Explanation for "Born Hanover British Subject"

[Hackstaple]

Frank - George Sandmann is mentioned on this URL:
http://www.mawer.clara.net/sugarssac.html

[fbsearcher]

Hackstaple,

What an incredible task to put together such a list.

We have a second George Sandmann shown in the 1881 census as a sugar refiner.  We believe he is the father of the George in the sugar list.  I'll send the details to the list compiler.

Frank

[Biker]

I'm not sure if this applies to your situation or will help ... but I too have an ancestor who appears as born Germany British Subject in some of his census entries.  He was in fact born in Germany and came in England about 1850.  I have checked at the National Archives and cannot find any nationalisation certificate for him.  I did however come across a naturalisation certificate for his English wife, who was as far as I can tell from legislation obliged to re-apply for her English status on the death of the husband (even though she was born British, marrying a foreigner required the woman to in effect surrender her nationality to that of her husband).  See this thread http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=26899.0

The sugar bakers/refiners of the East End of London was an industry predominantly owned and run by German emigrants who brought their skills to England (the labour tended to be split between those of German origin and local Englishmen).

On tracking down the birth record, there are some good sites (usually in German), Berlin Bob might be able to help you out on this bit ....  Here is one I've used before http://gedbas.genealogy.net/index.jsp  also this might be worth a look http://art-science.com/agfhs/index.html

Good luck, it will be interesting once you have solved this, so please let us know.

Regards
Jonathan

[emilysiobhan]

Hi,

Since he seems more likely to be a German who then moved over to England you could try enquiring at the Standesamt in Hannover (the registry office for Hannover). I don't know how easy it is to acquire information from them (or how much english they speak) but their details are at:
http://internet.hannover-stadt.de/bbs/geruest/index.html?index.html

(Not sure if this link is completely correct if it just goes to an index then look under s for standesamt.)
I afraid I couldn't find the details in the english part of their website.

My great grandfather is down on the 1901 census as having been born in Poland Russian subject (but according to my grandfather considered himself Lithuanian) so I would think that George Sandmann did at least consider himself a british national after moving here (whether or not he had completed the paperwork) and was just trying to make that clear on the census form.

Regards,

Emily

[Paulychops]

Hi - I wondered how you got on with this. I too have an ancestor born (about 1857) in Hanover, British Subject - Annie Langan (or Laughan). All I know of her parentage is that her father was Henry Langan, a baker, of unknown origins.

Pauly