Tom Waldecker arrived in 1891. But a number of others arrived a year later. I found a passenger list with the first arrival of most of our relatives. They arrived at the Port of Philadelphia on May 5, 1892 on the steamship Illinois that had left from Antwerp, Belgium. Here is the relevant part:

Based on my other research I would say there are some errors here, but I think it’s beyond doubt that these are our ancestors. The list includes:
- Frieling Waldecker (who later shows up as Fred). I think his age is wrong as confirmed by later documents. He is five years younger than his wife.
- His wife is ?erdena (I have her name as Gerdina. By the way the first part of her name comes from the same root meaning as mine.)
- Henrieka is the daughter we know as Rieka.
- The next one I’m not sure about. But it could be Minard I suppose. It fits his birth year, which is 1874.
- Then comes Eppe Hayunga. Looks like they messed up his last name though. It looks like they wrote “Heiura.” This would be Rieka’s husband.
- Finally we have “Trincha Walk?ns” or Trijntje Walkins. Micah found that Trijntje is short of Katharine in Dutch.
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This is so very exciting!
Oh my goodness, oh dear, how exhilerating!
Where are you finding these, Gary? Did you subscribe to Ancestry.com?
Yes, I subscribed a few days ago. I was looking at their free stuff and realized there was a lot more info than when I had subscribed a few years ago. So I have a year subscription. If you want to help me do research, I’ll be glad to let you use it.
I would like to help out.