My great great grandfather, John Henry (Johann Heinrich), was from Hanover, Germany and was a member of the Lutheran Church there. He married Charlotte Sophia Kamman (Cammann) from Celle, Germany on Dec. 19, 1865 in Hamburg, Germany when he was 36 and she was 26. They set sail for America the next day. They are listed on the passenger ship "Gustemunde" which arrived six weeks later in New York City. A week later they set sail again, this time toward the Gulf of Mexico to the Louisiana Territory and settled in what was later to become Pascagoula, Mississippi. He had been a lumberman and she had been a beautician in Germany, and in Mississippi they owned a shingle yard making cypress shingles. (Information from Grandma Vieregge's German Bible)

Two of John Henry's brothers came with them to America. One was August Vieregge, but the other's name is unknown. Sophia's father, Herman Kamman , and two of her little brothers, Fredrich, about age 14, and William , about age 12. came with them also. There were other siblings still in Germany. The unknown Vieregge brother and Sophia's brother, Fredrich, went back to Germany, but were assumed lost at sea for no one ever heard from them again. Her younger brother, William, married a Texas girl, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Wilson, and raised 4 boys and 3 girls.

John and Sophia had the following children while they were living in Pascagoula, Mississippi:

Harmon Vieregge
John William Vieregge
Louis Charles Vieregge
Sophia Elise Vieregge Pinkert

By 1875 they moved to a German community in Round Top, Fayette Co., Texas where the following children were born:

Henry (Heinrich) Martin Vieregge
Emma Mary Vieregge Young
Otto Vieregge
Lydia Vieregge

Their son, Harmon died there at age 9, July 28, 1876. Their child, Otto, died in Bastrop, Texas in 1883, when he was almost 3 years old, and their daughter, Lydia, died in 1886 at age 2.

In Dec., 1912 Charlotte became ill and passed away at age 73. Four days later John Henry followed her in death at age 83. They had been married 47 years.