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Spelling: when in doubt as a New Worlder, ask a native speaker, preferably someone who still lives in the old country. I've been connecting with Americans on 23andMe, and some of the Flemish surnames they've given me are completely nonsensical (as in non-existent, not just a minor variation), because the names were copied from someone else's handwriting and they lack the cultural context to make educated guesses.
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Oct 25, 2020 16:44
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Phlegmish posted:Spelling: when in doubt as a New Worlder, ask a native speaker, preferably someone who still lives in the old country. I've been connecting with Americans on 23andMe, and some of the Flemish surnames they've given me are completely nonsensical (as in non-existent, not just a minor variation), because the names were copied from someone else's handwriting and they lack the cultural context to make educated guesses. Very good point, thanks!
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Oct 25, 2020 18:31
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Thanks everyone. I ponied up $23 for access to Archion.de via Carthag's link and I found his record within two minutes! His birthday is Jan 2 1841 so he was the first record for the year, which made it easy. I had his birthday/town/real name all correct in the Selbitz in Bavaria so that's comforting to know I was going down the right path. Can anyone read this? Specifically the parent's names... Paul?  Gravitee fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Oct 25, 2020 |
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Oct 25, 2020 18:49
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Its beautiful script and I can make nothing of it beyond that
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Oct 25, 2020 19:09
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Kurrent script. Not sure about the mother's maiden name.quote:im Jahr 1841. Translation: quote:In the year 1841. Maybe their wedding (probably about a year before the baptism) will be clearer on the mother's name. e: fixed surnames lol Carthag Tuek fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Oct 25, 2020 |
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Oct 25, 2020 19:12
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Carthag’s got it, though true born is a bit literal, just means he was a legitimate birth (e.g. parents were wed in the church). The godparents are likely Karl’s parents or a sibling and his wife. Now what you do is search for dad’s name to see if you can find another record for another kid with mom’s maiden name more easily read, or see if he has his own birth or marriage record in the book somewhere, which will for sure list at least their fathers names. Search for her name too, since she’s listed as from there she’s more likely to appear earlier.
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Oct 25, 2020 19:19
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Carthag Tuek posted:Kurrent script. Not sure about the mother's maiden name. I could give you a hug! THANK YOU! This has been a hurdle for a very long time. He is the last of my gg grandparents that I didn't have more info on. So on this opposite page it has his name as I know it "Johann Martin Stamm" but why would his parents have "Sterner" as the last name?
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Oct 25, 2020 19:24
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Erp! It does say "Stamm" How embarrassing  I've updated the post
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Oct 25, 2020 19:25
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Thanks friends. I found the marriage listing I think: 
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Oct 25, 2020 22:08
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You're welcome! The first one looks like a it's maybe a kommunikantenregister (list of parishioners)? Not sure what the columns are. I guess he lived 1814–79. The last word is "evangelisch" (ie. Lutheran). quote:Bürger und Webermeister dahier, des [eveyl.] Heinrich Translation: quote:Burgher and master weaver here, the [an honorifc?] Heinrich I am fairly more confident in the Thümling read than my original Thünding. Try finding them in the kommunikantenregister, it uses latin cursive for the names instead of Kurrent. Not sure what an Ökonomiebürger is. Some kind of merchant, perhaps? Trinitatis / Trinity Sunday is a movable feast, so when the 2nd–4th sundays after it were depends on the year. Carthag Tuek fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Oct 25, 2020 |
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Oct 25, 2020 22:29
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Someone asked the same question in archion.de archives. I ran one of the answers through google translate though any German fluent folks can feel free to jump in cuz lol google translate. quote:In order to be able to say something, some details are actually missing.
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Oct 26, 2020 04:13
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I admire your ability to read those. It's such a struggle for me. I've been using an OCR program, which isn't very good, but is still much better than I am. I also have other knowledge-related problems, because once I figure out what the record says I still have to figure out wtf a "job owner" does for a living. Of course it's a farmer. Everyone is a farmer.
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Oct 26, 2020 04:22
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Yeah, indeed it seems an Ökonom was a small farmer, and since he was also a burgher, he was on city-owned land. A synonym is Ackerbürger.
