RootsChat.Com
Research in Other Countries => Europe => Topic started by: loo on Tuesday 05 June 07 10:01 BST (UK)
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I never ever thought I would find mine, but I have!!!!!
I didn't know where exactly they came from, so it seemed hopeless, as all the expert advice says you must know exactly where they are from in order to proceed. I did know it was Hannover area, but that includes lots of villages.
After two years of digging around all over the place, the Lower Saxony Archives online gave me an Auswanderer (emigrant) record and the name of a village for one of the people I was pursuing. However, the curt response from the archivist to my query was that even if I insisted on pursuing this record when I wasn't sure it was mine, she would not be able to help me by sending it, at any price! However, in another stroke of luck, I found the Kirchenbuch (parish register) for that village online, in German, and I was able to construct a genealogy for that surname in that village, although I was not positive this emigrant was related to me.
Then, one of my other recently-discovered relatives posted all the info in a query on a German genealogy site, and, presto, we found our entire family. The person who responded had, for many years, wondered and talked with older relatives about what ever had happened to the 4 men who had left and gone to London in the late 19thC., who were still very much alive in memory. After having no contact for about 100 years, the family is becoming reunited, and my mum, well into her 80s but very well, finally has a second cousin, to whom she even bears a physical resemblance (she never had any second cousins before). Plus we have a history, and records going back to the 1500s! Our new relatives seem like very nice and forthcoming people; they instantly mailed us copies of a large number of documents. I have no doubt at all that we have the right family.
Never, ever give up! It can happen to you!!
Thanks to Rena and JustinL, who helped me out on this.
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You are so lucky!! All I have are two certificates for my great grandfather - his marriage and death certs in the UK. His name sounds very German (but could be Dutch, Austrian etc) but because I didn't know my father's family, and they're all dead now, I guess I'll never discover the truth. Unlike my husband's German ancestors, my relative was a poor man, unlikely to have been naturalised, so there are just no clues.
So I was born with a German surname, and have no idea where it came from! So, I really appreciate your happiness in finding your family. I think your story will inspire others to keep looking.
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Fantastic news Loo. Now you'll have to start planning a trip to Germany!
I have been able to trace my German relatives since my Grandmother knew the church she was baptised in, where her parents were born, names of grandparents and uncles & aunts although all contact had been lots years ago. So, a few years ago I wrote a letter addressed with the surname and name of village and got a reply from my mother's 2nd cousin. Since then we've kept in touch. Last May he, daughter, daughter-in-law & grand-daughter came to visit us in Ireland and in August I went there with 2 daughters. Everyone was so friendly and the village was just like my grandmother told me- the church on the hill to the left, their house up the hill on the right, etc. The food was wonderful either homemade or local and we even did a bit of sightseeing and shopping. Can't wait to go back some time.
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Yes, I do hope to meet my German family. Trying to bone up on German at the moment, and finding it very difficult!!
Since I posted this, I have found another German link in another branch of my family - it seems that one of my father's previously-unknown second cousins married a German refugee from Hitler in New York city after WW2, and they moved eventually to Switzerland. He is still living, and I'm trying to make contact at the moment. This one is very interesting because, although the wife has unfortunately died, the husband has written some books which are extremely interesting to me, and had a very interesting family story of his own, regarding the build-up to the Nazi era, and their flight from Germany. Some in my family had already heard of this family because of an interest in the subject, but never dreamed we were related. The books are all in German, but me and my big fat dictionary are trying!!!...
But, to those of you who are still looking, take heart. I did not even know my (German) great-grandfather's forename when I started. All I knew was his surname and the fact that he came from "the continent". The censuses gave me forename and "Hannover", and several other fellows with the same surname whom we had never heard of, but turned out to be relatives.
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thank you for giving me hope after reading your post i am hoping one day to trace my greatgrandmother who i know little about or where she was born.
i keep trying and one day i to hope to track her down. maybe there are relatives of hers that are wondering and trying to trace my connection
thank you again
ann
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i looked at the lower saxon archives site and forwarded a request by email for help in looking for my great grandmother , i was intersted with your success from the site i had an email back asking for my postal address ,did this happen to you and was there a charge for the research i am just a liitle concerned that it is an offical site and why should tthey askfor my address before hand
ann
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That is really encouraging. I'm still looking for my German relatives and have just sent details to a German Genealogy publication so I'm hoping for some results.
