John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 340

The last two chapters of the " The German Research Companion " are:

31) Societies & organizations, and
32) Tourism, chambers of commerce, & more.

An item from the book says that you can obtain an aerial photo of a German village.  I will just quote what the book says; I have no experience with this:

"The Cartographic and Architectural Branch of the National Archives is able to provide photographs of German villages.

"To initiate a request, send a map on which the location of the village is marked or provide the exact geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) of the village, along with any variant spellings that the village name may have.  The Cartographic and Architectural Branch will reply with an order form and the negative numbers it has for the village, as well as a cost list.

"Address the request to the:

Cartographic and Architectural Branch (NNSC)
National Archives and Records Administration
8601 Adelphi Road
College Park, Maryland 20740-6001

Allow four to six weeks for delivery."

Hofnamen (literally, farm names) . In rural areas, the owners of a farm sometimes are known to their neighbors by a totally different family name than the one shown on their birth or marriage register.  This can happen when the original, often centuries-old, name of a farm is passed on despite changes in the owners' names.  So a farm once owned by a family name Pfleger was known as Pflegerhof (Pfleger's farm), even though the owner's official name is now Maier.  This is called the Hofname (name of the farm).  Sometimes a double name is used, such as Pfleger-Maier.  I mention this especially because B. C. Holtzclaw noted this phenomena in his research of the early Siegen families.