This family is related to the Heiden Family through Fredericka "Rika" Knaack who was the wife of August Heiden, the first of our family to emigrate from Germany. As with several of the surnames in our background, there have been variable spellings found in different records in Germany and the U.S. Some American documents use the name Knaak or Knack or Kanack but the German records have it Knaack so that is what we will use for now.

Anna (Mrs Ernst) Heiden was often recorded as Knack in American documents, some of the German records use the spelling Knaack as does her obituary. We have not been able to tell if she was actually related to her mother-in-law and will continue to research the topic.

The earliest relative in this line is Johann Jochim Friedrick Knaack (1791-1935) who was born in Serrhan, Germany. His son, Christoph, was born in 1805 in Mamerow, Germany where he married Sophia Dreier in 1834. They had six children and the fourth child, Fredericka was born in 1841 in Mamerow.

On February 21, 1868, Rika married August Heiden in Klaber, Germany. They had three children, Heinrich, Ernst and Meta. In 1873, the family took a ship from Hamburg port to New York and eventually settled in Monroe, Michigan.