Dear all,

My name is Daniel Bamberger, and I am researching the history of my hometown Battenberg/Eder, Germany, including the surrounding villages. Among those villages is Berghofen, which I recently learned was the origin of an old Quebec family, Inkel.

The first Inkel was Johann Jacob Henckel, who is said to have moved to Canada as a soldier, and settled there in 1783.

Can anyone here tell me what the original source was for his origin in Berghofen (rather than some other place in Germany), and his birth date? I can find this in secondary sources only, but I do not have good access to Canadian primary sources.

There are two things that make me wonder:

• The Johann Jacob Henckel, born 24 August 1744 in Berghofen, was already married: He married Anna Maria Seipp (*28 May 1744 Holzhausen/Eder, +24 Nov 1832 Berghofen) in Berghofen on 18 June 1767. They had two children: Henrich Jacob (*2 Sept 1769 Berghofen, confirmed 1783) and Johannes Henckel (*10 Dec 1772 Berghofen. The wife Anna Maria died in 1832. In her death certificate she is said to be the widow of the blacksmith Johann Jacob Henckel. The claimed origin may still be correct, as I can not find any trace of her husband at his birthplace after 1772, and the Johann Jacob Henckel of Quebec died earlier in 1832. (Although it seems unlikely anyone would have known about his recent death in Berghofen, so he may have been presumed dead.)

• The reasoning behind him fighting in that war is not straightforward. Berghofen is not in the part of Hesse that sent soldiers, and moving from one territory to the other was not a simple process. As far as I know, he would be the only person from the region who followed this route.

In case anyone is interested, I am adding a family tree of Johann Jacob Henckel. It is in German (unfortunately I do not have time to translate it at the moment), but maybe it will still be of use to anyone interested. The file is large so maybe allow for some loading time. A preview of the tree is added below (full resolution available via the link).

I am grateful for any further input or help.

Kind regards,

Daniel Bamberger
Marburg

http://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/128a1e9b-e341-4dfb-9949-58e6957415e0/deuouh3-1f601fad-ac8e-469f-b434-e253415e599d.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzEyOGExZTliLWUzNDEtNGRmYi05OTQ5LTU4ZTY5NTc0MTVlMFwvZGV1b3VoMy0xZjYwMWZhZC1hYzhlLTQ2OWYtYjQzNC1lMjUzNDE1ZTU5OWQuanBnIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.uKPITELw1_siTU5_xpZrzWctdWPUEyBqUP1BSW-6ozs

Pour les Allemands au Canada, une ressource, la meilleure :

Les mercenaires allemands au Québec, 1776-1783 de Jean-Pierre Wilhelmy
https://www.septentrion.qc.ca/catalogue/mercenaires-allemands-au-quebec-1776-1783-ne-les

on dit : " Jacob Henckel/Inkel, lui, est cultivateur à Saint-Philippe de 
La Prairie tout comme Peter Pfeiffer, mais il occupe en plus les fonc-
tions de huissier"

On dit aussi : " Le lieutenant Johann Henrich Henckelmann"

Deux seules mentions trouvées dans le livre.

On y trouve la source suivante :
Les familles Henckel-Inkel, 1378-1978 de Roland Inkel (publié en 2011?) qui ne semble pas disponible en libraire mais plutôt un ouvrage d'un auteur indépendant.
 

Dear Nataly,

Thanks for the link to the book.

Roland Inkel's research was apparently done in the late 1970s, in collaboration with someone from Chicago. I have not found much yet regarding the primary sources on which it was based. Some of their results (like a family connection to Switzerland via Johann Jacob Henckel's mother) are incorrect, so I want to make sure the rest of the research is sound.

In many of the research results I find published on the internet, Johann Jacob Henckel is said to have died in either January, February or July 1832, in Saint-Philippe-de-Laprairie, near Montreal. I have the hope that there is a birth date given in the original death certificate. You don't happen to know if those documents are available in digital form somewhere?

