John Heydinger Family

This image shows parts of the passenger list for the Ship Zampa that by law was required to be filed by the Master of every ship of French registry upon landing with immigrants to the United States. (The right side of the page is cut off to fit the available space. Parts of three pages are shown: page one with the headings; page three - bottom line has Johan Heydinger; top of page four with rest of family listed)

Transcribed, the list says:

I, Alexander Vanier, do solemnly, sincerely and truly swear that the following List or Manifest of Passengers subscribed with my name, and now delivered by me to the Collector of Customs for the District of New York, contains to the best of my knowledge and belief a true account of all the Passengers received on board the Ship Zampa whereof I am master, Sworn to this 25th January, 1851, so help me God.

(Signature line) Indecipherable name, followed by line to the name A Vanier

List or Manifest of all passengers taken on board the Ship Zampa. Vannier is master from Havre burthern 366 tons

The column headings for all of the pages read as follows:

Notice how incredible sloppy the clerk was at his work: Vanier is spelled two different ways

Names Ages Years Months Sex Occupation The country to which they severally belong The country to which they intend to become inhabitants Died on the voyage (Omitted on far right as none died.)

75 Heydinger 52 m(male) laborer Nederland New York

76 Heidinger Catherine 48 f(female) no occupation listed Nederland New York " "

77 Jean Heidinger 23 m(ale) laborer " "

78 Joseph Heidinger 20 m(ale) " "

79 Elizabeth Heidinger 17 f(emale) " "

80 Margareta Heidinger 13 f(emale) " "

81 Maria Heidinger 9 f(emale) " " whereof

You will notice a couple oddities in the manifest. First, at number 75, as the last entry on his page, John Heydinger's middle name is omitted and that his last name is spelled as we do today. However, we can be sure that this is "our" John Adam because immediately at the top of the next page, beginning with number 76, is Catherine followed by all the children in order of ages. Notice, too, that all their names are spelled differently from John Adam's last name, as Heidinger.

Another quirk is that John Adam's praenomen name is spelled John while that of his son is spelled Jean - sloppiness on the part of the registrar or a difference in pronunciation between father nad son? We'll never know.

Notice also that the family's place of origin is listed as the Nederland (Netherlands), not France or Germany, though they spoke German and were emigrating from French-claimed lands at the time.

This is YOUR FAMILY WEBSITE. It will be successful only if YOU contribute. You do NOT have to be computer savy to help out. Contact us, and we'll git'er done!

We need Current Contact Information.

In order to keep all folks fully informed, we need CURRENT CONTACT INFORMATION: street addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses.

Contact your siblings, your children away from home, your folks - anyone in the relation - to email us their current contact information. Send it to me at Mike_Heydinger@HuronHS.com.

If you are more comfortable with snail-mail, send any information to me at Mike Heydinger Box 112 Huron, OH 44839.

We need Family History Data.

Also, we would like to do a full page here of information on each branch of the original John Heydinger family. We will post histories of each branch, pictures as far back as we can get them, and any other interesting data about the branches - whatever YOU think ought to be up on the site. We ask you to send us digital files if possible. If you are not computer savy and still wish to make a contribution of materials to this site, please email us and we can arrange to either come to you or have materials shipped to us for scanning and then return to you.

PLEASE - on all pictures, identify each person with a recognizable face. If known, indicate the year and place the picture was taken. Protect your valuable pictures and documents with cardboard stiffeners!

We need Current Family Tree Information.

If you go to the FAMILY GENEALOGY TREE in the column to the right, you can open it by clicking on the RED words This Family Tree and locate your immediate family's limbs, branches, and twigs on the family tree.

The further back you go, the more accurate the information actually is. What we need most is more MODERN up-to-date information.

Locate your part of the family's information and update it for us, PLEASE. Email to us the new and improved data. Don't worry about formating the data. Just give us the names and important dates, tell us what generation they are in and under whose name they should go. Generation numbers are included just to the LEFT of each name.

In order to have the NEW information included in the revised tree, you MUST get it to us. We will maintain the original document in order to guarantee security. Sorry!