These siblings have been identified as Adolphine and Heinrich Hinsch and the photo was taken in Bromberg (in Bydgoszcz in today’s in Poland).
I assume the photo was taken some time in the late 1880s, judging by her dress and hair style. So my thinking was perhaps she was born in the early 1870s. Heinrich looks younger than his older sister.
At first I had some difficulty finding anything about the siblings in the records. But when I finally came across the birth record of Adolphine from February 1871, I had names for the siblings’ parents: Eugen Hinsch, who was a teacher by profession, and his wife Emma née Falck. This was my missing puzzle piece and it didn’t take me long to find the family trees built for the siblings on Ancestry.
Adolphine Auguste Louise Gustave Hinsch was born on February 17, 1871 in Bromberg.
The younger brother, Heinrich Georg Eugen Eggert Hinsch, was born on August 13, 1880 in Bromberg. He studied law and in the early 1910s practiced as a judicial trainee.
But now I’m having my doubts if the siblings in our photo really have an age difference of 9 years, like Adolphine and Heinrich did? Or was the boy in the photo another brother? Or perhaps Adolphine looked frail and younger for her age?
According to a public tree on Ancestry, the siblings had one more brother, Alfred Georg Gustav Emil Hinsch who was born in 1873 and who became a medical doctor. Perhaps these are Adolphine and Alfred instead? What do you think?
There should have been four siblings in the photo, but unfortunately I’ve found a death record for the fourth sibling from 1877. I have no other details about the sibling, how old he or she had been or what his or her name had been either.
Adolphine married Leo August Moritz Georg von Scheven in January 1895 in Bromberg. Eleven months later they welcomed their first child, Günther Leo Kurt Alfred Eugen von Scheven in Greifswald. And three years later, their daughter Irene was born in Greifswald.
And this is where the fate of the Hinsch-von Scheven family took a tragic turn. Adolphine passed away in May 1899 in Stettin. She was just 28 years old, mother of toddlers of 4 and barely 1,5 years old. The doctor confirming her death was her own brother Dr. Alfred Hinsch. I don’t know what the declared cause of her such early death was, it is not mentioned on her death certificate. But I have a feeling it could have been something modern medicine could have had an answer for if she had lived in our modern times. Such tragedy!
Death continued to follow the Hinsch family. In September of the same year, the siblings father Eugen Hinsch passed away; 10 years later their mother Emma.
Sadly, our boy Heinrich passed away 13 years later, on August 9th, 1912. He was just 31 years old, practicing as a judicial trainee. And curiously the siblings’ brother Alfred Hinsch had passed away just a day before, on August 8 in Stettin. But I don't know the cause of either of their deaths. So many young deaths in this family...
I hope to make contact with Adolphine and Alfred’s descendants or relatives or whoever has made the loving effort to record their family trees in such detail. I would love to return this photo to the family!
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