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Research in Other Countries => Europe => Topic started by: phiblack on Friday 27 October 17 01:02 BST (UK)
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Hi all,
Finally managed to track down a copy of my Great Grandfathers birth certificate from Saxony.
Trouble is it came as a photocopy with no translation.
Can anybody make sense of what it says?
I am particularly interested in the fathers and mothers names etc.
I have added a higher resolution copy to drop box -
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fbx0u7qpd1odnjv/Birth%20Cert.pdf?dl=0
Regards,
Phil
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Hi phiblack,
here's just for the beginning:
Mother's name: Antonia Helena GROßE, nee MEYER
Father's name: Edmund GROßE
Should you want a complete translation of the certificate, let me know. In this case I'd need a bit more time as the working day is just starting here in Good Old Germany.
Rgds from Hamburg,
Giselap
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Hi Giselap,
Many thanks for what you have done so far.
We always knew the mothers name may have been Helena but never knew it was actually Antonia!
If you have the time a complete translation would be fantastic.
Regards,
Phil
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Hi Phil,
here we go again.
Sorry it took me a bit longer. I hardly ever manage to work on my PC at home much before midnight.
As I didn't know how well you were/are able to read the original certificate I transcribed it before translation:
Wurzen, am 5. Februar 1887
Vor dem unterzeichneten Standesbeamten erschien heute, der Persönlichkeit nach
bekannt,
die Hebamme Frau Dorothea Henrietta Weiser geborene Müller
wohnhaft zu Wurzen,Färbergasse Nr. 22 ______
________ Religion, und zeigte an, daß von der
Antonia Helena Große geborene Meyer,
Ehefrau des Bildhauers Edmund Große,
beide lutherischer Religion,
wohnhaft bei ihrem Ehemanne zu Wurzen,
Dresdenerstraße Nr.19
zu Wurzen in der Wohnung ihres Ehemannes
am einunddreißigsten Januar des Jahres
tausend acht hundert achtzig und sieben Vormittags
um fünf ____ Uhr ein Kind männlichen
Geschlechtes geboren worden sei, welches den _____ Vornamen
Paul _____________________________
erhalten habe. Die Frau Weiser erklärte, daß sie bei
der Niederkunft der Ehefrau Große zugegen
gewesen sei.
Vorgelesen, genehmigt und unterschrieben
Dorothea Henrietta Weiser
____________
Der Standesbeamte.
In Vertretung, Weiser(?)
TRANSLATION
Wurzen, February 5, 1887
Today before the undersigned registrar appeared the midwife Mrs. Dorothea Henriette WEISER, nee MÜLLER, personally known,
living in Wurzen, Färbergasse No.22,
and announced that Antonia Helena GROßE, nee MEYER, wife of sculptor Edmund GROßE,
both of Lutheran denomination,
living together with her husband in Wurzen, Dresdenerstraße No.19,
on January 31, 1887 at five o'clock am at her husband's dwelling in Wurzen
gave birth to a child of male sex , who received the Christian name Paul.
Mrs. WEISER declared that she attended Mrs. GROßE's confinement.
Read aloud, accepted and signed
Dorothea Henrietta Weiser
The Registrar
for, Weiser(?)
Hope the translation gives you some more useful info on your great grandfather's family.
Rgds,
Gisela
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Hi Gisela,
You are fantastic!
That is absolutely brilliant. After all these years we now know an address, a religion and an occupation (a sculptor no less).
I really appreciate you taking the time to do this for me.
Hopefully one day I can return the favour.
Best wishes,
Phil
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Hi Phil,
always glad to help :)
Just being curious: Was Paul Große anything like an artist as well?
Don't know whether you are able to help me with my HASSA/STEINER family. Seem to have lost track of some of them in New Jersey, USA, e.g. of Stefan HASSA *1847 in Austria, a widower who immigrated on 13.10.1908 from Antwerp on SS Zeeland.
His 1. known residence (1908) was: 514 Elm St, West Hoboken, NJ at his son's Stefan (Stephan) HASSA address!!
Have found him on Ellis Island Records and Familysearch, but seem to be unable to trace him after 1908. Did he die in the USA or return to Austria ???
Already posted a similar query on the USA Lookup requests... but so far Stefan seems to just have vanished in the haze of family history :(
However, should you need further help with older (German) documents, just let me know again and I'll see what I can do for you.
