
Gottlieb Hermann Friedrich Voigt (7 Apr 1857-11 Apr 1857)
Johanne Auguste Maria Voigt (9 Feb 1859-10 Feb 1859)
Maria Louise Wilhelmine Voigt (9 Jun 1860-27 Jun 1860)
Additional family sources record a Gus Voigt who was a brother of these and settled in Wisconsin. It is possible that he is the same as Hermann Friedrich Wilhelm Voigt, b. 13 November 1845 in Pommern, d. 6 December 1909 Watertown, Jefferson Co., WI and married Auguste Hoeft. This family is well-documented in LDS sources and appears to have lived in the right vicinity (Watertown, Wisconsin) to be the same as "Uncle Gus" Voigt.
Also, Wilhelmine Friederike Sophia "Minnie" Voigt, b. abt. 1835 Pommern, d. 3 December 1897 Lotts Creek, Kossuth Co., IA, was the mother of Friedrich "Fritz" Voigt whose descendants are listed in my book. She is known to be an older sister of the above children of Johann Friedrich David VOIGT.
Also in Johann Friedrich David VOIGT's obituary, it lists his wife, 3 daughters and 3 sons. So there were two more daughters besides Wilhelmine "Minnie" Voigt who lived to adulthood.
*Note: The 3 sons listed in his obituary would be: Gus, Will, and Albert. The 3 daughters would include Wilhelmine "Minnie" Voigt, but the other two daughters' names are unknown. According to some records submitted to the LDS Family History Library and found on the FamilySearch internet site, Johann Friedrich David VOIGT's wife's name could be Carolina ARNDT instead of Caroline Henriette VOLTZ. On some of the Karnitz records her name is also listed as Henriette Caroline Voeltz. It is possible that Johann also had a previous wife. The 3 daughters and oldest son, Gus, could be children of a previous marriage, as they are not listed in the Karnitz Church records.
Here is my WEGNER lineage which is my only tie-in to the VOIGT family. My ancestor, Emilie (Wegner) Gohr was a half-sister of Albertina (Miller) Voigt:
Individual surnames began to be customary soon after 1100 A.D. for the purpose of more specific identification. These second names were adopted from four primary sources: occupation, location, father's name, or personal characteristics.
Unlike the names of England, German names are of great variety, due mainly to the varying methods of fashioning them. This is because of the numerous dialects of the German language. The best known dialects are "Hochdeutsch" (High German), the language of educated speakers, and "Plattdeutsch" (Low German), the language spoken by the common people all along the "wasserkante" (water's edge) from Holland to the Baltic Lands. Names taken from ancestral occupation or from the name of one's village were formed by adding the suffix -er (Frankfurter) or by adding a preposition (von or zu). Because surnames were started in the Middle Ages, different spellings of the same original surname often exist.
The family name Voigt (Vogt), signifying an official position, is of ancient Teutonic origin, and is numerously found in the various municipalities and provinces of the Kingdom of Saxony in Germany, in Prussia, and in Pomerania. Some of the variations include Voigt, Voit, Vogt, and Vod. In Fance, it is spelled Focht. All of othese variations of spelling mean "Protector" (overseer, bailiff, steward) by the Old Langeboard Law. Henry I, Holy Roman Emperor of Germany from 919-936 A.D., was called Vogt, and his descendants after him. Those who ruled Saxony were called Vogts as the title for Stewards or Governors of the Holy Roman Empire.
The descendants of Heinrich II, called Voigt of Weyda, bore the title of Vogt of Weyda, Plauen, and Gratz. This title is still in use appearing as Vogtland, referring to certain tracts of land in southern Saxony. Vogtland and Plauen were ceded to Bohemia in 1547.
There were Voigts living in Saxe-Weimar as early as the 14th century, with the earliest reference being to a Christoph Voigt, who was burgomeister in the city of Zittau in 1512. Another was Daniel Vogt, a doctor at Hessen from 1668-1675. There was also a Michael Christoph Voigt, who was a pastor who held an official position at court. This Michael Vogt's son was Franz Ernst Vogt, born July 4, 1680 in Buckeberg in Schaumberg-Lippe. He was an auditor in the German Army under Colonel von Wedel. In 1703, Franz held an official position to Count Friedrich Christian of Schaumberg-Lippe of the House of Bourbon. In 1705, he was judge of Buckeberg. (The Boevers family which married into the Friedrich Voigt family and into the Gohr-Patzack family originated in Buckeberg, Germany. Boevers is a Low German dialect form of the High German Bauer or farmer.) Schaumberg-Lippe is just south of Pomerania and is the home of the Gensmers and other related families that I am descended from. One of the Gensmers, Louise Genzmer, b. ca. 1834 Alt Ruednitz, Brandenburg Province, Prussia, was married to August Voight, b. ca. 1829 in Prussia. This family settled in Dodge County, Wisconsin and later moved to Minnesota. To view further information on this August Voight family, see my Gensmer database on WorldConnect: g-gensmer Database
There was a Gabriel Vogt who served as Church Sachsicher in 1668. A George Vogt was a celebrated organ builder and built the organ at the church at Mark Randstadt. Johann Friederich Helfereich Vogt was a parson at Madelungen and Grossenlupnitz in 1722. A Daniel Vogt was born at Eisenach in Saxe-Weimar and died in 1836. His wife and two sons emigrated to Pennsylvania. A Christian Traugott Voigt was Herr Obersteiger (Superintendent of the Coal Mines) directly under Frederich Augustus, King of Saxony, pawn of Prussia. He died in 1842,. and his family emigrated to Houston, Texas around 1852. (Descendatns of this family are covered in my book as well as being listed on the WorldConnect internet site.)
On one trip to Germany, while sailing down the Rhine River, Marvin and Virginia Roeder, daughter of Fred and Adda Voigt, saw a huge sign that said "The Voigt Beer Manufactory." Currently there is a young TV and movie actor in California by the name of Jon Voigt. The ancestors of Friedrich "Fritz" Voigt came from Pomerania, a former German province on the Baltic Sea, now chiefly in Poland.
(Adapted from "The Voigt Family Name" found in The Voigt, Gohr, and Wegner Connection by Glenn W. Gohr, 1986, pp. 84-85.)
If you have queries concerning the VOIGT surname, you may post these at the Voigt Family Genealogy List which I manage.
Voigt Genealogy List is a part of the Rootsweb e-mail discussion lists. It offers free queries and discussion on the Voigt surname and variant spellings.
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Archived postings to the Voigt e-mail list can be found on the WEB at:
Post a query (or information from any one of the above categories) on any VOIGT name or related family. Please give dates, and locations they lived. Try to give as much information as possible.
An online genealogy forum for posting queries has also been set up specifically for the VOIGT family on GenForum. It can be found at the following address:
***Note***During the Fall of 1998, GenForum combined with Family Tree Maker, which means that all queries and information posted to that site becomes the property of Family Tree Maker. This is still a good site to look up information and get contact names for the VOIGT lines you are searching, but be advised that if you now post a new query or a response to something on that site, chances are that sometime in the future Family Tree Maker will include that information on a CD-ROM which they will sell for profit to anyone who is interested. I do not like the idea of someone else using my hard researched information and ideas and selling them for a profit without my knowledge. This same practice is evident on all of the Family Tree Maker pages which are found on the internet, if you will read the disclaimer notices on those pages. I recommend the Family Tree Maker pages as good look up pages, but I don't recommend posting information there. Similar things can be said for Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com which are connected to each other and seek to make a profit from genealogical materials on the internet.
Last updated June 1, 2003.
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