From being in touch with some Noffke cousins, I now have a lovely copy of one of the Noffke families.
My great-grandmother’s brother was Charles Noffke (who married Louisa Rutkowski). If you recall, this was the woman whose death was public and unexplained. I wrote about her death in How to Explain This Death.
They had a son, Herman (1871-1944). This is Herman with his wife Mary Morganer Finkbeiner (1881-1971). These are some of their children.
BACK ROW: Floyd is on the left. He was 1906-1959. On the right was George, born 1901 (died 1990). He was the oldest child.
MIDDLE ROW: Wilbur is the boy in the middle with glasses (1903-1986).
Alfred is the handsome young man on the right (1905-1963).
Roy is the boy on the left (1911-1991).
Carl, as I mentioned, is the little boy (1917-1970).
It has been wonderful to meet Waldeck and Noffke cousins, but they are all wondering the same thing I have been: where in Europe did these people come from? To be clear: both lines apparently came from the same place in Europe. On one death certificate, I do have a town name. But I can’t find this town any place, and I have asked in genealogy Facebook groups to no avail.
Any ideas on this location of origin?
But I guess I have made strides. After all, we used to think the family name was Neffka . . . .
The Family Kalamazoo 
It sure looks like Zwaluendorf to me, which means swallow in Dutch and city in German. And it looks like the notation says it was in the province of East Prussia. In German swallow is Schwalen, so maybe it was really Schwalendorf in German and a Dutch ancestor translated it into German? Unfortuantely I can’t find a Schwalendorf in Germany, but it was a known surname.
I read your other comment first. Yes, it does look like it could be that and I see that surname all over the internet. But under names I can’t find anything. A German genealogist I used in the past for another project said that both Noffke and another family name in those lines, Kusch, are from Pomerania–but not Waldeck. I see that there is a Schwandorf. But no tall letter in the middle ;). I do think it is more on the eastern side of Germany or what might be Poland today because so many of these clues point to that, plus I have a gene that is specifically Polish–and so do a couple of other people descended from Waldeck-Noffke.
So…what is Polish for swallow? The bird would be jaskółka. BUT the verb swallow in polish is LYK, and there was a town in East Prussia called LYCK. Perhaps someone bungled the translation from the verb in polish to the noun in German or Dutch?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_East_Prussia
But the German for the town of Lyck is Elk, according to this: Ełk [ɛu̯k], from Wikipedia, right? That seems like such a different word so I don’t know . . . . Ugh, you would think it would be easier than this. And I even posted on the German genealogy group on Facebook and nobody could figure out what it is. You have probably come closest!
I think that is the post-1945 name. That list from Wikipedia is pre-1945 names. Who knows? Maybe there are records—worth a check?
What do you mean by records? In Lyck, you mean?
Yes, there might be BMD records from that town you could check? Perhaps someone in the German Genealogy group would know that.
Also, important, most likely is that they were Germans and German speakers, although they may have lived in what is now Poland. Apparently these people all had to leave when Poland became Poland. So it’s more likely that they would have used a German name for the town themselves, right?
I’d think, but stranger things have happened, as you know!
Yes, that is true!
Sorry for typos–should be Schwalben. And also translated it from German into Dutch!
I have several DNA matches to people with the same Noffke relatives in their pedigree, leading me to think I must have some Noffkes in my past (probably from the same area as the Steffkes I DO know about). All were from the Landkreis Stolp area of Prussia.
That location sounds right to me. Pomerania, right? What sites have your DNA? I wonder if we have a match.
gedmatch.com (A394594) and ancestry.com (marenroush)
I compared yours with mine. We don’t have any matches, so that is disappointing, but obviously many possible reasons for that and yet we can still both we connected to the same Noffkes.
Oh, and yes to Pomerania. 🙂
My great-grandfather Franz Wilhelm Noffke and his family moved from the village of Klein Garde (near Stolp/Slupsk) in Pomerania to New Zealand in the late 1800s. The Noffke (aka Noffki, or Nowke/Nowki before the surname was Germanized in the early 1700s) family all came from the Stolp/Slupsk and Lauenburg/Lebork area, and were ethnically Kashubian (aka Slovincian). I have a clue to this “Zwaluendorf” riddle. On the death certificate it says Zwaluendorf ^ Province East Prussia, Germany. It could just be a typo. “Schwalbendorf” means “swallow-village”. East Prussia is now the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, there is a village there called Volodarovka, which used to be the German village of Schwalbental (“swallow-valley”).