Where do you start your German research?

December 14, 2021 Leave a comment

To find our German ancestors, we need to know their Germanic name, the name of the town they left, and the approximate date (at least the year) of their birth or marriage in Germany. Does this sound like an easy process?  I find that it normally has many snags. If we are lucky, our family papers include documents from the old country that point to our ancestral home. Family oral history may also point to a town, but the name passed down maybe a large city in the area they left or the name given is a phonetic spelling. If your immigrant ancestors did not save copies of documents from the “Old Country,” you will need to find U.S. documents that list clues to the town’s name or area. First, the best strategy is to initially search for current records for family members and follow the paper trail back from the most recent ancestors to those who immigrated. Our journey is more challenging because German immigration happened from the 1600s to the 1900s, and older documents do not include the details we need or they have been lost. In addition, the earlier arrival dates generated fewer documents that we can use even if they are found. Even with these challenges, be persistent and diligently search for the information.

My research had many challenges and few documents that produced relevant town names. However, I successfully found German birth records for three of them. My first success developed from a village name listed in the 1920 U.S. census record. Typically, the birthplace column on the census lists only the country, but the enumerator also recorded the village name. This location was later confirmed by exchanging information with someone who grew up in this German village and verified that the family had indeed lived there until 1890. The second success came from information gleaned from family stories. Unfortunately, parts of the story were wrong and contained the phonetic spelling of the villages, but my persistence did yield the birth records for the two immigrants who left in 1850. The third example was more difficult because it was based on Y-DNA results. The descendants of my only match listed a possible birthplace for their ancestor that gave me a clue to a small area near the Rhine River. Searching online databases, I found possible birth records for both immigrants (mine and theirs) in a small village near the town they had listed for their ancestors. Even though the town they listed was a mistake, it was an important clue because the correct village was in the district named for the large town they had listed.

Collect as many place names as possible from the documents, oral histories, and any other source we can uncover. Gather all the place names found on documents related to our direct ancestors because they are clues. Also, save the place names on records for siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. For example, if their passenger manifest listed their destination as a friend, include this person in your research since they also came from the same place. Treat these place names as clues because they are usually not spelled correctly, and many town names have multiple locations. Look for your clues in various documents and the stories told by your older relatives. After we have a list of place-name clues, we need to find our ancestral home on a map. Finding multiple names from our list near one another should point to the most likely location of our ancestral home. Visualize you are working on a jigsaw puzzle, and the town names are the visual clues you need to put your puzzle pieces together.  

Researchers can encounter many confusing pieces of information. One factor causing much of the confusion is that speaking German does not limit the location of our ancestral home to being within the borders of present-day Germany. There are German-speaking people in Austria, Switzerland, Alsace (now part of France), Parts of the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Denmark, parts of the western portion of present-day Poland, and some parts of Russia. Before 1871, they listed their origins as Prussia, Bavaria, Rhineland, or other Germanic states. If we are lucky, they recorded their origin as one of the smaller states such as Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg Hanover because we would have a smaller area to search for the specific village. We may also be confused because towns located in border areas may have multiple names based on the multiple languages spoken in the area. As an example, the city of Stettin is also known as Szczecin in Polish. Be careful because the differences for smaller villages will be harder to distinguish. The spelling of the village name may vary because of how it is used in a sentence, and knowing German grammar may help recognize the correct spelling.

You need to Identify:

  • The general area that they left
  • The name of the village or town
  • The name of the town where the church or civil records were recorded
  • As many town names as possible to confirm where to look

Envision a map of the area around your ancestor’s birthplace, and each clue you find is a piece of the jigsaw puzzle that has a picture of this map on it. Once you fit all of the clues together, the image on the jigsaw puzzle comes together, and you will be able to recognize where the area is located.

Filed under Genealogy Research, German Genealogy

Enjoying my Polish Christmas Feast and Staying Safe

December 6, 2021 Leave a comment

Wesołych Świąt

Many of my ancestors are Polish and celebrating holidays are essential to the lives of Polish families. They used the calendar of holidays to set the rhythm for activities during the year. Christmas was a favorite because it seemed to be a magical time. The festive activities surrounding Christmas helped brighten the atmosphere from the dark days of the winter. Family, relatives, friends, neighbors, and strangers seem to become kind, friendly, and generous.

This year with the threat of Covid-19 still looming around us, our holiday celebrations may seem even more critical to our lives as we pray to return to normal activities. Will the magical feeling we get from celebrating Christmas with our family make this return to normalcy possible? Or will family gatherings bring unwanted results? Vaccination minimizes but does not prevent the spread of Covid. We need to have a balance between celebrating with our families and practicing safe contact. How can we carry on the traditions of our Polish ancestors and still stay safe?

Decorating the house inside and out can quickly and safely get the family into the Christmas Spirit. The decorations can give our family the warm, welcoming feeling of Christmas as soon as they drive up to our home. However, inside the house, the risk of transmitting Covid-19 increases, and we should take steps to minimize this risk.