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Ann:
That's interesting. I got a totally different kind of response. They sent me a letter (in English) by email, telling me that they couldn't possibly search out the record I had asked for in order to send it to me, "for internal reasons". I shouldn't think it was confidential, so I assumed they just didn't have any capacity for doing that sort of thing. The archivist gave me the names of two professional genealogists who work in the area. So, in short, the Lower Saxony Archives were not helpful at all. But I got a roadblock-removing clue from searching their website, and was able to take that information and match it up with other information from another website.
Just to be very clear, I never got an actual record of any sort from the Archives. I merely found info on their online index.
I think they just ask for your address because they're a bureaucratic organization, and they like to keep track of everything. Perhaps if you're German, you get put on a different track "internally".
I now have much better help! My newfound German rellie is going to the Lower Saxony Archives in person tomorrow to look some things up!
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Loo,
I too am looking for German & Austrian relatives. My great grandparents are shown on the 1901 census in London as being from these countries.
My family thought my great grandfather was French up until I found this census info a week ago, his surname was Radocaj (though the census had it as Radoschey) he was a Master Hairdresser working from home and his nationality is shown as Austrian. That's all that is known about him.
My great grandmother (surname Prohl) was supposedly from Tegel, Berlin and the census does show her as German so the family got that bit right.
I have their wedding certificate from 1896, the census info and my grandmother's birth cert also from 1901 (shown on the census as 4 day old infant child - good timing for the census).
I am struggling with where to go from here with both of them. Do you know of any records I could search in Tegel (I know the approximate year of her birth) and any of the same in Austria?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Sean
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I am having similar problems with my husbands tree as his late grandmother refused to talk about her past. All we know is that her maiden name was Schneider, she was born in Cologne in 1898 and went to live in Madeira before coming to England sometime before 1922 when she married.
Without any knowledge of the German language how difficult are the online records to access.
Sharpie
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Most German records don't seem to be online but my German is very limited and I am able to understand births, death, marriages, etc. Old handwriting is more of a problem.
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Hi Sharpie,
the biggest problem is not so much the language, but
a) the fact that there are very few online records in Germany
b) records are usually only available from the Registry Office, if you can prove direct descent
c) SCHNEIDER is a very common name in Germany
(it's one of these "probable origins in job-description" names: means Cutter or Tailor in english)
Once you have a few more facts, the language isn't such a big problem, as you can usually find english speaking germans, who can help, or RootsChatters will help you with translations.
Good luck,
Bob
ps: not just helpful RootsChatters; we (RootsChat) also have connections to a german forum with some very helpful people there, too :)
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Bob,
Where do you think I should search for my great grandmother's birth records?
I have her name (Emilie Prohl) , year of birth and family word of mouth believes she was from Tegel, Berlin.
Regards,
Sean
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Hi Bob
Thanks for the advice, I expect the first name Hermine is common as well, just my luck!
I'll keep searching.
Sharpie
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I'm sorry, but I don't have any special knowledge as to how to help with the questions that have been raised.
I did find these names in the 1902 London Trade Directory - Hairdressers and Perfumers section:
RADISIC, Sebastian. 4 Canfield Gardens, Hampstead
RADOMSKY, Mark, 74 George St., Euston Square.
They may not be yours, but could possibly be spelling variants, so thought I would mention them. I got them from German Hairdressers in the UK by Jenny Towey, available from the Anglo-German Family History Association. It is an interesting read.
If you have time and access, you could trawl through the newspapers of the hairdressing industry at the British Library at Colindale; there is a lot of info in them, although I have not seen them. Methinks they are begging to be indexed.
If these people left wills, you might get a clue there, but more likely you would not.
What I have concluded from my own family history, now that I know as much as I do, is that in the wake of, first, one world war, and then another, with Germany being the enemy in both cases, and Austria, it was very common to downplay or camouflage one's origins - making them harder for us to find them now. Anti-German feeling, indeed hysteria, including a significant amount of violence towards Germans in England, led people to be quite circumspect. I have found this throughout the various families of German origin to which mine was closely related in the late 19th/early 20thC. They all acted like each other never existed, never mind their original families in Germany. I am quite sure my London-born grandfather understood German, but he never uttered a syllable, and his children never knew. You thought yours were French; we thought ours were "continental" - Belgian or Dutch, but certainly not German!
