Dear Dieter,

Thank you for the interest in my search of my ancestors in Mecklenburg. To start with     I did not have much to go on. What I had were some stories about my great-great-great grandmother who lived and died in Kongsberg, Norway. We found data about her on micro film of churchbooks. We found that she was born in 1787 in Sweden, but not where. We had also heard about 2 brothers that had emigrated from Germany to Sweden. All we knew about them was their surname ROGGENBIHLD, ROGENBILD.
Well, that is not much to start with, but we kept on looking. 

We had heard that one brother was an artist, a painter that had painted an altar piece
somewhere. We did not have a PC connected to Internet at that time and we
spent hundreds of hours at our library looking at micro films. But on the Internet now last fall we looked up our Norwegian census for 1801. Up to that time we did not think that anyone else but my g-g-g- grandmother with that name lived in Norway at that time. But to my surprise suddenly one of the brothers name stared at me from a place near the Swedish border. There he was: JOHAN ADAX ROGENBIHLD, with his Swedish wife and his four daughters 12-8-4-1 years old. He worked as a carpenter on a farm called "Knoll". I don`t know why, but I would like to see this place, so we drove down there. Well the farm was not in use anymore and it was in a very bad condition of falling down. 

We found the person who owned it and we told him about my relatives
who had lived and worked there about 200 years ago. He said that the farm had changed owners and he did not know too much about that time, but he said we could stop at another farm on our way back and talk to the owner, as he was more interested in family histories. Well we stopped there and were invited in. I showed him my copy of the 1801 census with the name ROGENBIHLD, then he looks at me and he said, wait a minute , I have seen that name before. He then gets out a family Chronical about 3 families living on near by farms at that time. He opens the book, and we get another
surprise, but there was more to come. 

What we could read was a little story about the German painter "CLAUS ROGENBILD" who had touched up some paintings on a cabinet for a farmer near by. He told us the story that the owner, later on emigrated to America with their belongings, but this cabinet was too large to take with them. So it was sold on an auction, but if you would like to see it, then I have it here. Well there we stood looking at the cabinet , one of my ancestors had painted on about 200 years ago.                                                 We thanked the people for their help, and they took some pictures, which we received later. Now we had one more question: Who was the father of my g-g-g-grandmother? Well the census of 1801 shows her name was "CHARLOTTE ROGENBILD" she had her father`s surname, but Johan Adax Rogenbihld`s daughters had Johannesdatter as surname (which was customary in Norway at that time).

We still don`t know where they came from in Germany, but we believe it must
be Mecklenburg, close to Ratzeburg or around that area. We would be very
pleased if some one could help us, if they have heard about the name
ROGGENBIHL with variations there of.

We would also to find out about a minister with the name of ROGGENBAU. We found his name in the "Kopulationsregister aus Mecklenburgische Kirchenbücher. Teil G. Raum
Neukloster - Grevesmühlen - Rehna - Gadebusch" 26.07.1763 Cath. Sophia
Rieck = Joh. Georg Frantz ROGGENBAU, Pastor aus Demern ( Demern, Fürstentum
Ratzeburg). We would like to know if they had any children, and if so what
their names were ? and when they were born?

This was a long story and I hope it can help you in your research. The
ancestors from CLAUS ROGENBILD live near Oslo, Norway and some live in
California, USA. My uncle emigrated to USA about 1923.

Hoping to hear from you or other people who might have some information for
us about the ROGENBILD and the ROGGENBAU families.


Willy Hansen Roggenbihl

Drammen, Norway