On 7 November 2020, I received an enquiry addressed to the family association:
“My great-grandfather Friedrich Helmar Moritz Schrader used the coat of arms shown here as his signature stamp. Helmar was born on 26 February 1841 in Jemgum, East Frisia. The coat of arms is said to have been used by a branch of the family from Göttingen.”
This was the gist of the enquiry from Dr Bittner from near Cologne.
The few details provided did not sound as if the enquiry had much chance of success.
The place name Jemgum was known, and contrary to expectations, I actually found a reference to this place in our local register: a Friedrich Heinrich Georg Dietrich Schrader from the Boizenburg clan, born in Bleckede/Elbe, was a bailiff in Jemgum during the relevant period.
A possible lead?
Next, I looked at the traditional signum stamp. Based on the blazon of the shield (keywords: branch, 3 acorns, 3 oak leaves), I was able to find several similar coats of arms in our roll of arms.
After closer examination, particularly based on the helmet crest (“Armed … fist with 3 … acorns”) and colouring not recognisable, the coat of arms of the Boizenburg clan on the Elbe remained as the “most similar coat of arms”.
Its blazon is:
Shield:
In silver, from a horizontal black branch, a twig with three green oak leaves and three green acorns with golden fruit growing out of it.
Helmet visor:
Armoured fist dressed in black with three green acorns with golden seeds
Schematische Darstellung des Wappens des Boizenburger Zweiges der Sippe Wahmbeck
Tuschekolorierte Farbversion; Farbgebung anhand der Blasonierung des Wappens durch Herrn Dr. Bittner
This coat of arms differs slightly from the signum stamp that was submitted (a branch rising on the left vs. a horizontal branch). Nevertheless, the similarity is great enough to provide a relevant link to the Boizenburg clan.
By now, at the latest, the assumption arose that there could have been a connection between the great-grandfather we were looking for and the aforementioned bailiff in Jemgum. We knew of three children of Friedrich Heinrich Georg Dietrich Schrader who were born during the relevant period, but Helmar Moritz was not among them.
Unfortunately, this assumption could neither be verified nor disproved by our other archive holdings. Due to the unusual first name Helmar, I then tried my luck with an online search on Ancestry. There I was actually able to find the baptism entry for Helmar Moritz Schrader in the Jemgum church register.
The names of the father and mother matched our records! This provided sufficient evidence of a connection. What followed was painstaking work. Once a concrete lead has been found, further clues can be found and classified if there are sufficient sources.
In this case, it was determined that Friedrich Helmar Moritz, the subject of the search, was connected to the well-documented Wahmbeck clan via Boizenburg. This also explains the family tradition of the enquirer’s family in the Göttingen area: before Wahmbeck could be identified as the origin of the clan, Göttingen was considered to be its origin.
Friedrich Helmar Moritz Schrader, officer in Austrian and Prussian service, later engineer in East Frisia.
Photograph from 1881, owned by the Bittner family.
The results of the research are printed as a supplement to the Wahmbeck family tree – main civil line in the 66th newsletter.
Many thanks for the kind permission to publish.