The German marriage and baptism records, the family-held extract, and the unresolved bridge to Henry Bange in America.
The proposed Bokeloh connection
The St. Vitus parish register at Bokeloh records a Bange child’s birth on September 9, 1827 and baptism the following day. Entry 36 gives the child’s name as Bernard followed by an abbreviation read as Henr./Herm.; the father’s given name is similarly abbreviated. The mother is Maria Bruns, and the original residence is provisionally Halle/Hälte-like, not securely normalized to Helte or Holte. The German abbreviations do not by themselves establish a full Heinrich or Herman reading.
A family-held photograph of a photocopy of a baptism extract certified at Bokeloh on September 25, 1850 records the matching September 10, 1827 baptism, mother Maria Bruns and Helte residence. It gives no separate birth date. Its preservation with the family’s papers is important additional evidence for the German–American connection. Together with the 1859 American groom’s full name Bernhard Heinrich Bange and the 1919 certificate’s reported parents Henry Bange and Mary Brun[c/e], the matching details strongly support the proposed Bokeloh connection. That identification remains under review: the abbreviated German names and the conflicting American and German birth dates should be retained rather than silently reconciled.
The St. Vitus formal marriage register records Bernard Bange, with his second given name read as Heinrich-like but still qualified, and Maria Bruns marrying on July 9, 1822. It names the groom’s parents as Joh. Hermann Bange and Anna Elisabeth Plaggeman, also searched as Plaggemann, and the bride’s parents as Bernard Bruns and Margaretha Honigfort. These are parent statements in the German register. Extending the American family’s ancestry through this couple remains conditional on confirming the German–American connection; the older parents’ own births and earlier ancestry remain open.
The Banges in Riesenbeck
In Riesenbeck, Joannes Hermannus Bange and Anna Elisabetha Playman married on October 6, 1776. The parish later recorded the baptism of Joannes Bernardus Hinricus on June 21, 1789, naming his parents as Joan. Herm. Bange and Anna Elisabetha Plageman.
The boy’s names and parents fit Bernard Heinrich Bange, who married in Bokeloh on July 9, 1822, at age 33. Together, the records make a strong case that he was the same person. The link back from our American family still needs to be settled: Henry Bange appears to be the child baptized in Bokeloh in 1827, but that connection has not been proved.
We haven’t established the parents of the couple married in 1776. There is also a misleading birth record to watch for. Anna Maria Elisabetha Playman, born in January 1778, could not have been the bride two years earlier. Her parents should not be added to this family. The suggested August 9, 1754 birth for the bride also remains unsupported.
Sources: St. Kalixtus, Riesenbeck, marriage register, October 6, 1776, and baptism register, manuscript page 66, entry 33, June 21, 1789; St. Vitus, Bokeloh, formal marriage register, July 9, 1822, row 10. June 21, 1789 is a baptism date; no separate birth date is given. The match with the 1822 groom comes from comparing the records, not from a note linking them. The 1776 marriage does not name the couple’s parents. Names above follow the spellings in each record.
What the newer comparison adds
The St. Louis marriage of John Bernard Bange and Maria Adelheid Lammers on November 8, 1853 explicitly calls the groom a son of Bernard Heinrich Bange. It supplies an important American father statement, but no groom’s mother or German birthplace. It must not be used to force an uncertain abbreviation in a different record.
Re-reading the Bokeloh 1824 entry corrects the earlier May reading: the child was born March 25 and baptized March 27, 1824. The father’s second-name abbreviation and the Halle/Hälte-like residence remain qualified. The date fits the age calculation from the American 1905 interment record, but agreement in dates does not alone settle the identity.
The proposed 1854 Bange burial is kept separate as an uncertain candidate. Fresh readings leave the deceased’s given name and status unclear; it is not confirmation that the man baptized in 1789 died in 1854. The 1789 baptism and 1822 marriage retain their own evidence, without using that burial to close the lifespan.