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Oct 26, 2020 07:46
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Here's a nice long vocabulary of German for genealogists: http://sites.rootsweb.com/~romban/misc/germanjobs.html As for reading, it just takes a lot of practice. Start by entering the letters you know and leave spaces for the ones you don't, for example I originally had _eber_ter for Webermeister. Just keep going through, and then do second and third passes until you have it all. For a second I thought the word was Scheberrichter, but that is nonsensical (a Schäbenrichter would be someone who corrects the waste products from flax/hemp preparation lol) so I consider similar-looking letters: long s instead of h in the second part made it clear he was a -meister. Then Weber- just hit me and it makes sense when I double check with an alphabet (there are a couple on the Wikipedia for Kurrent I linked earlier). The Thümling surname clearly begins with Thü- and ends with -ing, the middle part could conceivably be -ml- or -nd-. Thümling is a real surname though, and I don't see many attestations for Thünding. What do you use for OCR/HTR? I saw that Transkribus is transitioning to a pay model 
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Oct 26, 2020 09:23
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Here's mention of a Johann Kaspar Thümling from Semlitz who died September 1st, 1843: https://www.gda.bayern.de/findmitteldb/Archivalie/783373/?L=1&cHash=19b9421a5afdf9b6d7b8b409eaa36566 Familienzeugnis means something like "family certificate" though what exactly that entails I don't know (my German is rusty).
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Oct 26, 2020 12:12
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Carthag Tuek posted:Here's a nice long vocabulary of German for genealogists: Thanks for this resource, it should prove quite helpful as I just got the scope on my German mysteries... From an email...edited to remove irrelevancies or personal digressions quote:Peter John Fiechtl...was born in the Zillerthal in Tirol/Tyrol, Austria...Even with genealogical help from Legacy Tree Genealogists nothing could be found. Actually what was found was that it couldn't be found. Challenge accepted. More...and the promise of primary documentation! quote:Since then I dug into the box that my dad had left with what he called "goodies", and I did find a few things mostly in German. I found out that he was Catholic and not Lutheran. Here in this country he went to the Lutheran church because they spoke in German... That last bit is the "saint name" convention you mentioned a few posts ago. Anyway its exciting, she's sending copies of the documents my way and it seems I've a lot to go on
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Oct 26, 2020 16:51
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Wow, that sounds like a treasure trove!
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Oct 26, 2020 16:58
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Carthag Tuek posted:Here's a nice long vocabulary of German for genealogists: It is Transkribus that I've been using. It hasn't prompted me to pay for anything yet, although I will, because even when it does a bad job it helps me guess. I think I do basically use the strategy you've suggested, I'm just really bad at it. If I have learned the word I am trying to guess I might get it, but if I haven't, I won't. Sometimes the handwriting just really sucks, too, and maybe it's ungettable. I briefly poked into my Scottish heritage, and it was insanely easy compared to this German empire stuff, but I still couldn't read some of the handwriting.
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Oct 26, 2020 18:41
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Don't worry, you'll get better 
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Oct 26, 2020 21:35
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Did you see my reply about the wedding record, Gravitee?
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Oct 27, 2020 19:08
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FWIW, among the docs I got is a picture of the aforementioned Peter Fiechtl and his family. Old timey af with a real Austro-Hungarian vibe IMO. His wife's parents, if I recall correctly, hailed originally from Bavaria. Apparently a cousin of my mothers from this side got positive Ashkenazi Jewish haplotypes in his DNA test. The young woman back row left is my great grandmother. I love these old photos 
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Oct 27, 2020 21:56
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Carthag Tuek posted:Did you see my reply about the wedding record, Gravitee? Yes thanks. I am grateful for your help. Speaking of pictures, here's the family I'm working on, circa 1906. Johann Martin is the older gentleman seated in the middle that eluded me for so long. My great grandfather is the other man seated. 
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Oct 27, 2020 23:42
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 Here's one I got from a distant cousin. It's from around 1925. My great grandparents are the blushing couple to the left. Most of them look drunk as hell lol 
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Oct 28, 2020 11:57
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The roaring twenties, four years before Lego stocks crashed and they lost all their savings
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Oct 28, 2020 14:25
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You know, I have no idea how that affected them. As far as I know, they were all working middle class (I see waiter, confectioner, mailman, paper salesman, magistrate's office drone, etc). No idea if they had any savings. I should dig into their tax records, see what pops up!
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Oct 28, 2020 15:00
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Carthag Tuek posted:
drunk as poo poo but i'm the little blond girl front center about to stick her tongue out
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Oct 28, 2020 17:58
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Bilirubin posted:drunk as poo poo but i'm the little blond girl front center about to stick her tongue out I'm sly tipsy granny giving the come hither side eye to the cigar smoking dude.
