16 March 2024

MY DIFFICULT RESEARCH INTO A PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN IMMIGRANT FAMILY : STEPS SIX and SEVEN and EIGHT: POST #4

THESE STEPS SHOW AN EXPANSION OF RESEARCH from the focus on the 1860 immigrant nuclear family in Berks.

Step 6 :  Considering the formation of Counties (Philadelphia).

Philadephia County History from the Pennsylvania Historical Society

Looking for other families with the same surname in the larger, historical county and general area (Eastern Pennsylvania).  

As the population grew and settlements grew, more cities were established and counties that were large were divided into smaller ones.  Historical and map research - along with another check at census and in databases such as Ancestry TM and FamilySearch TM were in order.

For instance, someone might say that the ancestors lived in Philadelphia and you might think of the city as it is now, but they might have meant the county named Philadelphia that was cut into three: Philadelphia, Chester, and Bucks. So though my client's immigrant ancestors appear on the 1860 in Bucks, some family members might have been in Chester or Philadelphia Counties.

NOTE THAT DATABASES ARE NOT USING PRESENT TERMS BUT PAST TERMS. So when they lived there is important. What if a child's parents were living in Philadelphia County but when the child was born, that same area was Bucks?

Step 7: Looking at Plat maps of those counties that are available.

When it comes to map that show early land owners (usually farmers) sometimes the surname will relate to other documents held in an archive, sometimes not, such as land sales and purchases or transfers or wills.  It would depend on when exactly that particular county kept these records and if they still exist. We are used to, in modern times, a certain exactitude and knowledge and obedience to the law that did not always exist back in the day when a handshake could be a contractual agreement. So though I might use a database first, what's on a Plat map might not link to what's in the database.

The term for this type of map is a Plat Map.  It shows how land is divided into lots. Some maps will show early roads and other geographical features such as lakes and rivers which may bear the names of these early residents or pioneers. Some are housed in the National Archives of the United States.

Step 8 : Looking at the census for surrounding counties.

However on the census of 1850 in the county one over I did find the surname and it appeared that it might have been a school or some sort of skill based workshop.  Why? Because the 1840 only records the head of household (assumed owner or renter of a building) and the statistical count - a group of males who are teenagers.  I think a master and his apprentices were at that location!

Will there be any way to associate this particular man with the same surname with the family that settles in Berks?  It shows the German surname in Eastern Pennsylvania at a time when it's possible that a family member was there but went uncounted. What if the boys are his sons?  Well the ages are so close.  What if one is a nephew or a son?  A tantalizing possibility.

(Sadly, this went unproven but it is in the report given to the client.)

Posts in this series will be brought up using the label PA-GERM research path

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12 March 2024

MY DIFFICULT RESEARCH INTO A PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN IMMIGRANT FAMILY : STEPS THREE and FOUR and FIVE : POST #2

Step three: Houses and Buildings Owned by the family

The next step was to see if there were property titles (houses or buildings) in the current county with some historical information of ownership.  There is a current database that went back a ways and there were some properties under that surname but it appeared as if the descendants of the immigrants took a couple generations to own property.  These people were once again known individuals and not the original immigrants.

However this, along with no building or land ownership in the family provided an important clue as to when they may have come to America.

Step four : Historical Research into the County

Because the immigrant family did not appear to own any land in Colonial Pennsylvania and did not seem to own any houses or other buildings until a couple generations after that 1870 census where the immigrant group appeared, it suggested that they were not of the earlier immigration of Germans that came to Pennsylvania and settled in the same County who could purchase land - the farmers.  Local history posted on the Internet by the Historical Society showed that the city they lived in was known for its bakeries.  This wave of German immigrants tended to be crafts persons bringing the skills they had in German that those farmers and the burgeoning population needed.

Looking at a web site for the city, I noted that there were some statues honoring the bakers.

Step five : Looking for family members who might have been in the Pennsylvania Militia or who served in the Revolutionary War, and/or who might be listed as members of the honorary societies such as the Sons of the American Revolution or the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The family was on the 1860 census but not the 1850 or the 1840 even though it is possible that some or all of them were in America to be counted.  At the time sail ships were coming into Philadelphia and New York though they could have come in through another harbor or off-shore landing spot.  But there is always the possibility that some relatives of theirs came earlier, providing them refuge or a start in America.  The surname was NOT in the Pennsylvania Militia, the Revolutionary War, or in the Sons of the American Revolution or the Daughters of the American Revolution. So this thoroughness further confirmed they were of a later wave of German Immigrants.

This wave is called The Second Wave.

Why would they NOT be on the earlier census?  Well, census' have never been 100% inclusive.  (I myself was not counted on two census in modern times. At the time it didn't bother me in the least.  I suspect the census taker could not get through our security.)  These people were Germans adjusting to a new country.  There might have also been some fear of being counted.  

Posts in this series will be brought up using the label PA-GERM research path

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10 March 2024

FAMILY RECORD


Make a page for each ancestor?
This image is held by the Library of Congress.
It was originally copyright 1878 by artist John. R. Staples.


