Foreword, dear family, dear visitors
Foreword and invitation to join in: Do you have the name Pehlemann or Pehleman? Or are you a relative? Or your neighbor is one of them? Then you can read more about this family on these pages than you previously knew.
Allow us a short foreword, dear visitors to this website for the Pehlemann and Pehlemann family:
The history of the Pehlemann and Pehleman family, first written down by C. E. Walter Pehlemann under the heading "Pehlemann - a family", was given a second title by him:
"From the Mark Brandenburg and scattered around the world..."
How true. A family history spanning 333 years, written down up to around 1956 - the continuation will be here.
An occasion to look back, more than that, an incentive to focus on the history of the family and the great family tree in the entire genealogy from 1622 to beyond 2022, to process it and to continue it, i.e. to pass on the life and people of the family for over 400 years since the 17th century for future generations. To do this, you have to convey life data and summarize stories into a whole, which you put on paper from the life and a small or large biography of the members of the family(s), no, here on virtual, digital pages, because without stories that life writes, there is no life story... - logically, join in and help out here and later enjoy a completed family history!
Apropos foreword: This page will only be under construction in 2024; the family tree data and the family history will follow in 2025 in the password-protected area!
Feb 5th, .2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
Family Pehlemann and Pehleman - where did they come from and where did they go to?
The origins of the Pehlemann family lie in the Mark Brandenburg in the Oderbruch, which answers the question of where the family came from; for the question of the family's expansion and where it went, here is a brief overview of our origins and whereabouts:
• Zernickow near Seelow is considered the cradle of the family from 1622
• Berlin and Brandenburg to Königsberg is considered the first home in monarchical Prussia
• Bury near Quebec and Montreal in Canada became emigration destinations
• New York and the USA were chosen by another Pehlemann for his emigration.
• German South West Africa was another Pehlemann's destination: Namibia today.
• Verviers and Bolsward (via detours) were stops for another Pehlemann
• Bünde/Westfalen, Hösel/Düsseldorf, Koblenz. Mainz, Munich, Würzburg, Oberursel, nearest Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Jena to Steinberg/Baltic Sea (in German-WP), , this was my "journey" with my living places with the question: where is home or homeland??
For me it is Wiesbaden because I went to school there for three years and much later, from 1977 until my retirement in 2012, I lived in Wiesbaden, one of the most beautiful German cities, for over 35 years. There are probably good reasons for this, because the later head of our family, Fritz-Wilhelm Pehlemann, once lived in Wiesbaden, as did it his parents Wilhelm Albert and Emma Laura Pehlemann...
There are still many people with the name Pehlemann in Germany whose affiliation with our family is not clear, but the rarity of the name and the special spelling make it obvious - these people with the name are hereby invited to get in touch.
Google maps of today cannot be used for a geographical overview - here a map from 1650 is used for a picture of the Oderbruch in the Margraviate of Brandenburg at the time when Peter I. Pehlemann was 28 years old.
Feb 6th, 2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
Map of Brandenburg latest MDCL - The Oderbruch in the Mark Brandenburg with the place of Zernickow on the right in the lower half of the map around the red marker (Zernickow near Seelow [Selaw origin in my map]) - Map by Matthäus Merian († 1650) with measuring 53.5 x 41.5 cm in origin.
Ffrom the archive Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
A monument, they don't have that, the Pehlemanns and the Pehlemans...
...but they all deserve to be mentioned.
So I want to create some space under the Germania where some names can be mentioned as representatives of everyone in the Pehlemann family.
Not the Statue of Liberty from New York, but the Germania statue high above the Rhine river on the Rüdesheim Niederwald Monument near the city of Wiesbaden
Photo © Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
...some names representative of all:
• Amalie Pehlemann, née May, brewer's wife, Russia
• Carl Gustav Pehlemann Farmer in Bury, Quebec, Canada
• Eva Charlotte Pehlemann, qualified librarian in Stuttgart
• Fritz-Wilhelm Pehlemann Professor and head of the family
• Hugo Pehlemann, manager and farmer S.W.A. / Namibia
• E. E. Kurt Pehlemann, officer and theater director, Potsdam
• Lillian Victoria Olsson, née Pehlemann, Bury, teacher, CA
• Paul Pehlemann, farm worker from Landsberg/Warthe
• H .J. Walthère Pehlemann Director Kenniscentrum Bolsward/NL
• Franziska und Eduard Pehlemann, Geheimer Oberregierungsrath
• C. E. Walter Pehlemann, Director of Deutsche Bank in Berlin
• Erika Pehlemann, née Weißleder; thanking her, Walter P. was able
to set up after ww II. our family tree back to Peter I. Pehlemann.