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Oct 28, 2020 23:12
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Oracle posted:I'm sly tipsy granny giving the come hither side eye to the cigar smoking dude. That's her brother-in-law lmao. Her husband is the guy in the middle & they're brothers.
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Oct 29, 2020 15:13
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How often have you found two different names who turn out to be the same person? I have a few cases of this now. It's hard to figure out what's happening since the names are so common. The weirdest one is that I seem to have two different women who alternately use the names Magdalena and Karolina. I can't easily get the birth record for either one, but I have lots of records for their kids. Magdalena Karolina #1 has got to be a single person. Her name is recorded differently in the church book versus the civil records for the same events. Her husband's name is also occasionally recorded differently, but I know he was baptized with both names, so okay. I guess this is one couple who aren't picky about their names. But then I have Magdalena/Karolina #2, who also really looks like a single person. She would've known the first one, but they're not closely related. What are the odds of that happening twice? Eventually I'll find enough records for #2 to be certain, but it does seem weird.
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Oct 29, 2020 23:07
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Trillian posted:How often have you found two different names who turn out to be the same person? I have a few cases of this now. It's hard to figure out what's happening since the names are so common. So many goddamn times. Some of my relatives have up to five names they go by. They're usually German or French (though the one below is Swedish). Behold my 2nd ggp Andrew Gustav 'Gust' Williams. birth name: Anders Gustav Andersson Changed his name (not legally, just decided 'screw it') to Anders Welamsson (after his stepdad/possible uncle) aka Andrew G Williams Gust Williams Gus Williams Gustaf Walam Anders G. Weland Gustav Williams tombstone: Gust Andrew Williams Best part: two brothers also came to America and Anglicized their names. One chose Williams, the other Williamson. 100% full siblings.
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Oct 29, 2020 23:56
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Oracle posted:So many goddamn times. Some of my relatives have up to five names they go by. They're usually German or French (though the one below is Swedish). Behold my 2nd ggp Andrew Gustav 'Gust' Williams. This is very reassuring to me! How did you ever figure that out?
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Oct 30, 2020 00:09
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Trillian posted:This is very reassuring to me! How did you ever figure that out? I'm guessing many nights with full moons with ouija board in cemeteries and so many white chickens
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Oct 30, 2020 01:17
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The more data you get, the more connections you can make and test, which helps you out when you're deciding whether a contradiction is important or not. e.g if you have baptisms for a family of six kids that give an address in a nearby village, but one of the middle kids middle is addressed in town, the balance of probability is that they lived in the village the whole time and the recorder just didn't feel like writing out the name or couldn't remember where they lived writing after the fact or something. You can't prove conclusively that they didn't move into town and then back out, or that another couple with identical names didn't have the kid, but you might be able to conclude based on your previous researches that the area is too small for a new family unit to just appear out of nowhere for a single record, or the sponsors are from the little village, and so on. The Irish records I've been using recently are pretty unreliable, they even get the mother's names for legitimate children inconsistent sometimes, but having worked with it a fair bit now, I have some idea what sort of mistakes they make and therefore what possibilities might be open for whatever I'm pondering. You want to test them as much as possible and note when a conclusion is uncertain, tempting as it is to declare that something happened one way and work off that basis forevermore. e: For example, the visitor's center at Ronald Reagan's ancestral origin is located based on some pretty flimsy evidence Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Oct 30, 2020 |
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Oct 30, 2020 01:38
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Exactly what Jaguars! said. When the place, spouses and kids/parents and siblings, ages, etc. match, you can be reasonably sure that you're dealing with the right person, even if the name is different. Plus, you don't often know who's giving the information. I've seen people with very, very wrong names on their death certificates because their brother-in-law had no clue what their mother's name was. And then you get people who were known by nicknames their entire lives (literally one of my grandfather's brothers went by anything that resembled his given, legal name) and the people who informally changed their names due to cultural assimilation or because they just hated their given names (my grandmother's grandmother and her sisters were all named after Greek goddesses. Apparently, life was much easier on the prairie as Ella Smith than Demeter Smith).
