Second Generation



5. Claus Peter2 Schneider (Hinrich Caspar1) Claus was born November 15, 1788 in Fiefbergen, Duchy Holstein. Claus died January 14, 1837. In Blankenburg (Winning), Duchy Holstein at 48 years of age.

Bartha Jöhnk GottschBertha Jöhnk Gottsch
Bertha Catharina Jöhnk

He married Bertha Catharina (Juenke)Jöhnk in Duchy Holstein, December 5, 1828. Bertha was born in Duchy Holstein March 20, 1806. Bertha was the daughter of Hans Jurgen Jöhnk and Magdalena Dorothea Thee. She married Claus Göttsch in Tårnborg, Sorø, Denmark, December 22, 1844. Bertha died February 24, 1894 in Bennington, Nebraska, at 87 years of age. Her body was interred February 1894 in Bennington, Nebraska, German Cemetery.

Note: The following story has been passed down from different sides of the family.

Bertha's first husband, Claus Peter Schneider, was a gamekeeper for a member of royalty in Denmark. He came upon two men skinning a deer, and while he was confronting them, a third poacher killed him. Bertha remarried and her second husband, Claus Gottsch took over the position of gamekeeper until Bertha's eldest son Ernst was old enough to take over the job.

Recent research shows that this story cannot be true. No evidence has been found for Claus Peter Schneider being a gamekeeper. In the 1835 census in Gettorf parish for Wulfhaggener Hütten noble estate, he was listed as a "Tagelöhner," that is, a "day laborer." When Bertha Catharina Schneider arrived in Tårnborg parish, Denmark on November 22, 1844, she referred to him as an "Arbeidsmand," or "laborer."

Claus Peter Schneider may have died in Fiefbergen, Schönberg parish, rather than in Wulfhaggener Hütten, Gettorf parish. When Bertha Cathrina Schneider arrived in Tårnborg parish in November 22, 1844, she referred to him as "from Fiefbergen."

Claus Göttsch lived continuously in Denmark from at least 1839 until 1853. Claus Göttsch moved to Tårnborg parish, Denmark, sometime between 1835 and December 4, 1839 when he married Trine Stahl there. He appears in every census in Tårnborg parish until he departed for America in 1853.

Ernst Schneider lived continuously in Denmark from age nine in 1845 until at least age nineteen in 1855. Ernst Schneider appears in every census in Tårnborg parish between 1845 and 1855 (three censuses: 1845, 1850, 1855).

As with all family stories, until they can be verified you must take them with a grain of salt.

Extensive research on Bertha and Claus Peter Schneider, has discovered there is a grain of truth to the above story after all. Claus Peter Schneider was employed as a hireling or day laborer for the royal estate of Winning in 1837. According to parish records he met an unexpected and violent death on January 14, 1837. The records state "Claus Peter Schneider from Blankenburg (in the) parish of Moldenit. He died in Freymaurer Hospital. He allegedly left behind a wife and five children. Age about 40 years." This entry suggests who provided the information was someone other than his wife, Bertha.

A revised, more accurate version of the family story:

In January 1837, Claus Peter Schneider, an agricultural laborer on the royal estate of Winning in the Duchy of Schleswig, happened upon some poachers who shot and mortally wounded him. Claus was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Schleswig for emergency treatment and died later that day. Soon afterwards, Bertha and her five children relocated to Fiefbergen, Duchy of Holstein, and the village of her deceased husband's birth. Seven years later in 1844, Bertha and her four youngest children relocated to Denmark where she married her second husband, Claus Göttsch, himself a widower.

Claus Peter Schneider and Bertha Catharina Jöhnk (Juenke) had the following children:

    +6 i. Caroline (Lena)3 Schneider, was born July 5, 1829 in Duchy Holstein.

    +7 ii. Cathrine Margrethe Dorthea Schneider, was born June 28, 1831 in Duchy Holstein.

    +8 iii. Heinrich Detlef Schneider, was born March 28, 1834 in Duchy Holstein.

    +9 iv. Hans Detlef Schneider, was born March 28, 1834 in Duchy Holstein.

    +10 v. Ernst Christian Schneider, was born August 20, 1836 in Duchy Holstein.