There was a note, not too long ago, to the Germanna Colonies List from Thomas Porombka to alert readers to his web page, www.pomware.de . (Note the dot de.) I checked into the site and was amazed at what I found. First, it is incomplete, but there is enough there to catch one’s attention. Second, it has so many Germanna names. Third, it looks as if it is being done very professionally.
I wrote to Herr Porombka to say that I thought the statement in red letters over a yellow background was not easily read (it was the only mar that I saw). I had a very gracious reply from him to say that he intended it to be difficult to read. It seems that German law requires a statement on a web page to warn people that any links to which it refers may have changed. The page carrying the notice cannot be responsible for changes that might have occurred after the reference was made. Herr Porombka considers the need for such a statement to be ridiculous as everyone should know that one cannot be responsible for someone else’s work especially as it may change after the reference is made. So he makes the statement in red letters over a yellow background to encourage skipping over it.
The thousands of names that are listed, many incomplete at the present time, are descendants and related families of the Porombka family. They are included as cousins and not as descendants. Scanning through these names, one sees many Germanna names both from the areas of the First and the Second Colonies homelands.
The listing of so many names makes us realize that we are one family. (I think that I have read the descendants of the Western Europeans, including the British isles, are descended from perhaps fifty women.)
There are a few details about the Porombka site that I do not understand. There are English and French versions besides the basic German one. Some of the genealogy data is not translated as it is essentially the same in all languages. One needs only to know basic principles such as * means birth (or more correctly baptism) and + means death. The death symbol should be a cross but a plus sign is satisfactory. Marriage is denoted by oo. Divorce is o/o. For more along this line consult the past notes which talk about "Ortssippenbuch".
[John's Note which explains the symbols used in the "Ortssippenbuch" may be found here:
[Other Notes by John which discuss "Ortissippenbuch" may be found here:
[Above inserted by: Webmaster GWD.]
I will try to remember the Porombka site for its human interest, if nothing else.
(09 Feb 06)
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.