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Oct 30, 2020 04:10
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I even have a woman in the early 1800s whose patronym changes back and forth. I have it recorded as: 1825: Larsdatter 1836: Larsdatter, Christiansdatter [the latter presumably a genuine error, as her husband was called Christiansen] 1838: Andersdatter 1840: Larsdatter 1841: Andersdatter 1842: Larsdatter 1845: Andersdatter 1848: Andersdatter 1850: Andersdatter 1851: Larsdatter 1859: Andersdatter All entries from 1838 are by the same priest. At this time, surnames were still transitioning from being informal bynames to becoming legally defined surnames, so a person could reasonably be referred to with a patronym after their biological father or their stepfather. The register from her birth parish is incredibly messy (the priest was very old), and her birth/baptism record has not been found. However, her confirmation record from 1825 gives her step father as Lars and a birth date. That date mentions no child, but it says her mother became engaged to a man named Anders. No marriage is recorded. The mother is later recorded with a husband named Lars, and this marriage is also not found. This presumably means that Anders left or died, leaving her with child, and she then married Lars. So that all makes sense, except for why the later priest couldn't decide which name to use for her. It would make sense if they were different authorities or something, but 
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Oct 30, 2020 07:37
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Carthag Tuek posted:Sounds like you're doing what you can. Hey, from a while back, but what tool are you using for this? I'm at the point where I'm trying to do the same type of thing and should really be doing something like this instead of scrawling on reams of paper.
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Oct 30, 2020 09:33
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Jaguars! posted:Hey, from a while back, but what tool are you using for this? I'm at the point where I'm trying to do the same type of thing and should really be doing something like this instead of scrawling on reams of paper. I use LaTeX which is definitely the wrong tool for the job. Probably would be smarter to use a diagram app, like for flowcharts, but I'm a big fat nerd Anyway this is the latex package: https://ctan.org/pkg/genealogytree
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Oct 30, 2020 10:42
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hmm. How hard would it be for someone who's only vaguely heard of LaTeX to figure out? I've been thinking a bit on automation and if I had made even the most primitive tool to get entries from search results to spreadsheet I probably would have saved weeks of work. If I could find a way to get my spreadsheet info into some form where I can have people in boxes and tie them into family units and flick them around to experiment like what you're doing above that would help a lot.
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Oct 31, 2020 00:27
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It would be extremely hard. Latex is not a programming language and it's not a markup language. It's some kind of weird mishmash that creates unheimliche errors. Do not begin using it. I should not have mentioned it at all. Stay away.
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Oct 31, 2020 03:39
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Trillian posted:This is very reassuring to me! How did you ever figure that out? Two things really helped: 1. His birthdate remained remarkably consistent, and Swedish records are really, really good about keeping track of birthdates and locations (probably because everyone has such similar goddamn names. Thanks patronymics! Can I just tell you how many Anders Gustav Anderssons there are in Orebro, Sweden in the mid 1800s? A loving LOT THAT'S HOW MANY). 2. His Swedish marriage record (Swedish Lutheran church in America was very old school with the record keeping in the best way) had his actual Swedish full legal name in it (along with of course, birthdate and place(?) I forget, def birthdate tho). Guess we don't lie to God (or at least their swedish emissaries on Earth). The civil record had his preferred name, same date of marriage, same wife's name. The witnesses were also his brother and wife on both to just be sure I had the right ones. After that it was off to the races. Found out he went back and forth to Sweden at least twice, once maybe because he failed at America, second time to bring two of his brothers over with him, his mom followed a few years later with his remaining brother after his stepdad and another brother died within a month of each other, presumably from some plague or other. He may have met his wife or his wife's sister on one of those trips, because he marries his wife and one of his brothers marries said wife's sister. That whole double cousin thing didn't cause any problems while doing DNA research, oh no. Also my grandmother on that line had twin sisters. So two 3/4ths (I suspect) brothers married two sisters, had kids and one of those kids had identical twins! So many proposed second cousins I was like 'who the HELL is that?' only to realize oh, you're not a second cousin you just look like one because lol. At least there's no endogamy on that tree. That I know of. Oh and his mom apparently falls off the drat boat between Quebec and Muskegon (coming via Canada to Michigan was cheaper than going straight to America) because while I find the brother who accompanied her in later records, she completely disappears from all records after her last appearance on a Quebec manifest that just says 'through to America' or something like (and gives her son her last name, which is her patronym. I think she was an Erikson and her son should've been Welamsson/Welams/Williamson). Oracle fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 06:12
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