Finding Your Germanic
Ancestral Home
To Successfully Find Your Ancestor’s
Records, You Need Three Things
• A correct surname
• The date of an
event in the life of
your ancestor
• A location
Name Issues
• Many immigrants anglacized the spelling of their
surname or shortened their name, for example:
Gühr to Gerr or Falkenhagen to Hagen
• Some immigrants may have changed their name to
the English equivalent, for example:
Zimmerman to Carpenter or Klein to Little
• Some surnames reflect a place of residence such as a
large farm, especially in Westphalia.
Date Issues
Which is the correct Date?
Dec 6, 1833 or Jun 12, 1833
Correct Answer: 12 Jun 1823
Germans write their dates as day, month, year
divided by periods, not slashes.
Months ending in -ber
•
The early Roman calendar
•
7ber = September
began Mar 1st and had 10
•
8ber = October
months.
•
9ber = November
•
10ber = December
•
The calendar introduced by
Julius Ceasar began Jan 1st.
•
Because of pagan
celebrations associated with
Jan 1st, medieval Europe
began celebrating the new
year on March 25th (Easter).
Germanic States-Map 1815
Location Issues
• There is no central repository for
German parish or civil registers.
• In order to locate parish or civil
records, you must know the exact
place of the ancestral home.
Check for towns with the same name which
are located in different parts of Germany
Where to find the map book at the
library
• The map for
Germany is located
on the third shelf
of this reference
table.
Watch for prefixes that may have
been added to a place name
•
Groß (large)
•
Klein (small)
•
Nord-, Süd-, Ost-, West-, Wester(north, south, east, or west)
•
Unter (under)
•
Hinter (behind or in back of)
•
Mittle (in the middle of)
•
Ober (over)
•
Neu (new)
If you have trouble
locating a place-name
that may have one of
these prefixes, drop the
prefix and look for the
basic name.
Where You
Should
Search First
Step 1--Search Familysearch.com and Ancestry.com to make
sure no one has already done the research.
Familysearch has 50 collections of German Records, including
37.7 million extracted births from 1558-1898
8.5 million extracted marriages from 1558-1929
3.5 million extracted deaths from 1558-1958
How to Find German Collections on familysearch.org
Step 2—Check Passenger Lists
Germans
predominately
immigrated from:
• Hamburg
• Bremen
• Rotterdam
Three Major Waves of
German Immigrants
• First wave: 1683-1773 Immigrants
came from the Palatinate (Phalz area)
• 2nd wave: 1820-1870
• 3rd wave: from Russia; primarily settled
in Nebraska and the Dakotas (see
internet site Odessa3.org)
First Wave of German Immigrants
1683-1773
• 1683--1st German
settlement in America.
• 1710-1723 Queen Anne of
England granted refuge to
7,000 immigrants from the
Palatinate.
• Settled predominately in
Berks and Lancaster
County, PA and New York.
Books to Search for Palatinate
Immigrants 1683-1776
•
Yoder, Donald, ed. “Emigrants from Wuerttemberg; The Adolf
Gerber Lists.” The Pennsylvania German Folklore Society. Vol. 10.
Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1945. (974.8 F2pg)
•
Rupp, Israel Daniel. Thirty Thousand names of German, Swiss,
Dutch, French, and Other Immigrants in Pennsylvania From 1727
to 1776. 2nd rev. ed. Philadelphia: Leary, Stuart Co., 1927. (974.8
W2ra)
•
Strassburger, Ralph Beaver. Pennsylvania German Pioneers.
Norristown, Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania German Society, 1934.
(974.811 W3s)
•
Each of these works is completely indexed and in Mesa Library.
nd
2
Wave: 1820-1860
Third Wave
1. 1773—Catherine the Great
offered Germans who agreed to
immigrate to Russia:
–
free land
–
freedom of religion,
–
no military service
–
free self-government
2. 104 German communities
established along the Volga
River by religious persuasion—
Catholic or Protestant
3. 1873 Russians revoke
Catherine’s manifesto
Where to Look for Passenger Lists
• Hamburg Passenger Lists
•
Bremen Passenger Lists
• Germans to America (covers 1840-1897) in
MFSHC (call number 973 W2r ger).
• Wuerttemberg Emigration Index
• If your ancestors are from Westphalia,
check internet site Westphalia-
emigration.de
Step 3—Determine year of
immigration. Then look for clues
on vital and naturalization records
found here in the USA.
--Check the 1900 and 1910 censuses to find
year of immigration.
--Or check city directories to see when
your immigrant first appeared.
--You want the Declaration of Intention,
usually filed in the county of residence.
How do you find films of
naturalization records?
• Guide to
Naturalization
Records of the
United States
• by Christina K.
Schaefer
• On Reference Wall
973 P4s
Step 4—important!
Be familiar with geographical
areas of Germany prior to 1871
Modern Day Germany
If ancestors are from Pommern,
East or West Prussia-Use Muller’s
(red
book)
in
the atlas reference
section of the library
to find the town name
in present day Poland
(943 E5m)
Step 5—Very important!
Build out the
extended family group
sheet as much as
possible.
--Use obituaries
--Research siblings
--Use surname searches
John P. Jepson and Antonia Falkenhagen
What I Knew About
John and Antonia
• Their birthdates (source: 1900 census)
• The year they immigrated (source: 1900 census)
• Antonia came alone from Bremen at age 19.
(source: Germans to America)
• They married about 1888 in the United States.
• First five children were born in Minnesota.
• By 1910 the family moved to South Dakota.
What I needed to find
• Their birthplaces
• Siblings?
• Parents’ Names
What I Did Next-I obtained a copy of their marriage license and certificate.
No parents were listed.
I Sent for the Death Certificate
• Birthplace: Germany
• Father: Joe Hagen
(highly unlikely)
• Mother: none listed
Breakthrough—Family Book w/Obituaries
Army Enlistment
for Soren P. Jepson
Birthplace: Oster Linnet
What I Learned from the
Family Book & Obituaries
•
Antonia’s obituary said she was born in Helztein, Germany.
•
Book said Antonia’s brother was born in Flitenstein.
(A check of the map showed no such places).
•
Book showed Antonia had three siblings who had immigrated.
--Marie md. Mathias Fritz in Germany. Their first child
Mathilda was born in Germany in 1877.
--Susanna
--Joseph Falkenhagen who changed his surname to Hagen
--On the 1920 census Joseph said he was born in West Prussia.
Further Research Revealed
• I returned to Familysearch.com’s extracted German
marriages to look for Marie and Mathias’ marriage.
--Found--A Marie Falkenhagen married a Mathias Fritz on 11
Dec 1876 in Flötenstein, West Prussia.
(Right time period; right area of the country)
--Parents of the bride were: Andreas Falkenhagen and
Suzanne Loeper (Susanne was the name of one of
Antonia’s sisters—Hmm!)
--Further research on Familysearch showed sister Susanne in
the system and her birthplace as Flötenstein.
Flötenstein—Ancestral Home!
Once you think you’ve pinpointed the ancestral
home, how do you find out if the genealogical
library in Salt Lake has any films of records for
your ancestral home?
How to determine whether Salt Lake has a film for your town:
Mother of Exiles
Give me your tired; your poor.
Your huddled masses yearning to
breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your
teeming shore.
Send these the homeless,
tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden
door.
Emma Lazarus