Below are some notes from ted@steege.com
In the immigration records he is listed as Conrad ("Cord") Heinrich Phillipp Steege. He was a cabbage farmer and linen-weaver who sold his farm in Auhagen to pay a school tax debt of "400 Thaler" and left No. 51 Auhagen in 1846 to go "nach Amerika" with his wife Cathatine Sophia Schmidt Steege with two daughters and two sons, including our ancestor J.H.C. Steege. Despite the different first name, it's clear he was the same person because all the other facts add up.

He was baptized "Cord" Heinrich Philipp. His parents were Johan Hinrich Steege (4/20-/1760-1832) and Anne Engel Marie Beuvers (married 1784, died 1809). They had eight children, six of whom died in childhood; a daughter Anne Engel Frederike Charlotte was born in 1792, but I found no marriage or death record for her; another daughter Anne Engel Marie gave birth to three daughters, one of whom married Friedrich Wilhelm Witte on Oct. 20, 1844.

Johan Hinrich Steege's parents were Hinrich Christoph Steege and Catharina Maria Behrens, married Aug. 23, 1759. That's as far back as I could go.

It was interesting to do the detective work. I checked the postal records and the railroads and was told conclusively that there is no "Ruhagen" or "Anhagen" in Germany. But then someone directed me to an archivist in what used to be Kurhessen, and he pored over the records in another room. Suddenly bounded back toward me, exclaiming, "Ich hab's! Ich hab's! Nicht 'R' aber 'A', und nicht 'n' aber 'u'! Es ist Auhagen, nur 20 kilometer west von Hannover!" And he copied a little map to help us find the place.

We pulled into the town and checked out the cemetary first, finding a stone with "Steege" on it, with the husband's death date on it but not the wife's; after knocking on two doors we found Frau Steege, who welcomed us for Kaffee and told us in no uncertain terms that we must be from a different family, because her ancestors arrived in town after ours left (of course, that just means we were probably related farther back, but everyone we met shared a "village" mentality, in which someone from another town was considered a "different family." Frau Steege then pointed us in the direction of Bergkirchen, a few kilometers up the road, where all the baptismal records were kept.

(BTW, I have several postcards depicting St. Katherines Kirche, and I'll be glad to send you one.)

Mariechen, an elderly woman I met in Bergkirchen, helped me figure out the handwriting and find which of the "Steege" and "Stege" entries were relevant. From her point of view, even a different address indicated a "different family," though the difference between a single and a double "e" was insignificant to her.
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