• Wolfg... - no, doesn't belong here 😄
But not one only single name should ever be forgotten!
Feb 6th, 2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
A few digressions about the website
More than 400 years of the Pehleman and Pehleman family and their history, the approach and the task of bringing the global family closer to themselves disappeared into the nirvana of the Internet by May 2023. There was no interest at all in a family website, in family history and in the extensive family tree. So there was no light at the end of the tunnel. In spring 2023, the only decision I had left was to delete the old website along with its contents and carefully collected data.
An action that was quickly born out of deep frustration.
The time and the circumstances now remind me again of a family website with a construction site "Family Pehleman/n worldwide" and of the realization again with a password-protected website with all of Pehlemann's knowledge in a database. Digital genealogy, this time not only in the male line, but also with the possibility of presenting the female, maternal lineages and lines with unnamed names - a request from daughters who want to participate here and all want to find their roots. Of course, this won't happen immediately, but only beyond 2024 because of my ongoing eye and heart problems!
To do this, the website must be rebuilt - the requirements for modern websites have become more extensive:
• Data protection is required with selection on the first page view
• some cookies for functionality ONLY
• Responsive web design for different sized monitor or mobile phone displays
• Responsive not only for texts, but also for photos and graphics
• Multilingual websites that make it more pleasant for visitors to use multiple languages
• SEO optimization on the websites
• Password protection for different applications
• Script and database integrations
• There will be enough information and notification areas
• An open blog requires constant control and is therefore out of the question
• I will not install a CMS here
Only HTML on the web was yesterday! For the data-protected family part with all the data, documents and photos, you need adapted scripts, tools and databases, and a more modern website than the old Pehlemann homepage. I am confident that I can create a better website that will resonate with family members and online with those who have not yet contacted me.
And all this because of my age?! What a path for me, who still wrote with a mechanical typewriter and had profit-making in mind from an early age using a very old hand-cranked adding machine.
Feb 6th, 2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
Searching with our search engines vs multilingual websites
At the top right of each of our public pages you will find the input field for the search terms (several possible for better search results) for our new search engine, stop, plural: for our three search engines, a plus that was not available on the old website - because not everyone wants to read through or search through all the pages individually to find something, themselves or other names or professions or places or countries or..., or the Oderbruch, right?
But it should be noted that three search engines are available separately in the public parts of the multilingual family website: • if you have selected DE for German as your language, you should use German search terms • if you have selected EN for English for speech, you will not find what you are looking for with "Rathaus Bürgermeister" • if you are looking for NL for Dutch in your language, you should enter neither German nor English terms... Comprende...?
update 05.09.2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
Book printing option...
The multilingual family website that I have recently started to create should optionally be able to be printed without too much effort in the future with the entire German-language public part (publicly visible pages) with a clear layout, graphics, images and texts, etc. This should perhaps later also apply to a book printing of the English-language and Dutch websites, which, as I designed, form a part of their own in their language. It is a complex layout task.
The initial idea was to be able to preserve this as documentation while the website continues to develop. Then came the idea of being able to pass on the website as a book for a family gift. All of this also requires a lot of extra work that was not planned, but should pay off at some point.
Aug. 2nd, 2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
Editing and software for the family website
Two areas of the website must be considered here:
• the public part of our website and
• the protected part with the genealogical family tree data and family history.
However, further editing of the public part of the family website is only possible for all functions mentioned above after 2025 with the "ZETA PRODUCER BUSINESS software version from V. 16.8.6" - converting websites that have already been created backwards/downwards is not possible. Using software versions smaller than the BUSINESS software version for website updates may impair or destroy certain functionalities of the website.
For the password-protected genealogical part of the website with the database for the family tree data and family history, the predestined website software "The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding TNG" by Darrin Lythgoe from the USA is used, in the current version 14.0.5. Here too, a later downgrade is not permitted or not possible.
After 2025 (and incorporation of the data into the TNG database), the public website can still only be edited and hosted by an admin; the password-protected TNG and database part behind the website should then be able to be edited by several people.
