William LANGE/LANG/LONG 1846-1928, what is correct? ALL!

William LANGE/LANG/LONG 1846-1928, what is the correct surname? ALL! Son, immigrant, farmer, Civil War veteran, husband, father, plus more and each would make an excellent article. This narrative will document his given surname and how the other surnames and spellings came about. For this article, I will work backwards and start with LONG.

LONG is the surname on William’s Civil War Pension records: Civil War Pension Records Index, 28 April 1879, Invalid application number 282.570 and 2 April 1928, Widow application number 1609.472, Company F, 64 Illinois Infantry. LONG followed him through the war records, probably due to his accent and lack of the English language. He did join by signing with a mark. His pension application records offer LANG or LANGE and he wrote is name both LANG and LONG. In a deposition number 282570 dated 28 March 1888, William stated, “My real name in German is LANG but the office got it LONG. “ He signed the document William LANG. William’s death certificate, number 1191, State of Iowa, 17 May 1928, gives his name as William LONG. The informant for the document is John LONG, his son.

LANG appears in the Civil War Pension records. Several times in the pension application papers, William signs his name LANG. As in the paragraph above, William explains that his name in German is Lang.

LANGE appears on the Hamburg, Germany departure list dated 15 May 1862. He was 16 years old. It appears that he was traveling with his sister Maria age 20. Their residence is Rackow, Mecklenburg, Germany. Staatsarchiv Hamburg; Hamburg, Deutschland; Hamburger Passagierlisten; Microfilm No.: K_1708 Source Information Staatsarchiv Hamburg. Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2008. Original data: Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Bestand: 373-7 I, VIII (Auswanderungsamt I). Mikrofilmrollen K 1701 - K 2008, S 17363 - S 17383, 13116 - 13183.

LANGE appears on his baptism records dated 1 June 1856. His full name is Wilhelm John Adolph LANGE. He was born 27 May 1846 and baptized 1 June 1846 in Neubukow, Mecklenburg, Germany. Ancestry.com. Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1971 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. film 69378, page 71; 72.

 

My final conclusion is that his original name is WILHELM JOHANN ADOLPH LANGE. For more information, please see my Roots Digger tree on Ancestry or RootsDiggerRelated on MyHeritage. Thank you to everyone that has guided me towards this conclusion. The actual documents were shown to me by a DNA match on Ancestry.

Please contact me with any questions or comments.

Happy tree climbing and roots digging,

Selma