Voici l'acte de décès de Henckel 
https://zupimages.net/up/21/46/lert.jpg

Il est décédé le 23/07/1832 à l'âge de 96 ans.

Ce qui est peut-être vrai (pour l'âge) ou peut-être pas. C'est très âgé pour l'époque.

Quant à avoir un document plus officiel, avec date de naissance, vous devriez en faire votre deuil. Je ne pense pas que cela existait dans le Québec du 19e siècle, sauf en cas de décès suspect et enquête du coroner... et je ne suis pas certaine.

Bonjour,

Lien vers le décès de Jacques Henkel

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G99Q-MCRG?i=319&wc=HC4S-SP8%3A22325401%2C22325402%2C22917801&cc=1321742

Plusieurs informations dans : Claude Kaufholtz-Couture et Claude Crégheur. Dictionnaire des souches allemandes et scandinaves au Québec, Québec : Éditions du Septentrion, 2013, p. 239.

Bonne journée

Aline

Dear Nataly and Aline,

Thank you both for the image and link to the death certificate!

The age given there wouldn't match (1832-96=1736, not 1744). He should have been 92 (or 91) years old. But as you say, this may not be fully reliable, and seems rather too old than too young. So I suppose it doesn't disprove anything; it just doesn't confirm his identity either.

There remains the question how the 1970s researchers came to the conclusion that he was from Berghofen, and whether all the details about his parents came from some correspondence they had with a contact in Germany who took the information from the church records - thereby giving them a Johann Jacob Henckel that fit (and who may well be the correct one - I just don't see that proven yet).

I guess I'll have to go a different route with that question.

Thanks again for the promt and competent help!

Comment dire sans manquer de respect?

Les chercheurs des années 70 aimaient bien remplir les fiches sans espace blanc. On s'organisait pour remplir les espaces, la vérité était souvent secondaire.

Selon le fichier Origine*, une bonne ressource, on mentionne toujours Roland Inkel comme crédible suite à la parution d'un article dans la publication l'Ancêtre de novembre 1983. J'ai ce document, je vous le partage ici : 
https://we.tl/t-rjCppVxnmz

Bonne découvertes!????

Nat

*https://www.fichierorigine.com/recherche?numero=242038

Thanks for the download link, I will take a look.

One more question (a quick one, I hope): Does the death certificate give a date of death? I don't speak any French.

Voici la transcription, vous pourrez la traduire.

On dit qu'il est inhumé le 25/07/1832 et décédé l'avant veille, donc le 23.

"Le vingt cinq juillet mil huit cent trente deux, par nous prêtres sousigné,
a été inhumé dans le cimetière de cette paroisse le corps de Jacques Hen-
kel laboureur, décédé avant hier, âgé de quatre vingt et treize ans, muni
des sacrements. Etaient présent Louis Tremblay, Etienne Ricard et Honoré
Hébert qui n'ont su signer.
signature du prêtre"

Thanks to your link to the familysearch records, and the marriage date listed on the fichierorigine website, I think I can positively identify Johann Jacob Henckel. His marriage record https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-8993-NCXP?i=613&wc=HC5C-4WL%3A22325401%2C22325402%2C24153301&cc=1321742 gives his place of birth and the names of both of his parents (even though I can't read much of it, and may well get most of it wrong).

The death certificate says 93 years, so 1832-93=1739 as the year of birth; off by two years. From my experience, that is an error that would frequently happen here even if the person had stayed near their place of birth. They often just didn't know their exact age.

There are a few inconsistencies in the published data. For example, https://www.fichierorigine.com/recherche?numero=242038 says that Berghofen and Rennertehausen were in Bavaria, and then in Hesse-Kassel. Both is wrong, though Berghofen is less than a mile from the border to Hesse-Kassel. Even so, it is strange that someone from this side of the border would be allowed to enlist and fight in this war. Hesse-Kassel was involved in it, but Hesse-Darmstadt (where Johann Jacob Henckel came from) was hostile towards their cause.

transcription de l'image selon l'institut Drouin