I focused next on doing research on Henry’s mother, Mary.  I explored variations of her surname Haen which included Hehn, Hein and Heine.  This resulted in not finding any documentation on Mary initially until I found a Johann Hein born in Mochulki, Volyn, Ukraine, on an Ancestry tree. 

Further investigation with the help of my cousin on The Society for Germanic Genealogy in Eastern Europe or SGGEE website resulted in locating the marriage record for Henry’s parents.  It started with my cousin’s finding some time ago a Heinrich Tomm born in October 1876 in Shitomir, Zhitomir parish, with father being Friedrich and mother being Maria Hein.  I agreed with my cousin that this Heinrich may be our Henry.  

Also found was an SGGEE entry for Eva Tomm born in August 1879.  The entry was for a baptism record for both Heinrich and Eva.  We wondered if perhaps Eva was his sister.  

My cousin also told me about another record connected with Friedrich Tomm and Maria Hein–their marriage bann.  I shared this information with genealogist coach Keri and learned how to access the marriage bann’s digital scan, which was from a record book of communes of the Evangelical Augsburg Confession areas of the governorates of the Russian Empire/eastern voivodeships Polish Republic.  

The bann was written in German.  I was able to have it translated with the help of others before sharing it with Keri. It was thought by those translating the marriage bann that the locations could be Nowe Zawadka, Dabie, Kolo, Posen.  Kreis Rowno was in Volhynia (now Ukraine).  This was most likely where Friedrich was.

After I joined SGGEE as a member, which enabled me to do advanced searches for the surname Tomm, I was able to locate a marriage listing for Friedrich25 tomm. The ‘25’ represented his age at the time of his marriage and included the event day/month as 02 Jul 1876 at Roszyszcze with bride surname of Hein. The bride’s given name was Marianne 21. The groom’s parents were listed as Gottlieb Tomm and Rosina. The bride’s parents were Johann Hein and mother unknown.

I was able to locate the pastor’s name within an article SGGEE provided about the history of the Volhynia Diocese, Roshischtsche Parish. SGGEE also provided maps showing German settlements in Eastern Europe. One map, available to SGGEE members only, showed Rowno and Zhitomir in the Volhynia region. This prompted my research on Wolhynia also known as Volhynia.