09 March 2024

MY DIFFICULT RESEARCH INTO A PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN IMMIGRANT FAMILY : STEPS ONE and TWO : POST #1

Let's face it.  We think Pennsylvania, one of the 13 original states, and we think Germans!  So I want to tell you about a research problem I encountered and maybe you can learn from it.

My client has an illustrious American Historical figure on one side of her family.  Heavily researched.  Books written about. Historical house tours to go on. But her other side, her surname side, the side I researched, is simply not the same.  

Step One : Census research and checking over what family had already done.

Within hours of beginning the research, though I do not go first to databases such as Ancestry TM or FamilySearch TM to see what others have come up with (too many errors and confusion) I was aware that others, likely her family members, had used those databases and posted... Basically between these databases and Find A Grave TM a lot was posted that I did not find inaccuracies with. Clearly they were all waiting for me to make the break through. I told her my goal was to try and find out where in Germany - Prussia they had come from so we could go back further, an idea she loved.

The original immigrants were on the 1850 but because a member said to be born in Prussia might have been about 2 years old when he came, calculating exactly when they came, or if they came together was up in the air.  They are not on the 1840 or 1830 in any state. (Unless going page by page brings up horribly misspelled names.  Time wise I couldn't bill her for that.)

Step Two : Finding out what might have been published in books held by a noteworthy genealogy library.

I went to the main branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, genealogy section, and spent two afternoons.  I pulled every book in the Pennsylvania section that included the county and city. That first generation was on census in 1870 had settled in by then. 

I looked in the books INDEXs for surnames exactly like and sounding like the German surname.  THIRTY BOOKS and no mention of them.

I did find a family they had married with mentioned.  That family was in the Pennsylvania reserves, in the War of Independence, and were landowners as well as - some of them - in Find A Grave.  Also Germans.

If any of those 30 books had information, in particular a biography of a family member in it from the original group of immigrants, it might have been very valuable information. 

Posts in this series will be brought up using the label PA-GERM research path

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Woe! I had to go back in to repost a couple hours after the first post as some information got scrambled. Forgive me!


01 March 2024

14 February 2024

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS DAY



The League of Women Voters was created on February 14, 1920, through a merger of two organizations: The National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the National Council of Wome Voters (N.C.W.V.).  In 1909, the women popularly known as 'the mother of women's suffrage" Emma Smith DeVoe, proposed that a separate organization be created from NAWSA to educate women on the election process and create awareness about women's issues.  Her proposal was ignored, and in 1911, she created the National Council of Women Voters.

12 February 2024

VALENTINE


Image from Free Vintage Art
Taking us back to the time of the soda jerk and fantasies of a first kiss.

Have you asked your relatives who are married how they first met?

 

08 February 2024

COMMITTEE FOR YIDDISH A GALLERY OF MISSING HUSBANDS : "A Gallery of Missing Husbands," with Michael Morgenstern

Committee for Yiddish YouTube Channel : A Gallery of Missing Husbands 

On this video Jewish Community newspapers from the Great Immigration period of American history hold ads in which abandoned wives seek their husbands. Men overwhelmed with the realities of recent immigrant life sometimes disappeared out of shame or because they could not live up to the responsibilities of marriage and children.  Wives desperate for reunion sought them publicly in ads.  Sometimes this effort would later be used to prove they had tried when divorce - and remarriage - was the only answer.

Again, Committee for Yiddish is an excellent YouTube channel and if you go to the link you'll find lots else that is educational.

03 February 2024

JEWISH ASHKENAZIM GENEALOGY : NAME CHANGES and OTHER UNIQUE CHALLENGES

Jews have come to America since Colonial Times but in general most of those from Europe came during the Industrial Revolution from Central and Eastern Europe, that Great Immigration period from about 1880 - 1920.  So for American Jews, the genealogy research starts with American records as it would for any other American.

Because of intermarriage between Jews and Christians there are Americans today who might not identify as Jewish or who acknowledge a Jewish ancestor - with many rumors of Jewishness as well - who do Holocaust Genealogy.

There are some special considerations in Jewish genealogy that make it a bit more difficult and that is dealing with Hebrew alphabet and translation, Yiddish language,  naming conventions, and informal name changes.

I've stated it elsewhere on this blog but that officials at Ellis Island changed the names of immigrants coming through is a myth. They had no authority to do that and were also dealing with hundreds of incoming every time a steamship came into the port in New York. It's likely that sometimes an immigrant's name was written down phonetically but that's not the same as an authority changing a person's name.

However Jewish immigrants DID sometimes change their names, sometimes to a German version from a Polish or Russian one - since German Jews had an easier time of assimilation, sometimes to an English or American name, sometimes to make the name easier to spell or pronounce. These name changes were rarely done formally and legally.  In many cases people were known by their Hebrew or Polish or other ethnic surname as well as their new name.

My suggestion is to do the usual genealogy research and perhaps on a marriage or a draft registration or other document the name change will be revealed.  Find the marriage record kept at the temple, not just the civil one. Have tombstones translated and get the cemetery record as well as the death record. Remember that if something comes right up on a database that's a blessing but books, microfilms, newspapers, and writing to archives may still be necessary. 

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01 February 2024