Message from Kathy:
First off I would like to say welcome to new people who have signed up for our newsletter recently. For some of you it was nice to meet you, thanks for stopping by my table in Wisconsin, Illinois and Kansas.
This issue is jam packed and a little heavy on German research but I have spent the last few weeks/months deep in German church books preparing for our upcoming trip to the Northwest of Germany in just a couple weeks. I thought it would be helpful to remind people how imperative it is to use this most important resource for German research but the basic principles can be applied to lots of other ethnic research.
We still have room on our Baden-Wuerttemburg trip, don’t get left behind, this area (Black Forest) is one of my favorite places in Germany and you will love it too. I really am hoping for some of you to consider the England trip, we are trying to establish more heritage tours to the U.K. and I want my new guides to know there is interest in trips to their beautiful, historic countries. Please check it out. We are working on 2018, with survey results in mind, so look at one of our planned areas in the trip section below.
For our new subscribers check out the video below in the Tour Section, this shows an example of one of what we call our WDYTYA moments. In 2013 our group tour to Rhineland area of Germany was followed by a German TV crew, they followed along with one of our tour members on visits to her hometowns, plus a group visit to a Church archive.
I hope to be posting pictures and videos while we are in Germany on our Facebook page, (https://www.facebook.com/familytreetours/) so keep your eye on that, plus maybe a post or two on what we are seeing and doing in lieu of a May newsletter, we will see. Happy Spring everyone and I hope to see you on an upcoming trip soon.
Until next time!
Kathy Wurth
Genealetter in PDF
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SPOTLIGHT: GERMAN CHURCH BOOKS
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately talking about and researching in German church books. I’ve given several talks lately about different records (baptism and marriage) in church books and what you can find in these records. I’ve also had discussions with people in person, via email and online German research groups as to just how important these records are. For those of us who have German ancestors (and not only German, but Irish, Swedish, Polish etc.) church books are going to be the only place we may find any mention of our ancestor and it is an absolute must- do resource.
Unfortunately, a lot of people want everything online, easy to find, indexed and in English. Sorry, that is not the case, but is it worth the effort to struggle through these hard to read hen scratch records? Oh yes! You can pride yourself on learning a new skill, experience the triumph of finding your ancestor’s name and baptismal day in 1798 (like I recently did) and in some entries see your gr-gr-gr-grandfather’s signature from mid-1700’s also.
Let’s learn a little bit about German church books. 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation started by Martin Luther. In October of 1517 he nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. This started an upheaval in the Catholic Church and one of the many things that resulted from this rebellion was the introduction of recording of names in church books.
Luther's traveling coach.
Although there were some places that had recorded vital records in church books at the end of the 15th century most books date back to about 1550’s. The Council of Trent (1545-47) ordered local parish priests to begin recording all marriages, births, and deaths. Protestant records tend to predate Catholic records. The earliest records tend to be in the western Germanic areas. Then came the 30 Years war in 1618-1648 that devastated Germany and many records were destroyed, so for some villages the earliest books you may find would be mid-1600’s.
Church books escaping the fire
Church books contain records of great historic value, especially for genealogy. Beside mere data and facts they sometimes tell us smaller stories and anecdotes and report about historic events like natural catastrophes, fires and war events. What they usually do not tell, what we can’t see when looking at those books, is their history of tradition.
They were able to stand for centuries, because the church was concerned about their safekeeping from the beginning. Württemberg’s church constitution of 1558 already emphasized that the parish register should be preserved and kept safe by the churches. A high value was set on the lasting preservation of church books. Especially about fire protection there were recurring concerns. For the safekeeping of the church books steel cabinets and later fire-resistant cabinets became mandatory in the 20th century.
Church office in Mecklenburg
Photo by Family Tree Tours
But also in the early centuries there was a solution to save church books especially in case of fire. Church books were stored in church book boxes that normally had handles on both sides. These escape boxes could be saved from the parsonage in case of fire. The portable boxes alone were of course not enough, it must have been guaranteed, that they left the fire in time. In Balingen’s regulation for fire extinguishing of 1823 it was pinpointed, who had to evacuate the church book boxes in case of fire. (Source Archion newsletter)
When you have made the breakthrough and found the name of your village, what’s your next step? It should be to verify your people were actually from that town by looking in the church book to find your immigrant’s baptism record.
My first step is to check on www.familysearch.org to see if my home village has had its church books microfilmed.
Check like this: On www.familysearch.org click on Search, then Catalog, then Place search and type your village name in. If there is more than one village with the same name you will have to know the State of Germany yours is located in (i.e. Baden, Bavaria, Saxony etc.) and pick that one, or if you don’t know the State you may have to check more than one place.
One good place to search for your hometown name to see if there is more than one village by the same name is www.meyersgaz.org.
