First Generation

1. (Unknown) PERGANDE (*) was born about 1765 in Pommern (Pomerania) Province, Preussen (Prussia).^1,2,3 (This is an estimated birth year, based on the birth year of his son Gottlieb; it must be confirmed once his identity is determined.)

(This is a map of the Pommern Province, in northeast Prussia on the Baltic Sea. Our branch of the Pergande family lived in Kreis Saatzig, in the southern portion of the province.)

From Wikipedia: "The earliest inhabitants of Pomerania were Germanic tribes that migrated southwards from Scandinavia prior to 100 B.C. By the fifth century A.D., these tribes, known as the Goths, Vandals, Germanii, and Teutoni, had migrated westward and the area was settled by Slavic tribes that entered from the east. The Slavic tribes included the Pomerani and Polani, who settled in the areas that became Pomerania and Poland. The German name Pommern comes from the Slavonic word, Po more, meaning "along the sea". The Pomeranian Slavs were later referred to as the Wends. In about 995, Pomerania was conquered by Boleslaus I, the first King of Poland. However, wars between the Poles, Danes, and Germans for possession of the area were fought with varying results for more than a century. In 1122 the Poles were victorious over the pagan Wends, and Duke Boleslaw III introduced Christianity to Pomerania. He also invited the first German settlers into the area.

Pomerania became a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire in 1181 when Bogislaw I swore his allegiance to Frederick I (Barbarosa), the German King and Roman Emperor. Thus began a Greif dynasty that continued for the next four centuries, with the crown passed down from generation to generation through inheritance. The last Pomeranian Duke was Bogislaw XIV who reigned until his death in 1637. With no one to inherit the crown, the electors of Brandenburg assumed control of Pomerania. During this same period, surnames began appearing and by 1600 they were in common use throughout Germany.

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, tens of thousands of immigrants from the Rhineland, Westfalen, Niedersachsen, Holstein, Mecklenburg and Holland colonized Pomerania, establishing German villages among the Wend inhabitants and introducing trade. The immigrants, who were welcomed by the Pomeranian Dukes, provided the necessary skills and tools needed to clear the forests, drain the marshes, build dikes and roads, and farm the land. They introduced the iron plow and the 3-field rotation system of farming. Eventually, the German language and culture dominated the country and by the 1400's the Wends of Pomerania disappeared completely as a result of intermarriage.

The Church figured prominently in the early colonization with various ecclesiastical institutions receiving or buying vast areas. The Cistercians, the most prominent monastic order, established monasteries as early as the 1170's in Pomerania. One, the monastery of Kolbatz, acquired huge land holdings in Hinterpommern and by 1313, owned 53 villages. Intermixed among these possessions were the large estates of the princes and nobles, including both the native Slavs and the German knights who began arriving about 1235. One of the most important noble Slavic families, the von Wedel, owned huge estates including many towns, villages, and castles in Brandenburg and Pomerania beginning as early as 1269. These estates remained in the family for centuries. One of the descendants, Hugo von Wedel, owned the estate at Braunsforth in the latter half of the 1800's when Julius Maass served as his head shepherd. Another large land holder was the von Borcke family, who founded the towns of Regenwalde and Labes. Their holdings included the village of Ornshagen, where David Maass lived prior to 1856.

Pomerania, like the other German states, was greatly affected by the Reformation. Lutheranism took root in Pomerania in 1525 when Stralsund adopted Martin Luther's teaching. Nine years later, the Lutheran Church of Pomerania was established when the Diet at Treptow on the Rega prepared the basis for its formation. A plattdeutsch (low German) version of the bible was printed the same year and, in 1536, the dukes of Pommern accepted the Lutheran faith.

However, the hostility between the Catholics and the Protestants continued unabated despite the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 which was intended to settle the religious issue in Germany. In 1618, the Thirty Years War began primarily as a civil war between the two religious factions. In the summer of 1630, the war took on a political objective when Sweden entered the war. King Gustavus Adolphus, a Protestant, was concerned about the growing power of the Roman Emperor Ferdinand. The war continued for another 18 years until 1648 when the Treaty of Westphalia was signed. As compensation for its role in the war, Sweden was awarded control over Stettin and Vorpommern. Brandenburg retained control of Hinterpommern.

