By Sarwar Hobohm, 6 April 2003 

Some four years ago, when Treffpunkt Hobohm was still in its infancy, we were able to record our first major success in bringing together two Hobohms who were not previously aware of their relationship to each other. On 24 June 1998 Harald Hobohm of Taunusstein sent me his genealogical data for us to set up a “family page” in the Treffpunkt for him. A few months later I received similar data from Annelie Hobohm of Hamburg for the same purpose. In looking at these two sets of data I noticed that they both had the same great-great-grandparents: Georg Andreas Hobohm (born 11.03.1825 in Wormsdorf; died 05.05.1886 in Warsleben) and Sophie Dorothee Elisabeth Hobohm, née Lampe (born 25.07.1834 in Ausleben; died 30.03.1875 in Warsleben). This couple had several children, including the sons Jacob Friedrich Hobohm (born 17.02.1856 in Warsleben; died 23.03.1922 in Warsleben) und Heinrich Christian Andreas Hobohm (born 07.07.1860 in Warsleben; died 14.07.1931 in Schöningen). It turned out that Jacob Friedrich was the great-grandfather of Harald and Heinrich Christian Andreas the great-grandfather of Annelie. Of course, I informed both of them immediately of this discovery, and the meantime they have established very good direct contacts with each other.

Early this year Harald returned the favour. Having emerged as one of the most active researchers of the Hobohm family genealogy of our time, who for several years has been running two very important and successful websites on the subject (http://www.familienforschung-hobohm.de und http://www.familysearch-hobohm.net), Harald has now discovered direct relatives of mine, namely the brothers Rainer Hobohm of Berlin and Bernd Hobohm of Ribe in Denmark. I am very grateful to Harald for his efforts and congratulate him on his well-deserved success. In addition, I am also hoping that the considerable e-mail correspondence that I am now engaged in with Rainer will soon lead to a personal meeting.

The link to Rainer has come as a very pleasant surprise for me. For a long time my line of the Hobohms seemed somewhat marginalized, and even though many of my ancestors came from the well-known Hobohm haunts of Wormsdorf und Warsleben, none of the Hobohms that I have come to know, who in the main are surprisingly knowledgeable about their ancestry, were able to establish links between their ancestors and mine.

The difficulty of inserting my line into the broader Hobohm clan was due mainly to the fact that I, for a variety of reasons, have only had very limited access to genealogical documents. For the most part, I have had to rely on the so-called Ahnenpässe (ancestor passes) issued to my father Herbert Otto Hermann Hobohm and grandfather Otto Albert Hobohm in the 1930s. These documents only permitted the determination of a very one-dimensional backward reaching ancestor tree, however, rather than a more broadly fanned family tree which would have given a wider range of potential linkage points. Furthermore, the data contained in these Ahnenpässen were not comprehensive, und only went back for the required three generations. However, one of them did contain a passing reference to a fourth-generation ancestor Johann Christian Hobohm and his wife Sophie Magdalene. There were no further details, and the surname of Sophie Magdalene was written quite illegibly, although it appeared to be “Gravenhorst” (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Reference to Johann Christian Hobohm and Sophie Magdalene Gravenhorst in my grandfather’s “Ahnenpass”

In February 2000 Harald informed me that he had discovered a colleague in the Berlin office of his firm by the name of Rainer Hobohm. After some correspondence between Harald, Rainer and myself, which also referred to the article on die Hobohms im Schöninger Raum that had been made available to us by Annelie’s brother Heinz-Uwe Hobohm, I received an e-mail message from Harald on 21 February 2000 informing me that the oldest known ancestors of Rainer were also called Johann Christian Hobohm und Sophie Magdalene Gravenhorst. In addition, he was able to give me their dates (1777-1849 in Wormsdorf and 1785-1860 in Wormsdorf, respectively). In August 2002 Harald was further able to confirm that these ancestors had actually existed when he had the opportunity to consult the church records of Wormsdorf in the nearby town of Ummendorf. All that was missing now was a confirmation of my links to them.

This Harald was able to obtain earlier this year. In January 2003 he made a round trip of approx. 1,200 kilometres to consult the church records of Warsleben in the nearby town of Ottleben (which, incidentally, is my grandfather’s birthplace). On 24 January Rainer and I received an e-mail message from him with the subject line “Bingo – Ihr seid verwandt!” (“Bingo – you are related!”) as well as photographic evidence for this statement. He was thus able to show by means of the register of marriages for May-December 1833 that my oldest confirmed ancestor, Georg Andreas Hobohm, was in fact the son of Johann Christian Hobohm and Sophie Magdalene Gravenhorst (Figure 2).

 Figure 2: Entry of Georg Andreas Hobohm’s name in marriage register of Warsleben in 1833, showing that he is the son of Johann Christian Hobohm and Sophia Magdalene Gravenhorst

According to the latest available evidence, the children of Johann Christian Hobohm and Sophie Magdalene Gravenhorst included two sons, Georg Andreas (probably born in 1805) and Friedrich Andreas (born 16.03.1811). My line goes through the older brother Georg Andreas, while Rainer’s goes through the younger brother Friedrich Andreas. A (very) simplified illustration of the link between Rainer and myself is given in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Relationship between Rainer Hobohm and Sarwar Hobohm

Note: This represents a very simplified diagram of the family tree. For more details, see the family pages of Omar Hobohm and Rainer Hobohm . 

It is a very sobering feeling to discover that one is related to a person via an ancestor who was born more than 220 years ago!

Vienna, 6 April 2003

Sarwar Hobohm, 6  April 2003