Paul Karl Otto Haenke

I wanted to write about Paul Haenke because it has been a fun journey discovering him and in the process connecting with relatives. So this might be a little more about the process than Paul himself. Paul Karl otto Haenke is the brother of my great, great, grandfather, so my second great granduncle. There isn't too much to tell about him, except that he ran away from home at a young age and joined the circus. His father's story (my great, great, great grandfather) is a little more interesting. This is what my grandma told me. Emil Haenke fell in love with Maria Lehmann. She I believe got pregnant with Paul. But Emil's mean old dad,Gottlieb , would not let Emil marry Maria because she was Jewish. But a very nice older man with the last name Clouse wanted to marry Maria and raise her child as his own. Though Maria and Emil still loved each other Maria married the older man because she really had no choice. Then she became pregnant with Mr. Clouse's child who was named Karl. Shortly after that Mr. Close died. Emil married Maria Lehmann Clouse despite His father's disapproval. He raised Karl as his own. Later they had Olga who always was called Ida and Helena wbo went by Lena and my grandpa Reinholdt who went by Henry, Karl went by Charlie. He used the last name Haenke until a family rift caused Charlie to run away. He then went back to using Clouse.. By the way, Paul also ran away and joined the circus. There is a picture of Him on a TRAPEZE. ...MORE ABOUT ALL THIS LATER This to me is a very interesting story. I started going through old photos with my grandma and found a photo of a lady named Roma. My grandma remembered she was a Haenke, but didn't remember how exactly she was related to us. She sent me some family tree information and I found that she was Paul's daughter. I went back to my family tree on ancestry.com and noticed that a woman named Roma asked me a question about a photo I had posted of someone else. I private messaged her and sent her a copy of the photo I had that was titled "Roma." As it turned out, that was a photo of her. So I met a new relative (my grandma's cousin) in the process of learning and recording information about our family. She is a very nice lady who remembers meeting my great, great grandfather Emil when she was a little girl. She is also very interested in family family history. I thought this post would be a little more exciting. But now that I have written it, it doesn't seem to be that much. What is exciting for me is; 1) there is a very good love story here 2) every family should have a relative who has joined the circus and 3) I connected with a distant family member. Thats all!