The Thirty Years War took a heavy toll in Pomerania with possibly one-third of its people killed and whole villages and farms completely destroyed. In the early 1700's, Pomerania again became the battleground for conflicts between Russia and Sweden. It ended in 1720 with the Treaty of Stockholm, which ceded part of Hither Pomerania as far as the Peene to Brandenburg-Prussia. Following the defeat of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna gave the remaining part of Swedish Pomerania to Prussia in 1815.

When King Wilhelm I became the first emperor of a united Germany in 1871, Prussia had become a powerful military nation that occupied the northern two thirds of Germany. It extended from the Netherlands and Belgium on the west to Russia on the east. In 1945, after World War II, Prussia ceased to exist as a German state and Pomerania was partitioned again at the Oder River. Hinterpommern and Stettin (now called Szczecin) became part of Poland and all of the Germans fled or were expelled from their country. Vorpommern, the area west of the Oder-Neisse Rivers, became part of East Germany. In 1990, Vorpommern became part of the reunified Germany and was included in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

An Ancestry.com website lists her birthplace as Zachodniopomorskie. Zachodniopomorskie Wojewodztwo (Province) is in northwestern Poland and was created in 1999 as part of Poland’s provincial reorganization. It comprises the former (1975–98) provinces of Szczecin and Koszalin, as well as portions of the former provinces of Gorzów, Piła, and Słupsk. It is bordered to the north by the Baltic Sea, to the east by Pomorskie province, to the south by the provinces of Wielkopolskie and Lubuskie, and to the west by Germany. The provincial capital is Szczecin. Area: 8,839 square miles (22,892 square km). Population: (2011) 1,722,883."

From www.genemaas.net/Pommern: "Pomerania, or Pommern as it was called in Germany, was a Prussian province in northern Europe, bordering on the Baltic Sea. It was bordered by Mecklenburg-Schwerin on the West, Brandenburg on the South, and West Prussia on the East. It had a land area of 11,654 square miles, roughly the size of Delaware and Maryland combined. The Oder River divided the country into two parts: Hither Pomerania (Vorpommern), the area west of the Oder, and Farther Pomerania (Hinterpommern), the area to the east. Stettin, a port city 40 miles inland on the Oder, was the capital of Pomerania. The province was further divided into about 30 administrative districts or counties (Kreise; Kr.). In 1945, Stettin and all of Hinterpommern were given to Poland and the two million German inhabitants were driven or fled from their homeland.

Most of Pomerania is relatively flat, although hills as high as 838 feet are found along the eastern border. The glacial terrain varies from level land to gently rolling hills that are interspersed with numerous woodlands and shallow lakes. Rivers, which begin in the highlands of southern Germany, flow to the north emptying into the Baltic Sea. The white sandy beaches along the 340-mile-long Baltic coastline are popular tourist destinations for the Germans and Poles.

Another popular area, known as 'Polczyn Switzerland,' lies about 60 miles (100 km) east of Stettin (now called Szczecin). Innumerable shallow lakes are scattered among steep, tree-covered slopes connected by a network of swift-flowing streams. The forests include beech, oaks, hornbeam, birch, and pine. The lakes and marshes abound with cormorants, black storks, swans and grey herons. Other rare birds such as the eagle owl, wood grouse, heath cock, and various eagles are found in the forests.

Prussia was a member state of the German Confederation from 1815 to 1866, and from 1848 until 1849 it was part of the short-lived German Empire. After the Prussian-Austrian War it became the leading member state of the North German Confederation in 1867. It was a leading force in the creation of the German Empire in 1871, of which it became a state. Today, the former Prussia is part of the Federal Republic of Germany, with significant parts of its territory located in Poland and small pieces of territory incorporated into Lithuania, Russia and the Czech Republic."