Something else you might look for is whether there are other people in England at about the same time with the same or similar surnames, coming from the same country. Don't pay any attention to family members telling you that there were no other family members who immigrated. Fully 3/4 of my family have emigrated from one country to another. What I have learned is that almost invariably they did not come alone. Sometimes it takes a while to find the brother (usually 1 or 2), sometimes the sister, and even the father quite often, but if you poke around, you will often find them. These other people may have more information attached to their names on some record or other.
Have you looked for naturalisation records? In most cases, they don't exist, and may never have existed, but worth checking, which you can do online at TNA. If you find one, order it; it will likely give details of origins. I found one out of the four men I was tracking, but it did not give his origins, which was very disappointing.
Hermine is also spelled Hermione sometimes, which may or may not help. It often gets butchered in transliteration, so search broadly.
Wish I knew more!
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Thanks loo
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Hermine is also spelled Hermione sometimes, which may or may not help. It often gets butchered in transliteration, so search broadly.
Thanks for the tip Loo, I'll give that a try.
Sharpie
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Hi kiwibrit,
have you tried Radocaj on google.de? Lots of results in German and English. Good luck.
mz
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Hi Kiwibrit,
the most likely source is the Standesamt(Register Office) in Berlin.
there is a web page (german only) at
http://www.berlin.de/standesamt1/aufgaben/index.html
with postal and e-mail addreses.
( And this one translated to English by Google: http://www.rootschat.com/links/024g/ )
A letter might help, but you will probably need to verify that you are a direct descendant.
Bob
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I have repeated this answer, as I have now split the topic.
see also:
Topic: GERMANY: BMD certificates
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,264259.0.html
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Good Afternoon all, I hope I have the right message board for my ancestor Alice unknown surname, came from Bavaria Germany born around 1742 and settled in Westminster London, she married a John Bunkell around 1760 or earlier, children Susanna Bunkell, born 9/9/1761 St. James Piccadilly, William Bunkell (Gulielmum) born 27/3/1765 bap. 4/4/1765 Bavarian Chapel In Soho Westminster Warwick St. Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory R.C. Chapel parents John and Alicia Bunkell, changed their religion to C.of E. death date 15/7/1847 St. John the Baptist Hoxton Middlesex my ancestor is Frances Bunkell born 27/9/1767 bap. 18/10/1767 marriage to a William Conway from Christ Church Spitafields, burial date 2/2/1837 St John Hackney UK. Middlesex. Parents burial dates John Bunkell 27/11/1791 St. James Piccadilly, Alice Bunkell 19/4/1811 Shoreditch Hackney. :-[ :-\ Would anyone be searching for this family. :-[
Regards,
Janet :-[
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What a great tale LOO, I am very happy your persistence has paid off for you.
I use free automatic translators on Google, which provide a good base line to work from.
I am interested that you seem to have found so little of your family history on-line for so long.
It has been my experience that my German Protestant and Catholic lines were found easily on FamilySearch (free) and Ancestry (free during Covid crisis). Some records go back several hundred years!
There is far less on those sites for my Jewish Ancestors of course, as most digitising has worked from church records, but it is always worth searching there to start. More is put on-line regularly so it is worth running searches every few months.
I have made marvellous progress using: MyHeritage, the Arolson Archives, Yad Vashem, Geni, Mappingthelives and the American Holocaust Museum.
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Hi Janet
- where did you get your dates from?
- what documents do you already have?
Ancestry has Alice´s death in 1811 aged 85. That would mean born 1726 and not 1742
Dave
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Janet,
I cannot answer your query.
However I strongly suggest you start a new thread specifically for your query, as your enquiry is lost under this generic title.
Title should contain Country, time frame and a name/s.
Will catch attention far more.
Good luck.
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Thanks for your help, found a lot on Ancestry and other researches who are connected to my family. :-\ Feeling a bit tired at the moment been searching for a long time. Thanking you.
Regards,
Janet :'(