John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 447

Shirley Riemer gave four talks at the Pennsylvania Chapter meeting of Palatines to America meeting.  One was on fifteen basic concepts to apply to German family history research:

  1. Spelling didn't count.  Never, was the question asked, "How do you spell your name?"

  2. Many travelers started out together (and arrived together).  Studying the immigrant in isolation doesn't make sense; study the community and neighbors also.

  3. Ms. Riemer makes the point that the Germans often lived in the same area of Germany for centuries.  In the Germanna colonies, this was true for the First Colony, but many of the immediate ancestors of the Second Colonists had moved from another area.  Much of this was related to the effects of the Thirty Years' War .  Still, many names do have a concentration within a small geographical area.

  4. Often there were many siblings, which means there are many individuals to research, each of which may yield a clue to understanding your ancestor.

  5. The Germans have been record keepers without par for centuries, and this is available to us.

  6. Germany research starts on this side of the Atlantic.  You will not find your ancestors by starting in Germany.

  7. Most often, a village name that can't be found is the result of misinterpretation here in America, not a name change in Germany.

  8. Surnames and Christening names changed.  There are many ways for an English speaker to write a German name, and just about every possible variant was used at one time or another.

  9. The parish church, where an individual's name was registered, was often not the village where the individual lived.  Very often a church served several small, close-by communities.

  10. There was no Germany before 1871.  There was a collection of major, medium, and small political entities.  Their boundaries often shifted and overlapped.

  11. Expect to communicate in German.  Yes, many Germans understand English, but your chances of a reply are better if correspondence is conducted in German.

  12. Graves in Germany disappear regularly.  Only the stones of the last half-century or so remain.

  13. Christening names and the names people used later were not always alike.  A person may have been christened as Johannes, but he could be married as Hans.  ( Hans was a diminiutive, or nickname, for Johannes ).

  14. Germans often gave the name of a larger political entity to identify their origin.  (My ancestor did not come from Neuenbürg but he came from the "lands of the Bishops of Speyer.")  Some states and cities have the same name.  Many names are duplicated, some very close together.

  15. Paper was expensive so abbreviations and symbols are common in records.

  16. (Bonus)  The chances are that your great-grandfather did not come to America as a stowaway on a ship.  There are a lot of situations fulfilling the Italian proverb, "It may not be true, but it makes a good story."

We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.