You also can use wild cards in your search in case the place name you have is spelled incorrectly. Let’s say you had a place named Heiderbach but you can’t find that on a map anywhere. You can search for a place by using the first few beginning letters and then the wild card: Hei**bach. You will get quite a quite a few “hits” for towns starting with Hei and ending with bach, but you will see there are 3 Heidersbach! Aha, maybe it was just missing the “s”. There is one village in Baden and two in Saxony, so if you knew your town was Heiderbach in Baden, then there is one to check, or if it was Saxony you have two places to check, or if you don’t know the State you have only 3 places to check.
What you might learn in the church books:
1. Most important you verify your ancestor was born in that village.
2. You can learn parent’s names, which can take you back another generation and so on.
3. You can find siblings to your ancestor, which is helpful when and if you ever plan on visiting the ancestral hometown, they may be the clue to finding living cousins in the village
4. In some cases the pastor recorded the house/farm # your people lived, this also is helpful if you plan to visit someday, so that you possibly can find the actual home.
5. If you go back several generations you may find that one of your ancestors may have come from another local village and came to this new place when he/she married. This will give you another village to research and visit.
These are a just a few of the things you will learn when using German church books but I cannot stress enough that if you are of German ancestry, this step is a MUST.
If you feel you can’t attempt to read these records yourself but you don’t want to hand over the research to someone else, you could order the microfilm or if the records are online, hire or find someone who can read the records to sit with you and you can follow along, try to pick out the name yourself and have them help you read the rest of it.
Or you can hire a researcher to find the names for you and have them translated into English for your records.
Many people have taught themselves how to read the records but personally I would have someone with more experience read them also in case you miss some word that is important. I had a church record for one of mine, I found his name, read the parents’ names and got the dates, but the little squiggly mess after his name I skipped but later had a native German (who can read old Script, not every German can read these old records too) told me that was his occupation, schneider (tailor). I missed that!
Best yet is to travel with us and visit your hometown church and we will see if original church books are available to look at.
We will talk more about German church books next time, there are topics to touch on about how illegitimacy is handled in the records, and the laws of being either Catholic or Protestant and other information you may find in these fabulous records. Plus places to find online records. Below is example of a baptismal record, see what you can read: (this is very interesting because of the area it is from and the taking of farm names! Another topic to discuss)
Baptismal record (easier to see in PDF version)
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GENEALOGY RESEARCH TIP: Check for Clergy Private Papers
Clergymen were frequently the most educated and literate members of the community they served. This often means that they kept extensive records, wrote many letters, and chronicled their lives and that of their community in diaries or journals. A search through your ancestor’s minister’s papers could reveal all sorts of helpful (and interesting) information about the community and even about your ancestor himself. I’ve seen in one of my German hometown church book’s the pastor would comment on the weather, bad crops, he would report on people that emigrated, sometimes mentioning names and saying specifically “emigrated to St. Louis”. In years back there were even entries describing wedding celebrations, the food that was consumed and how much money spent. Perhaps a check with local church archive or parish house itself to inquire if there were any clergy papers.
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THIS AND THAT:
With April 25th being DNA day (when did this happen?) I wanted to make a comment about the latest wrinkle in DNA results. If you had your DNA tested by Ancestry they have reconfigured your test results and put you in Genetic Communities. I have not read in any depth how this is done or how many people they are comparing yours to but what I do want to say is it is exciting!! I’m not sure how it is working for other people but for me and my VERY brick wall Irish ancestors, it finally gives me some idea of what county they may have come from. It says I have a 95% possibility of being in the ULSTER Community in Co. Donegal!!! This confirms something that I finally found just a year or so ago on our last trip to Salt Lake City. The first time I had a county!!
The second community they had me in was Co. Mayo and Sligo. For years I haven’t know even the county for the 5 Irish lines I have and I’ve been searching for a long time, so this was encouraging. It got me excited on looking back over my Irish research from long ago. I thought I would get some digital copies of records that are now online and add them in my tree. My gr-gr- grandmother from Ireland died in Missouri in 1932, so since those death certificates are online at the MO Secretary of State site I looked her up. Her death certificate gave a birthdate in 1839 and place of birth says CO MAYO!!!
What?? How did my mom and I miss this, we tried to get death certificates always. So I dug through the file with old death certificates and found Annie Hughes’ certificate that we ordered and picked up from the Vital Records office in 1979. Birthplace just says Ireland. It is stamped saying certified copy of death record but apparently someone used the official document, made a copy filling in the same questions with the answers from the original and what they deemed important and Co. Mayo apparently wasn’t.
Unbelievable, almost 40 years later I finally learned Co. Mayo, what might I have found if I had that piece of info? Oh well, now the DNA says I have connections in this area and is backed up by death certificate, which I know may have been someone guessing but it gives me a place to start. Lesson from this, check all the sources and places you checked years ago to see if there is anything you missed or if you should check the records again.
