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My grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Shaffer, was born in PA in April 1864 (shown in 1900 census San Francisco, CA with name misspelled Benjaman). I hope this story is someone's family story from Benjamin's sister Alice (or perhaps Alis).
Benjamin's father died when Benjamin was 12 or 13 leaving his mother and sister Alice. Benjamin proceeded to run away from the family home in the Gramercy Park area of Philadelphia. This would be about 1877. What I need here is where the Gramercy Park area of Philadelphia was in 1877 so I can try to search the 1870 census records for a Benjamin. Alice was about 5 or 6 when Benjamin ran away so she will not show up in the 1870 census.
Another problem was that Benjamin changed his name to Shaffer after he ran away from home because no one could spell or pronounce whatever the other name was. I don't know where he lived so cannot find him in the 1880 census given that the name was Shaffer then. Of course, the 1890 census was destroyed. He finally shows up in the 1900 census married to my grandmother, Emma Schwartz, and they have a 1-year-old son, Abraham F. Shaffer--my father, whom I had only ever known as Francis J. Shaffer. Benjamin reported on that census that his family was from Germany. My mother tells me that Benjamin's mother was supposedly from the Alsace-Lorraine area of Germany (now in France).
After Benjamin married and had a son, he tried to find his mother and sister. I believe he wrote to someone back in Germany after finding out that his mother and sister returned there. Supposedly, he found out that both his mother and sister died. How true this is I do not know.
I know there are loads of records in the Germans to America books, but are there ship records of Germans back to Germany?
I read the e-mail threads regarding DNA. My grandson (a 2-year-old) is the only male available to test for Y-DNA (at least I think that is what is tested).
If this story sounds somewhat familiar, please get in touch with me. I would love to be able to take the family back to Germany to look for ancestry there.
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