From Wikipedia: "During the centuries following the colonization of Pomerania, the life of the commoners depended upon the dictates of the noble lords and ruling class who were in power at the time. Much of the land was under the control of the Junkers, the landed gentry of Prussia’s eastern provinces. The Junkers, who lived on and farmed the Ritterguts with the help of peasants, exercised nearly absolute power on their lands. Moreover, they were a powerful political force who dominated both state and society.

Originally, the Junkers (literally "young lord") were descendants of the medieval German Knights who established large feudal estates on the Slavic lands they had conquered in the Middle Ages. Over time many large estates were subdivided into smaller ones as a result of inheritance, partitioning, and sales. By the year 1816 there were 1,883 knight’s estates (Ritterguts) in Pomerania.

Beginning in the 15th century, the peasantry, which had been relatively free up to then, progressively began to lose their rights and freedom. Peasants were evicted en masse from their land and were forced to provide services of labor, horses and tools to the noble landlords who extended their demesne farming. Their situation only became worse in the 16th century when serfdom was imposed. In 1616, the Peasant Ordinance declared that all peasants in Pomerania-Stettin were serfs. They were no longer free to leave their master’s estate; their land became the sole property of their master, thus usurping their hereditary rights; and they were subject to unlimited labor services. Children had to serve the manor as menials. The plight of the peasants remained basically unchanged for the next 200 years.

Peasants were provided housing, small garden plots, a few animals, and a share of the surrounding fields in return for their labors. The commoners generally fell into one of three economic categories: 1) those who occupied enough land for their personal needs and supplied both horses and laborers to the landlord, 2) those whose land was insufficient to sustain them and were compelled to provide manual service, and 3) those without any land who served the manor lords directly and lived on his premises. Life was difficult for the peasants as they had no say in their destiny and were exploited by the nobles. Workers were required to work six days a week, basically from sunup to sundown.

Conditions in Hinterpommern began to change for the better in the mid-18th century. Friedrich the Great, who reigned from 1740 to 1786, recognized the contribution of the peasantry and took steps that markedly affected their lives. He reduced the labor obligation of the peasant from six to three days a week. Peasants were allowed to voice complaints against the landlords and were given recourse against injustice. Education was made mandatory for all children between the ages of 5 and 14. In 1740, freedom of worship was decreed throughout Prussia. However, these and later reforms did not become effective in Vorpommern until 1815, when Sweden relinquished control of the territory.

Friedrich also actively promoted immigration into the less populated areas with the goal of increasing agricultural production. The population of Pomerania grew from 309,700 to 438,700 during his reign. He offered special privileges to the settlers and tried new methods of land sharing and distribution. In 1745, he introduced the potato and forced its production upon the farmers. Although it wasn't widely accepted until the 1800's, potatoes eventually became one of the major crops in Pomerania.

Unfortunately, Friedrich the Great was succeeded in 1786 by his nephew, Friedrich Wilhelm II, a weak ruler who undid many of his uncle's good works. Friedrich Wilhelm opposed the agrarian reforms and nearly doubled the number of nobles who seized much of the peasant's land. At the beginning of the 19th century, the commoners owned less that 10% of the land and in most cases the amount of land owned by individual families was inadequate to support their family. Moreover, the peasants could own land only during their lifetime, after which it reverted back to the state.

The peasants fared better under the leadership of his son, Friedrich Wilhelm III, who became King in 1797. Between 1808 and 1816, agrarian reforms were once again instituted that provided even greater freedoms to the peasants. On September 14, 1811, serfdom in Pomerania was abolished and the serfs who had been under hereditary bondage to the estates were now free to move from village to village, choose their own trade, and marry a spouse of their choice. However, tenants were still responsible for rent or labor services to the estates. To become free owners of their land, they had to cede part of the land to their masters – one-third in the case of hereditary holdings and one-half if they had no hereditary rights to the land. These changes were not without their downside, however. Many peasants were unable to survive after relinquishing part of their land and often were forced to sell the remaining land and/or become day laborers. Futhermore, landlords were no longer obligated to support peasants who were no longer in their servitude and could evict them at will. Nevertheless, after the Prussian reforms, many knight’s estates were acquired by commoners and by 1868 they owned nearly 40% of them.

