Johann Carl Ernst Kanseyer or Cansier was born November, 1776 in Alt Sührkow and died on February 26, 1853 in Thürkow, Mecklenburg, Germany.

He married his first wife, Johanna Carolina Sophia Grübe on May 2, 1806. She was  born in 1784 and died in 1828. They had several children between 1809 and 1819.

He then married Hanna Schlee who was born in 1805 and they had children between 1830 and November 1837.
 

According to the church records for Gross Wokern, Germany, Johann is listed as angeblech i.e. alleged to be the father of August Heiden (left) in 1838. In the record, he is listed as Johann Cansier but, as you can see by the insert below, this seemed to have been a difficult name and was spelled differently in several records. From what we have found, it would seem that Kanseyer may be the correct spelling.

August's mother, Maria Heiden was working as a madchen or housemaid at that time. She would have been 21 years old and Johann was 62. We have no verifiable evidence of the type of relationship they had but, according to other records, it seems that Johann fathered a child with yet another woman when he was 70. Maria had her first child, Friedericka (right), when she was 15 years old with a man named Wilhelm Ave.
 

 

The spelling of this family's name seems to have varied over the years. Most of the people were illiterate and relied on the pastor to write their names into the church record books. Often, the pastor simply spelled a name phonetically to the best of his ability or just spelled it without reference to earlier entries by another cleric.

The birth, baptism, confirmation and parent records for what we will call the Kanseyer line all match in terms of dates, locations and relationships. The exact spelling of the surname, however, did not stay consistent over the decades.

The first generation we found listed the father's name as Jacob Canseyer. His first child is named Anna Ilsabe Canseyer but the second child is listed as Hinrich Kanseyer. All of Hinrich's children in the next generation are recorded as Kanseyer.

The children of his son, Christoph Friedrich Wilhelm Kanseyer continued that spelling except for one child whose name was spelled Kanseier and a son, Johann Carl Ernst who was listed as "Kansehr" in his chruch's records.

The next change may have come about because Christoph's church was in the village of Alt Sϋhrkow.  His son, Johann, lived in the village of Thϋrkow and the church records there also even misspelled his village of birth as Alt Sϋrkow.

In the records report we received from East Germany in 1973, the man listed as the "alleged" father of August Friedrich Anton Theodor Heiden was Johann Cansier of Gross Wokern. So, this was yet another clergyman spelling the name of a man who was most likely not personally involved in the process of recording his illegitimate child's birth.

Since that largest number of records spelled the name Kanseyer, that is the one we will use unless or until we find other evidence. Comments? Send an EMAIL.