Ten Tips for Deciphering Old German Handwriting
Suetterlin - German Handwriting
See what your surname looks like in old script
Step by Step Video for using Meyersgaz
www.romannumeral.online A friend of mine created this website to help with converting dates/years when you see roman numerals in church books!
DNA TESTS ON SALE
Ancestry.com has published two new collections of German Lutheran church records. Note that the time periods overlap, so try searching them both:
Also new on the site is a collection called Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Family Tables, 1550-1985. A tip from the collection description: “Use the browse fields to sort through the images by City or District and Description of records.”
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The ultimate dream VISIT YOUR ANCESTRAL HOMETOWN.
Follow along as one South Dakota lady realized her dream. She visits four hometowns in Germany, meets new cousins and discovers more documents to add to her history of her German family and it is all documented by a German TV crew! Now that is a dream come true.
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UPCOMING TOURS: For those of you who may be new to the newsletter I just wanted to remind you that our small group tours usually consist of 10-16 people, we stay in one home base town (on German trips) and travel out on day trips by train. There are free days where you go to visit your hometowns, where we have made a contact for you. If you would like to find out more please contact me, Kathy @ info@familytreetours.com
2017 Tours
Northwest Germany - May 13-23, 2017
Join Family Tree Tours on our exciting exploration of Northwest Germany, where thousands of Germans emigrated from in the 19th century. Was you ancestor one of them? Spend 10 days traveling back in time to see the places they lived and worked. Learn more about the history of the area and why they left. Plus expert help in helping you visit your ancestral hometowns.
$2599.00 pp/dbl $200.00 sgl supplement
This tour is full. (If you would like to be on waiting list if there is a cancellation, let me know)
Baden-Wuerttemberg - September 9 -19, 2017
Join us for an enchanting journey through the Black Forest region of Germany with an opportunity to explore Baden, western Württemberg and Alsace, France for an 11 day/10 night tour. We get off the beaten path and soak up our ancestor's region. With expert help in making contacts in your ancestral hometown.
$2499.00/pp dbl $200.00 single supplement
Space available.
Devon-Cornwall England Tour -
August 22- Sept 2, 2017
Join Family Tree Tours on our first heritage tour to merry Olde England. Along the southern coast of the Island we explore our Cornish – Devon roots. See the port where the Mayflower left for its historic journey. We spend time researching in Cornwall and Devon research facilities, plus visit your ancestral hometowns in this area.
$2699.00 pp/dbl Inquire about single supplement
Minimum participants 10 – Reserve now to hold a space
Salt Lake City Research Trip - Nov 5 -12, 2017
Put a crack in the brick wall, find your ancestral hometown, source the information you may have found online with all the resources the Salt Lake City library has to offer.
$650.00 pp/dbl
Sgl supplement $275.00 Inquire about triple rates
Minimum participants 10 - Reserve now to hold a space
2017 International Germanic Genealogy Conference sponsored by German-American Genealogical Partnership - July 28-30, 2017 Minneapolis, MN.
Conference Information
If you are planning on going to this conference and would be interested in a meet & greet dinner with Family Tree Tours please let me know so we can plan something. info@familytreetours.com
More tours to come. Do you have a family group or a cousins you found online who would like to visit ancestral hometowns? Get a group together and contact us so we can help you have the best “family reunion” ever. Or do you belong to a genealogy society and have a group that would like to do a tour to an area you all have hometowns from? We can help with that also. I have folks interested in Austria and Bavaria, are you? Get in touch.
2018
We are working on 2018 and taking our survey results into consideration. We are definitely thinking of a tour in September 2018 staying in the Rhine river city of Speyer. From this area we can get people to the Rhineland area, parts of Hessen, northern Baden-Wuerttemberg and more. We will have a map of the areas covered on this tour soon.2
I also had a request from a reader if anyone would be interested in these areas of Poland so that we could get a small group tour to this area. PIELGYZMKA, POLAND (click for map) email if you have a hometown in this general area. info@familytreetours.com
Send in your ideas while we are still in planning stages.
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UPCOMING EVENTS FOR FAMILY TREE TOURS
May 13-23, 2017 - Northwest Germany Tour
May 25 - June 3, 2017 - Private Tour in Germany
July 28-30, 2017 – Vendor and Speaker at German American Partnership Conference – Minneapolis, MN
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TRAVEL TIPS:
10 Tips for Road Trips
Pad your breakables.
Leave about 1/4 of your suitcase or duffel bag empty. Fill the emptyspace with rolls of bubble wrap and a small dispenser of tape for wrapping your gifts and souvenirs. You can also pad fragile items with your dirty clothes. Put small items in a sock and/or inside a packed shoe to keep it a little safer. Pack flat pieces of cardboard at the bottom of your suitcase for 8x10 group photos, postcards, or artwork. And a 6"-diameter cardboard tube can hold fragile handcrafts, rolled-up prints, and other treasures.
HAPPY TRAVELS ♥
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