Someone has scribbled the name Carl Julius Norkus on the back of this photograph of a brick mason. I did my quick search on my usual genealogy platforms but couldn’t be sure if I had found the right person since I didn’t have any idea of a location.

But then a Google search came back with a result – a tax document from 1874 in his name, sold currently on German ebay (click HERE)! The document mentions his profession to have been a brick mason. What are the odds!

I’ve added a photo of the tax document from eBay, but I don’t own it:

After this, I could find him on Ancestry: Carl Julius Norkus was born on July 27th, 1840, in Eichwalde, Labiau (Polessk) in Prussia, today’s Kaliningrad, to parents Christian Norkus and Sophie née Neumann. The parents had gotten married in October 1839 in Labiau. Unfortunately the marriage record does not mention Christian’s parents, but it does mention the bride’s father, Friedrich Neumann.
In 1874, Carl Julius was a brick mason in Needau. His father had also been a brick mason. Looks like Carl Julius had a younger brother Carl August, born in 1842.
Unfortunately this is all I’ve been able to find out for now. I don’t know if Carl Julius ever married and had children, nothing else comes up on him in the papertrail. I imagine him to have been a teddy bear to be around, a hard-working chap with good humour.