Here are my common-sense suggestions:

  1. Do not travel long distances to attend the family party. Everyone needs to stay close to home – different states and different counties follow different rules and cause confusion.
  2. Schedule your family gathering at a large enough house to maximize social distancing in the sitting areas. Do not congregate in one room such as the kitchen.
  3. Add tables to increase elbow room at the tables when eating
  4. Deliver food, beverages, and presents a few days before the gathering. Avoid last-minute shopping.
  5. Minimize who handles food, dishes, and utensils
  6. Minimize who handles Christmas presents
  7. Before the party, ask family members if they have Covid-19 symptoms and vaccination status. The non-vaccinated and those who have symptoms should stay home
  8. Ask family members who have attended holiday parties at work or with friends at bars or restaurants to wear masks or stay home
  9. Have masks available for all family members to wear if they need to.
  10. Have hand sanitizer dispensers available at multiple places at the party and encourage their use
  11. Inform family members about these practices in writing before the party

These may seem like extreme measures, but they will minimize the risk of transmission of the virus at your party. I feel they are needed because I would be devastated if a family member became infected with the virus at my family celebration.

Even with the above practices, you can still enjoy the festivities. Focus on enjoying a traditional Christmas meal with all the favorite foods from past Christmas meals. What will you serve? I have memories of cheese, sauerkraut pierogi, fish, ham, mushroom soup with noodles, herring, boiled potatoes, dumplings with plums and poppy seeds, stewed prunes with lemon peel, and a fruit and poppy seed cake. Today, our feast includes kiełbasa, sauerkraut, red cabbage, cucumber sour cream salad, pierogi, and a poppy seed cake. This menu has far fewer items than a traditional Polish Christmas table but still satisfies our appetites and produces leftovers. It includes traditional Polish foods and tries to honor the memories of our ancestors.

Bring out the family photo albums and scrapbooks. Try to create an atmosphere that encourages everyone to remember family stories. If there are small children, read Christmas stories to them. Sing a few Christmas carols to bring the group together. Take pictures and write down the family stories.

Best wishes, and I hope you follow many of my suggestions. Have fun but stay safe.

Filed under Polish genealogy, Writing Family History

Where Were Our Ancestors Born?

December 1, 2021 Leave a comment

How can we find the records for our immigrant ancestors? Most are available online and are cataloged by the name of the town where officials created the record. So, we need to find documents or stories that will give us town names. It is also essential to find as many names as possible – do not stop when you find the first town name even if it is stated as their birthplace. There are usually more than one location with the same name so you will need more than one name to find the correct location on a map.

Here is the list I used to find these clues:

  • Documents and letters from the old country – Look in the shoeboxes and desk drawers for the papers your immigrants saved. I was lucky when researching my grandfather’s origins because I found a copy of his birth record. He needed to prove his age for his Medicare application. The document listed the village where he was born, the parish of his baptism, and the diocese. We also found copies of birth records for my wife’s great-grandparents that they brought with them. Note: officials, clerks, and priests transcribed these copies, and we should find the original registers later.
  • Family oral history – Interview older relatives for immigration stories because this may be a great source of clues. However, be careful. Many immigrants gave the name of a large city and not the small villages where they left. Also, the town name may have a phonetic spelling. Still, use all town names as clues to be sorted out when you have completed your list.
  • Marriage records – Civil and church records may list where the bride and groom were married. I was lucky and found town names listed on these records for my ancestors. I also found many priests insisted on listing in the church marriage registers where the bride and groom were baptized
  • Naturalization Petitions – In 1906, the U.S. Congress changed the immigration law and required specific additional information in the naturalization petitions. The petition then included when and where the immigrant arrived. It also listed when and where they were born.
  • Passenger Manifests have various formats, but all have columns indicating their last residence, and some include where the passengers were born.
  • Death records such as death certificates and obituaries may include information but not always. Another caution is that these documents may not have accurate information because the person giving it may not know what is correct.

Do not stop the search when you find one name.  Collect as many names as possible. Save all of the names that you find even if you believe the spelling is not correct. Remember that some clues give a phonetic spelling. Save every name because most countries have multiple locations for towns with the same name. So, you will need to have more than one place name to point the way.

Additionally, you should research the documents of children, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and friends of your ancestors if they were born in Europe. The place names on documents for these relatives should point to the same area as your ancestors.

This process is similar to solving a jigsaw puzzle. The town names are on the pieces, and the completed jigsaw puzzle is similar to a map showing most of the town names from the list that we compiled.

After you have exhausted your search through the documents, you will find that one of the names may be the name of the county (powiat), another one the township (gmina), another town will be the location of the parish church. Other towns on your list may be surrounding villages. All are needed to find your ancestors. You will know where you are going when you see the cluster of the names on a map.

Filed under Genealogy Research