THE GRAEVE FAMILY
by Jill GRAEVE My family history begins in Prussia which became Germany. My GGGrandfather was Friedrich Teodor Wilhelm GRAEVE who was born in 1887, it is thought in the village of Linden - there were many towns with the same name and Linden was a common town name at the time. He married Ida Luise Johana SAGE, in Hamburg in 1883. I have been unable to find any record of this but it is recorded on a death certificate for him. Ida was born in Lubeck, Lubeck, Mecklenburgh, on 6 April 1885. When they left Germany, many were leaving for a better life, and even if they didn't have permission to leave, it didn't stop them. Many snuck onto ships going to America. They lived in Australia for a time and that is where my Granddad August Wilhelm Graeve was born in 188 in Melbourne. They consequently moved to New Zealand and Friedrich set up business in Invercargill as a cabinetmaker. After a time they moved to Gore where he setup his cabinetmaking business in Mersey Street, down by where the pool used to be. I had to learn a bit of German to understand some of the records. I joined Ancesty for a year, and have used Familysearch which has been very helpful. On Facebook I meet up with an Eastern European Research group which has ties to Familysearch. I have also used other sites. Google Translate does not work on handwritten Gothic Script which some of the records I found are written in so I have been unable to read a lot of the records. |