German ancestor ?

[Richard Swaffield]

Hi,
My maternal great grandmother was called Margaret Babette Schumann. She married Reginals Roiz de Sa in Lewisham, 1909. On the marriage cert it stated that she was 30 and her father was Johann Leon Schumann (deceased). I was told that she came from germany, but fwhen and from where is a mystery. The only likely name from the census was from 1901 - Margaret Schuman, 33, Servant from Konigsberg. Given the 10 year age difference, this may be someone different.

Would there be any immigration/naturalisation papers or other dtabases I could trace her through ?
Regards
Richard.

[Berlin-Bob]

Hi Richard,

Naturalisation papers are kept at the National Archives at Kew.

See these topics for more details:

Topic: Naturalisation, Internment: Immigrant Information at KEW
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,130042.0.html

Topic: BOOK: Immigration and Aliens
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,45248.0.html

and any other topics on the Immigration boards, with naturalisation or alien in the title.

Hope this helps, good luck !!
Bob

[jorose]

London Gazette has something, 20 Sep 1940; list of aliens to whom naturalization has been granted:

Schurmann, Margaret Babette; Germany; of no occupation; 20, Highfield Gardens, NW11, 5 August 1940.  The record is marked with '*', denoting it as a 're-admission to British Nationality', indicating that she was previously a British citizen but had lost that somehow - usually by marrying a non-british man.  If this is her, I'm not sure why she's going by her maiden name or if that's just usual but it seemed too much of a coincidence to ignore.

[Richard Swaffield]

Hi Bob & Jorose,

Many thanks for your info - I will follow this up.

[Richard Swaffield]

Hi,

I did a search in the Kew archives database for Schurmann & Schumann, but it did not find the event in the newspaper - do you know if records were lost/destroyed ?

Regards

Richard.

[Richard Swaffield]

Hi,

A bit more info - my Mother thinks that Margaret Babette Schumann came from Nurenburg and had a brother Christopher. Her father was Johann Leon Schumann. Would she have travelled from Hamburg or bremen ?

Regards

Richard.

[jorose]

I'm not sure if records up to the 1940s are in the National Archives catalogue - in fact - http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/guide/migrantancestors/naturalisation.htm
- it looks on the catalogue like the later papers (1934-1948) only go up to surnames beginning with N; whether that is because only those survive or because that's as far as they've got putting them into the catalogue isn't clear.

There are, however, certificates of naturalization.  These aren't indexed on the catalogue, but if you get a copy it should have spouse and parent names on it, as well as exact place of birth (see the example they've got there).  You can probably contact the National Archives and ask for a copy with the date from the Gazette.

As to where she sailed from - hard to tell, sometimes people went from what appeared to be weird places, depended on which shipping agents were in their area sometimes, or if they had relatives in one of the big cities.

http://www.linktoyourroots.hamburg.de/ - if she might have been travelling from Hamburg, you might find her here.  I think the emigration records from Bremen have not survived.

[Richard Swaffield]

Hi,
Sadly, the entry for Margaret Babette Schurmann was not my Margaret. Quite a coincidence though - only the 'r' in the surname being different. I have been through all the paper indexes and it looks like she was never naturalised. The only way to trace her now is to find her in some birth/census records from Nuremburg (if there are any).

I will keep plugging away.

Thank you for you help, regards

Richard.

[carinthiangirl]

"Margaret Schuman, 33, Servant from Konigsberg"
so this possible means Königsberg, now Kaliningrad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6nigsberg
and "Leon" Schumann sounds for me in any case jewish, but only a guess.

but there also some other Königsberg. look if anything rings a bell 
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6nigsberg
at Ortschaften (towns) the last is austrian so not of interest.
at historisch (historical) only the first (Kaliningrad)of interest.
the rest also is not of interest.

as you also stated later Nürnberg in Bavaria (Bayern) so a possibility for the bavarian Königsberg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6nigsberg,_Bavaria
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6nigsberg_in_Bayern
http://maps.google.at/maps?hl=de&q=K%C3%B6nigsberg%20Bavaria&um=1&gl=at&resnum=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl