| Welcome to the website of the Voge families whose heritage traces to the former Neumark. If your ancestors came from this area, this is the place for you. The Neumark was the area of Germany east of the Oder River. In 1945, the Oder River became the eastern bornder of Germany and remains so to this day. The Neumark has been under the control of Poland since that time. As best as is known, all the Voge family in the Neumark have a common ancestor. This means if you have an ancestor from the Neumark you are related to all of the people on this website. It is my hope that this website can be a tool for people who are studying their Voge family heritage. I hope that family researchers can both find and share new infomation here so that all Voge�s can learn about all of their ancestors. The Voge name has many variants. These include Voige, which is the predominant one, but also Voye, Foge, Foig, Foige, Voyg, Voege, Voyge, and Voygen The spelling V-O-I-G-E was dominant for many years, but was gradually replaced with the current V-O-G-E. The other variant spellings are largely believed to have been the way the name was recorded in official church records. It is believed that the Priests may have simply spelled the name the way it sounded. This due to the Berliner accent. Voge family in Germany who do not descend from the Voige / Voge families of the Neumark are not believed to be related to the Neumark Voge�s. Most of these unrelated Voge�s are from the region of Schleswig-Holstein, a province of Northern Germany bordering on the Baltic Sea and Denmark. It has long been reported that the Voge family may have originated in France. Melanie Voge, a Schleswig-Holstein Voge who lives in Gleschendorf Germany writes to me the following: The name Voge originally came from France, perhaps the original surname was "Foie", the French word for trust/faith. They were Hugenottes (Protestants) and they were persecuted in France, so they flew to Germany (Prussia under the Kaiser Friedrich). They went to the area which is today Brandenburg/ Berlin. A lot of workers were wanted there at that time, so they settled there. There is no way of knowing if this story is accurate or not. There is no way of knowing if this is where the Voge�s in the Neumark came from or not. It is just one story which may explain the rumors of a �French Connection� to the Voge family which have persisted for centuries. At the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945, the entire Neumark east of the Oder River was ceded to Poland by the Soviet government. Thus began one of the largest cases of ethnic cleansing in history. The Poles, who had long harbored a claim to the Neumark, took revenge on all of the Germans living in the region. All Germans were removed from the Neumark under force of arms. The Poles changed the names of all the towns, counties and provinces. They seized all property and burned all civil and church records. Large ceremonial bonfires were lit in each town, under which centuries of records of the German inhabitants went up in flames. The world turned a blind eye to these atrocities, and Germany did not renounce its claim to the Neumark until the re-unification of Germany in 1991. Kreis Arnswalde The center of the Voge family in the Neumark was in Kreis Arnswalde, Province Brandenburg. (Kreis Arnswalde became part of Province Pomern in 1938). The original town the Voge family traces back to is Silberberg. The first known ancestor is Christian Foge of Silberberg, born in 1655. However, the predominant line of Voge's descend from Michael Voige of Silberberg, born in about 1700. These two lines connect through a marraige between Christian Foge's great-great-great grand daughter (Dorothea Sophia Voige, 1819-1895) and Michael Voige's great-great grand son (Johann Gottlieb Voige, 1818-1870). This connection is demonstrated in this tree. The exact relationship between Christian Foge and Michael Voige is unknown. Speculation is that Michael Voige was either the descendant of a brother to Christian Foge, or that Michael is a grandson of Christian Foge. The true answer may never be known. |
| Now that you know something of the History of the Voge family, continue to the next page and begin the search for you ancestors. |
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