My great grandparents,                                                                                                 Gustav Krause (20 June 1857-24 April 1939) and
Henriette Nastke (3 February 1865- 31 July 1915) left almost no records of
genealogical interest. My grandfather used to tell me that his father came from a military family, that they once had the title "von" before their name. However, his father was the youngest son of the family so he would not be able to inherit anything. Therefore, after spending some time as a fisherman on the sea decided to leave for the United States       where he became a housepainter in Detroit, Michigan.

He must have known Henriette before coming over in 1880 because Henrietta
joined him here in November of 1882 and they were married the following
month, 6 December 1882.

For several years I searched for clues as to where they had come from:
census records, naturalization papers, ships passenger lists, the family Bible, but all I could find was "Germany" or "Prussia". Then one day my brother found a yellowed paper in the bottom of Grandpa's old trunk. It was written in Zezenow and requested birth records for Henriette's father, Wilhelm Carl August Nastke, in Poblotz/Gadgen. When I found the location of these towns, I was reasonably certain that both Henriette and Gustav had
come from there.

Sometime later I received pages from a history book of Poblotz and learned
that in 1837 a Hauptmann Wilhelm Klaudius Theodor von Krause came to take
possession of Poblotz. This fits in perfectly with Grandpa's stories, so
I'm certain this is the right family. Although I received a von Krause
family tree from the Prussian military archives I don't know how Gustav is
related to them. And since there are no longer any records for Stolp I will
not be able to complete my Krause/Nastke tree unless I hear from other family  members who can give me that information.

Thanks for asking me to submit, and thanks, most of all, for introducing me
to your marvelous website.

Betty Johnson