This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: jdteske1 Surnames: Teske Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.teske/230.2.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: So we have enough people to form a "John Teske" society even with the aberration of the spelling of my first name...Mother always wanted to be different. It's been nearly ten years since I have met with the other John Teske, who actually lives just across the Potomac River from me in Fairfax, VA. (I live in a northern DC suburb in MD.)I have Wisconsin roots from the center of the state (Antigo) where there still are some Teske distant cousins, though I grew up in Manitowoc where my grandfather settled to start a men's clothing business. I last had contact with the other John Teske in about 2006 when we both chipped in to hire a Polish genealogist to travel to our respective villages in what today is northern Poznan province in Poland to photograph the areas. This area was among the lands ceded to Poland in the aftermath of WW II. The Poles, in turned, kicked out any remaining Germans. There is another thread I saw about a dozen years ago, which may be relevant to your information. There were groups of Germans called Palatinate Germans who left Germany, the western areas, and settled in Ireland, in the 18th century. Among them were people with the Teske surname. Most left Ireland at the time of the Potato Famines, largely settling in Prairie Canada. These folks almost always use a spelling ending in -y or -ey {Tesky, Teskey] totally unknown in Prussia. (My ancestors left before there was a Germany.) Sometimes you see the spelling "Teska" which is actually closer to the way it is pronounced in present-day Germany. I haven't followed this closely at all. In fact, my genealogy interest has somewhat waned. It goes in fits and starts, prompted by a gap of a few years, and then a harvest of whatever new information I might find. While it might be noble to thing people came for religious freedom, I suspect the reality of the situation was far more economic or perhaps simple draft dodging. I have learned that my Teske ancestors were "Reformed Evangelisch" which apparently was a somewhat more austere form of Lutheranism. But the Germans to came to my Wisconsin areas were often accompanied my Lutheran (or nearly Lutheran) missionaries sent by state-sponsored churches. Some of my wife's ancestors (she has similar roots and geography...we go back to high school) were founders of both the Wisconsin Synod and the Missouri Synods of the Lutheran church, both of which have strong German roots. [The present-day ELCA, the more liberal Lutherans has more Scandinavian roots.] My childhood church was actually a Norwegian Church...I was kicked out of the Wisconsin Synod because I insisted upon remaining a Boy Scout. I was 11. My parent followed me six months later. I went where all my friends went. My Teske ancest! or (Martin Eldor Teske) came with his wife and one or two year old daughter and entered NYC on May 28, 1864. They must have been in some sweat to get out of Prussia and they came at the height of the US Civil War, when immigration slowed, and they came only three months after his wife gave birth to a stillborn child. I have another possible relative who contacted me and tried to contact this other John Teske, but she told me she didn't get a response. This was about a year ago, but I got side tracked at that time as my 92 year old mother was very ill and in fact died in October. So I've spent some time settling that estate. During the Sept-June time I am also very busy (for a retiree) since by very serious avocation I am a concert violinist and play in three area symphonies. I'm actually going to Wisconsin on Tuesday for a couple of weeks. When I'm there I often go to local libraries which do have some genealogical reading rooms. I did recently develop a contact with twin cousins of my fathers who have some interest in this and met with both of them for dinner in Florida where one of them now lives. As I am descended from the eldest of five children (my grand father) and these girl are descended from the youngest, born some 16 years after my grandfather...and their mom married late and had the twin girls late, they are actually a few years younger than me. (I was born in 1942, they in 1945.) My research is a bit complicated by the fact that my grandfather (who I barely knew...we only met a half dozen times and he and my father were mostly estranged) I have few oral history item that have come to me. I'm hoping to get some info from these girls. Most of what I have gotten so far are the comments from another of my dad's cousins, now senile in her! 90's, that she wrote in letters to the twins about what a schnook my grandfather was! (He WAS a piece of work, and my grandparents divorced in an era when that just wasn't done.) The Twins told me that the Teske's in the home town went either to the Reformed Church there or to the Congregational Church, but that was more because some denominations merged or consolidated. I'm probably Lutheran more because my dad went to a Lutheran Church in the hometown where his buddies went and my mom was a staunch Lutheran. But the microfilm files I have seen from Germany (the Mormon connection) were clearly from an Evangelisch congregation and that essentially meant what is called Lutheran in the USA. I have another mystery I have yet to unravel. Martin Eldor's wife had a maiden name of Gruenberg, German for the English "Greenberg" which is almost exclusively a Jewish surname though I have Evangelish baptismal entries for her. I haven't found out where or when that name crept into the mix. Your questions may spur me on for find out some more and to reconnect with the other John Teske. I will be gone until August 10th. My "REAL" email is jdteske@verizon.net. I'm not really a member of Ancestry.com though I may rejoin. There has been enough of a gap that other people like yourself have added to what is available. One tends to sift through some stuff on the web until you seem to run out and hit a dead end...then you come back in a few years and see what's been added. I'll see what's up with the other John when I return. A bit about me. Grew up in Wisconsin, graduated from the U of Wisconsin-Madison in 1964 and immediately came here where I worked in the intelligence field for 35 years. I retired in 1999. Many of the skills I learned in the spy business are about the same techniques one uses in gathering raw information for ancestry research. I worked for the (now) notorious NSA. (We played by the rules when I worked there). I was originally a linguist (Arabic) then did code breaking and then got into more staff sorts of things. Did a tour in Mexico at the US Embassy, worked briefly at both the Pentagon and the White House. Hobbies: I play both violin and viola at a rather high level. I have been a ham radio operator and licensee since I was 13 and once had a hobby business in photography. I used to play with sailboats until the last one I had sank. For giggles, I have been taking an on-line course in Icelandic language, a place we visited last year where I have two friends. Jon Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.