Please use the extensions .docx or odt when sending text documents. For PDF files, please be sure to use software that creates searchable AND editable PDFs (important for digital archiving)! I use Tungsten Kofax Power PDF Advanced V. 5.0 because it enables more effective work than my older Adobe Acrobat 8 pro.
When OCR scanning documents, check whether it is better to save searchable AND editable PDFs as well as docx or odt documents with one scan. This saves several employees some work after the document has been distributed.
Photos and images should, if possible, be sent larger or equal to 1920 x 1080 px in decent quality. The JPG format is sufficient - the PNG, TIFF and BMP formats must be converted to JPG by the site admin. The admin is also responsible for reducing files with a large MB size to sufficiently large files with a smaller KB size.
WebP, GIF and vector graphics should only be used for necessary purposes.
update 05.09.2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
Notes on the side - being here with us is everything, almost...
Password access for everyone and strangers? That needs restrictions. Anyone (including third parties) who is interested in our family background is always welcome to send inquiries (by email only) (a response can take a few days, please understand); the interest and family connection should be made plausibly understandable for the first contact, thank you.
How do you even get access to one or the other password-protected area: see & click here or here,
Rules? Show private photos to everyone on the web? No or OK for your photos. Make messages visible to everyone? No or OK for your messages!
We hope that this alone will give you an understanding of the need for guidelines. And because the topic will probably come up more often: The Yahoo search engine for the USA and Canada will not give preference to purely German-language websites to searchers there.
Hence the idea for a multilingual website, in German for local website users and Dutch for the Dutch, English for website users in the "New World".
There is no automatic translation. So many of our texts were translated into English and Dutch using Google Translate.
Of course, this leads to errors, for which I apologize - but I would still like to thank the technology for this translator and Google, who make this possible for free even on a larger scale, in contrast to extensive translations via DeepL.
A word about French in Canada: another language would have meant a lot more work for me, time that I would rather invest in family documentation and drawing up a family tree.
Please forgive me.
Feb. 12th, 2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
Back to the topic of the Pehlemann & Pehleman family - 400 years since 1622 and since Peter I.
You can see how much work goes into everything by looking at the large number of first names and last names as well as the list of place and city, country and region on a separate page; only with Lillian, Andrea. Ernst, Karl, Beatrix, Peter, Rudolf as well as Rudolph, Bernd, Clara and Gertrude, Arne, Hermann and Walter, Briga or Anna, Eva and Maria, Hugo, Christian, Ingeborg, Robert, Patsy, Bob, Ann or Patricia, Elizabeth Pehleman or Pehlemann, only with that it was not done! But we don't want to compete with the big families like the Hohenzollern or the Huis Oranje-Nassau - I have had Royales live in the Portuguese Sintra, where in the Palácio Nacional da Pena you can see the Royals of those from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha whether Portuguese-Royal The landlady is closer than in the Friedenstein Castle museum in Gotha, Thuringia - but still, Thuringia is more than just "Bratwurst"... (the Thuringian grilled sausage is often a synonym for the region of Thuringia)
Apropos Royales
Between 1970 and 1972, I corresponded a little with H. J. Walthére Pehlemann about his life and certain circumstances. it was previously unknown to me. In this context, I got to know that he had received a Dutch award as Koninklijke Onderscheiding. Since 2024, I have a documentation on this, which clearly specifies the special nature of the award and distinction:
Henri Joachim Walthére Pehlemann was honored at the instigation of Mayor of Bolsward Johan M.A. Mulder by being awarded the "Orde van Oranje-Nassau" with the rank of "Ridder", which was authenticated with the personal signature of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands at this time.
28.06.2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
A request to all Pehleman/ns between Zernickow, Ortwig, Namibia and Bury/Quebec resp. New York
For the family history and to supplement the archive documents, we are still looking for letters, documents, certificates, biographies, pictures, photos and other documentation (including those relating to honors, medals and awards) that should not be forgotten or that have already been considered lost in the understanding of the whole family.
On behalf of the family, I have to lament that the first and second archival collections of C. E. Walter Pehlemann were both lost forever.
Uncle Walter's first collection was kept by him as a director at Deutsche Bank during World War II in a safe in the bank in Berlin (East) and was lost forever with the Russian occupation of the eastern part of Berlin, which the Allies had awarded to the Russians as their Berlin sector in the Potsdam Agreement of August 1, 1945.
A note on the historical division of Berlin after World War II: In April 1945, the Americans, as Allied forces, advanced eastwards to Saxony and Torgau on the Elbe, where they encountered the Russian forces, for which the Allies had already agreed on the course of action in February 1945 in Yalta on the Crimea. In Potsdam, a conference resolution on August 1, 1945 agreed on the withdrawal of the Western Allies behind the zone border that was later defined (which resulted in the demarcation of the Eastern Zone), in order to assign the American sector, the English sector and the French sector to the Western Allies after the withdrawal from the former German capital of Berlin, for which the Soviet military power gave up parts of its occupied Berlin.
However, the Biedermeier letters from the important family personality between Eduard and Franziska Pehlemann survived the war and the loss of the archive in East Berlin as a typewritten text because Walter Pehlemann's friend and family relative Ernst Alfred von Lewinsky had copied by typewriting these historically valuable letters for himself much earlier, a good twist of fate, so uncle Walter P. (and we) got it back by a gift from E.A. von Lewingsky in the 1950s.
The documents that Walter Pehlemann collected again after the war became the inheritance of his daughter after his death, who probably sold the documents to an unknown antiquarian bookshop, so we believe - second loss...
I once lent my archive documents up to around 1983/1984 to the head of the family, Fritz-Wilhelm Pehlemann, and hope that they will be recovered from the inheritance.
June 28th, 2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
And more from the past and more historicals
To the point: After I discovered a documentation about our female ancestor, Eva Döhring, from the 17th century in 1982 with another son who had not been recorded until then and I also documented this, the question arises whether this son (married pastor from Obersdorf) could open up another branch with the lineage of several descendants in the Pehlemann family who have not yet been identified.
My life, my archive and other finds also reveal other and sometimes new things. Between 1965 and 1970 I once contacted other unknown Pehlemanns to check for possible relatives. The questioned persons did not want to do that and refused very reservedly. Since 2023 I have known that they died and were buried in the cemetery in Munich Riem. Sorry for that.
I am still working on tracing the ancestry of some people with the name Pehlemann (in German-speaking areas) from earlier centuries in Austria, Styria, Vienna, Salzburg and Upper Austria.
The same applies to relationships from my archive to some people with the name Pehlemann before and during the Soviet Union in Estonia and Latvia; there could be ancestry from our family there, after all we have a Pehlemann who was born in Moscow.
I can only outline something else here: After 1970 I once read about a Pehlemann in the service of the Swedish military; I only vaguely remember it, the Pehlemann acted around 1300 or around 1630 for the swedishs - unfortunately and very regrettably I do not have any records (anymore). However, the time around 1630 could be correct, since the Swedes occupied part of the Brandenburg-Pomerania region until 1645.
Of completely different importance and for me very special is that I was able to find two people with our name in Joensuu, Suomi/Finland, and - as documented - it can be mentioned here in the family website. These two entries in the Finnish church registers prove the existence of two people of different ages with the name Pehleman there. In the documents I have, the church of Pielisjärven in the distant town of Lieksa (in Finland) is named as the responsible parish for the confirmation of Michelss Pehleman (dated 1830) and Anderss Pehleman (dated 1845). It would have been 95 kilometers from Joensuu to Lieksa; confirmation was probably held locally in Joensuu, which had only 300 inhabitants in 1850 and now has 75,000 inhabitants, while Lieksa, which is closer to the Russian border, has only grown to 10,000 inhabitants.
I think all of this was worth mentioning, even if everything hasn't been fully explained and ready yet...
Nothing falls from the sky ready-made. That's how it is...
...because man-made satellites no longer fall from the sky ready-made, but only as scrap. I can't think of anything else. 😊
But if you click HERE now, you'll see "more about Pehlemann"!
April 22, 2024/update June 28, 2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann
On my own behalf
Here are links to some of my other websites:
www.pehlemann.de, www.pehlemann.eu, www.focussus.de, www.fotoroute.de, www.intercamper.com, www.pro-caravan.de, www.pro-automobile.de, eu-216.fotoroute.de, eu-218.fotoroute.de, expositionen.wordpress.com, intercampianer.wordpress.com, fotoroute21.wordpress.com und weitere Links