THOMAS PICKERING was born Norley, Cheshire, Weaverham, and was alive in 1695

Danzig got destroyed 1945 to 90% but that houses front side with it's golden plated decorations luckily survived and got fully restaurated by now (behind the restaurated facades they built new houses).

The house is now called the "Golden House" and one of the handfull mayor sights to be seen in Gdansk near the "Lange Markt"= long market."

The house was not built by a Steffen but by a rich merchant called Speimann in the 17th century (started 1609), in 1616-18 the reliefs were added. The statues on top are Cleopatra, Oedipus, Archilles and Antigone.

From a travel guide to Gdansk:
"Several striking homes are located in the Main Town adjacent to Dlugi Targ (Long Market), including the spectacular Golden House, sporting 12 intricately carved scenes on its facade featuring the busts of historical figures and two Polish kings".

Please contact Ina at
ina@friling.de

I would like to share with you some of the letters I have received from Ina. I think it's just so amazing that we connected!

From Ina

"Through your internet page I was very happy to find out that we have some ancestors in common, back in the 1780's.Your ancestor William Pickering (born 1782) had a younger brother Peter, he was born on 27 July 1785 in Aston, Sutton, Chester and he died 12 June 1865 in Wonneberg, Danzig, Germany.

The Pickering Familiy in those days were merchants and they had good connections to the Steffens (also rich merchants) of Danzig. William went to Danzig to learn the business at the friends house and took the daughter of the house (Frederika) back with him to England. Later Peter followed his path and fell in love with the younger sister Emilie (born 13 Feb 1794 in Danzig, died there 3 Oct 1877). Now the Steffens father told them to stay in Danzig, he didn't want to loose both daughters and probably need an heir.

This story has always been told in my family. We knew that two Pickering brothers had married two Steffens sisters and that their fathers name was John and that the family lived in Frodsham. But we didn't have any further information until I just recently started to build a family tree with the help of computer. And thanks to the Internet - we found the connection to you! Peter and Emilie had a son Francis-Eugen (born 19 March 1815 in Wonneberg, Danzig, died 5 Feb. 1895 in Weiss-Buckowitz, East-Prussia). He married Margarete Doering (born 20 July 1844 in Marienburg, West-Prussia, died 3 Dec. 1923 in Berlin).

They had a daughter Eva-Henriette Pickering (born 13 Dec. 1868 in Marienburg, died 8 Nov 1950 in Berlin). She was my greatgrandmother and almost ruined my parents wedding, because she died shortly before the scheduled wedding on December 7. 1950. But she had told them to get married anyways and not to postpone because of grieve. She must have been a very active woman, because she taught my mother ice-skating with the age over 70!

Eva-Henriette married Georg-Hermann Kowallek, their son Alfred Kowallek married Hiltrud-Maria Hiekmann and their daughter Ingehilt Eva-Margarete was my mother. My full name is Ina-Maria Rose-Margarete Friling (born Nolte). (This familiy loves long names, makes it kind of hard with the typing!) I'm born 1955 in Berlin and I have two sons: Sebastian born 1979 and Thomas born 1982.

The treasurer of all the old Kowallek family history, letters and pictures is my uncle Alfard Kowallek, my mothers younger brother. But we will get something from him for your collection. He might mail to you also, because I just told him the internet adress of your site. We used to live in Berlin but now both families moved to little villages in Brandenburg, about 30-40 km from Berlin.

I hope to hear from you soon,
Your German "cousin" Ina
PS Your website is great!"

My heartfelt thanks to Alfhard Kowallek and his niece, Ina Friling (Ina) (descendants of Peter Pickering and Emilie Steffens) for finding our website on the internet and connecting our families with Danzig, Prussia.
The early part of this family tree comes from a handwritten tree given to me from Mr. Kowallek. The photos of William and Carolina Steffens Pickering were also graciously sent to me by Mr. Kowallek. Ina supplied the photo of the "Steffens House" or "Golden House" as it is called today in Gkansk, Poland (formerly Danzig, Prussia).