Have a nice weekend,
Rgds from stormy Hamburg,
Gisela
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We always knew the mothers name may have been Helena but never knew it was actually Antonia!
I think you'll find that Helena was the name given to her by her parents. The first given names were usually the name of a godparent/sponsor - church records show the names and occupations of those people, who were usually people of standing in the area and/or relatives.
If your family are the same as my Saxony ancestors they'll also use the English naming pattern of 1st son named after paternal grandfather, 2nd son named after maternal grandfather, etc. I was surprised your record only showed one godparent as I found that there were usually two or three. For girls; two godmothers and one godfather; for boys; three godfathers or two godfathers and one godmother.
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Hi Gisela,
I don't think Paul was an artist. He died before I was born - but i do know he was musical. I recall my father having a large collection of Harmonicas that Paul had left him.
As for your query I am not sure how much help I can be - I am located in Australia, so US or Austrian research isn't too easy from here. :-)
Regards,
Phil
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Hi Rena,
Thanks for the further information regarding first names. That is very interesting.
Eventually when I work out how to do so, I will have to track down church records on the family and see what they reveal.
I am not sure if my great grandfather was a first child otherwise I could have made a guess that his grandfather may have been named Paul.
Family lore states he was one of many children but you just never know. This is the first step in the journey for me. Now I need to dig deeper and work out the next step!
Regards,
Phil
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Hi Rena,
Thanks for the further information regarding first names. That is very interesting.
Eventually when I work out how to do so, I will have to track down church records on the family and see what they reveal.
I am not sure if my great grandfather was a first child otherwise I could have made a guess that his grandfather may have been named Paul.
Family lore states he was one of many children but you just never know. This is the first step in the journey for me. Now I need to dig deeper and work out the next step!
Regards,
Phil
When you eventually need to look through micro films of Saxony church records, the online familysearch website library has a list of films they own - enter the village name in "keywords" and everything about that village turns up. Also if you look at the familysearch website it shows that there are some family history research centres in Australia where you can hire the films giving "people counts" (census) and church records quite cheaply and run off any images for a modest price. If your family village didn't have a church you need to look at a map to decide which one they would have walked to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_in_Australia
I had an advantage over you in that I knew all the names of my gt. grandfather's children before i began researching my family history. Armed with this knowledge I wrote to the local village Lutheran church in Germany, gave my gt.grandfather's known name of Herman (which was nothing like the three he was baptised with = Franz Jacob Henning FLAMME) plus all his children's names and said I believed the parents would be Henry and Sophia and asked them to look. The earlier generation was indeed Henry and Sophia. In that letter I asked what their cost would be - they insisted it was free but I sent money anyway and in return they sent me some beautiful photos of the village. As I'd mostly forgotten my simple schoolgirl German, My letter was written in simple English with German translation which I obtained by using Google's language tools. If you know which Australian church the first generation Australians were baptised in, you can get a good idea of the names of the earlier generation left behind in Germany.
In earlier years most people migrated to foreign places where they had a contact, either with a family member or somebody in the village had relatives there. (It's different now due to knowledge gained via computers, etc.) It might pay you to see if any other Aussie in your State is researching the two surnames you're interested in. I see your ancestor had a collection of mouth organs, which would hint that he might have travelled with a band of Hannovarian musicians. This is what my ancestor did and I latched onto a chap researching a totally different surname but whose ancestors did the same thing and ended up in the same English town as mine. We exchanged family stories and a couple of years down the line we eventually discovered a German village link which led to a maternal blood link.
Good luck.
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Hi Phil,
As for your query I am not sure how much help I can be - I am located in Australia, so US or Austrian research isn't too easy from here. :-)
No problem. :) - See, I'm just asking each and everyone doing family research about "our" missing Stefan HASSA as you never know who might have come across any additional info about him by chance or might have helpful hints or suggestions for further research.
Proceeded in this same manner in order to obtain as much info as possible about a cousin of mine who practically vanished from our family as a 2 year old boy during the more or less chaotic months around the end of WW II.
Eventually I had thus collected sufficiently enough data to apply for an official search for him at the German Red Cross.
And believe it or not they actually found him for me roughly 15 years ago and we are now keeping good contact even though he's living more than 500 miles south of us.
So my above query was just a mere try to shed some light on another still "pending matter".
Good luck for your further research and don't hesitate to contact me should you think I could give you any additional help.
Rgds,
Gisela