Although freedom of worship was decreed in Prussia in 1740, Friedrich Wilhelm III in 1817 ordered the merger of the Lutheran Church and the Calvinist Reformed Church to form a single State church, the Evangelische Kirche, and required every person to attend the church closest to him. Many staunch Lutherans revolted and formed their own churches. Consequently, when the states were given full power to enforce the union in 1830, many "Old Lutherans" chose to emigrate rather than comply.

In the rural countryside, everyone lived in small villages often centered around the landed estates (Guts). The Guts generally consisted of a large manor house, several huge barns and stables and often a flour mill or distillery. A majority of the villages had one church, the Evangelical Church, with an adjoining cemetery. Most had less than a few hundred inhabitants living in a few dozen houses or households. In some villages, homes simply lined both sides of the road (a plan followed by the Wends); in others, homes were clustered around a central commons with the manor house at one end and the church at the other (Germanic plan). These communal villages not only provided protection for the residents but facilitated easy access to the fields that radiated outward from the village. The villages were within walking distance of each other, no more than three or four miles apart.

European villages must have had a familial quality considering the propinquity (in both space and kinship) of the residents. Their social activities centered around family, church and community. They worked, played, celebrated and worshiped together. There is little evidence that they ever ventured very far from their villages. Their daily activities were consumed by long hours of hard work. Even children were required to work at an early age and after confirmation, the boys usually left their homesteads to work elsewhere, some even earlier. In 1839, the Prussian government set a minimum age of nine for working children.

Houses were generally constructed of a framework of posts and beams that were filled in and plastered with a mixture of clay and straw. Roofs were thatched with a thick layer of reeds and floors were packed clay. Usually the house and barn were connected, with only a wall between them. The peasants homes were likely quite barren with few furnishings.

Like today, farmers encountered the usual problems of bad weather, crop failures, and falling commodity prices. In 1825, crop failures caused such marked drops in land values that even manor houses on the estates were put up for sale. The noble lords, though they had large land holdings, were often not much better off than the peasants. They were often cash poor, but they had the advantage of receiving the "first fruits" of the land. In the 1830's, grain prices fell when England placed high tariffs on imports causing economic distress for landlords and peasants alike. Potato blight in 1845 caused widespread famine. This was followed by disastrous weather conditions in the mid 1850's. Steep declines in grain prices in the years 1880-1886, caused by imports of cheap cereals from America and Russia, and an accompanying drop in wool prices severely reduced farm revenue."

(Additional information can be found in the LDS Research Library at: Evangelische Kirche Alt Damerow (Kr. Saatzig). Kirchenbuchduplikat, 1814-1874. Greifswald: Staatsarchiv, 1982. 3 reels of microfilm.  Parish register transcripts of baptisms, marriages and deaths for Alt Damerow (Kr. Saatzig), Pommern, Germany; now Stara Da̧browa (Stargard Szczeciński), Szczecin, Poland. Includes Müggenhall (Kr. Saatzig), now Baiłuń (Stargard Szczeciński); and Sassenhagen, now Chlebówko.) He died in Pommern (Pomerania) Province, Preussen (Prussia).¹

(Unknown) PERGANDE (*) and (Unknown) UNKNOWN (PERGANDE) (*) were married in Pommern (Pomerania) Province, Preussen (Prussia).¹ (Unknown) UNKNOWN (PERGANDE) (*) was born about 1765 in Pommern (Pomerania) Province, Preussen (Prussia).¹ (This is an estimated birth year, based on the birth date of her son Gottlieb.) She died in Pommern (Pomerania) Province, Preussen (Prussia).¹

(Unknown) PERGANDE (*) and (Unknown) UNKNOWN (PERGANDE) (*) had the following children: