by Lisa Cooke | Apr 15, 2017 | 01 What's New, German, Legacy Tree Genealogists, Maps |
Finding German hometowns can be challenging. Guest blogger Camille Andrus, a professional genealogist specializing in German research and Project Manager at Legacy Tree Genealogists shares 3 free German genealogy websites to put your ancestors on the map in the former German empire and modern-day Poland.
Map of German Reich 1871–1918. from kgberger, Creative Commons license, Wikipedia.com;
Anyone tracing German ancestors quickly finds themselves puzzling over maps in a region that has experienced a lot of change. Camille Andrus of Legacy Tree Genealogists recommends these 3 free German genealogy websites to help you navigate the former German empire–from Pomerania to Prussia to Poland. Here are her picks and her explanations for using them.
1. www.MeyersGaz.org
“For years, novice genealogists who found themselves embarking on the road of German genealogy were discouraged when needing to decipher an entry for their town in Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-lexikon des deutschen Reichs (commonly known simply as Meyers or Meyer’s Gazetteer of the German Empire) due to the old German font in which the book was printed and the plethora of abbreviations that were used. To address this obstacle, the website www.MeyersGaz.org was created.
This online database not only explains the text and various abbreviations in the town entry that are found in the original printed version of Meyers, but also pinpoints the location of the town on both historic and modern maps, indicates the Catholic and Protestant parishes to which residents of the town would have belonged, and notes the distance from the town to all parishes within a 20-miles radius.
The database also allows users to search for a town using wildcards. This is especially useful when the exact spelling of a town is not known. For example, if the record on which you found the new town name indicated that the person came from Gross Gard…. where the second part of the word was smudged or illegible, you could simply put “Gross Gard*” into the database. In this case, the only two options would be Gross Garde in Pommern and Gross Gardienen in East Prussia. If you have a common town name such as Mülheim, you can filter the search results by province.”
Screenshot from MeyersGaz.org.
Note: Genealogy Gems Premium website members can hear more about MeyersGaz on Premium Podcast episode 143.
2. Kartenmeister
“Kartenmeister is a database for towns which are found east of the Oder and Neisse rivers in the former German Empire provinces of East Prussia, West Prussia, Brandenburg, Posen, Pomerania, and Silesia. This area is now part of modern Poland. The database allows users to search for towns using either their German or Polish name.
Again, using Gross Gardienen as our example town, we learn that the Polish name for the town is now Gardyny and is located in the Warminsko-Mazurskie province. Like MeyersGaz.org, collaboration between users is encouraged. Individuals can enter their email address into a mailing list according to the town they are interested in and specify surnames they are researching in that town.”
3. Lost Shoebox
Map of Poland from Lost Shoebox shows where to find online records for each province.
“This website is an index to 17 websites focused on research in Poland. The list of websites corresponds with a map of Poland divided into its various modern provinces. Each number (representing a website) is listed on the map in each province for which it has records. Some websites are listed for nearly every province, while others show up for only one or two. The 17 websites featured on Lost Shoebox include either direct access to digital images, indexes to vital records, or lists of microfilms or other archival holdings.
If we were searching for records for Gross Gardienen or other nearby towns, we know from Kartenmeister that we would need to look in the Warminsko-Mazurskie province. The map shows the numbers 3, 10, and 14.” A corresponding key sends users to the appropriate websites.
“The third website on the list for the province brings us to the website for the Polish State Archive in Olsztyn. There are a plethora of digital images for both Evangelical church records and civil registration records available on this website.”
Camille Andrus is a Project Manager for Legacy Tree Genealogists, a worldwide genealogy research firm with extensive expertise in breaking through genealogy brick walls. Her expertise includes Germany, Austria, German-speakers from Czech Republic and Switzerland and the Midwest region of the U.S., where many Germans settled.
Click here to learn more about Legacy Tree services and its research team
by Lisa Cooke | Apr 25, 2016 | 01 What's New, Book Club, Military, Research Skills
How did World War I affect your family’s lives? Start your search with these 3 tips for finding WWI ancestors. 
Our current Genealogy Gems Book Club title takes place at the outset of WWI. The Summer Before the War: A Novel
by Helen Simonson has endearing characters who experience fairly light-hearted dramas–and then they are plunged into war.
Through their eyes, readers begin to understand that those who lived through ‘the Great War’ experienced something totally unprecedented. There had never been such a massive loss of life and devastation.
1. Ask family what they know. Ask all living relatives what they know about ancestors’ involvement in World War I. Listen for stories about anyone who may have served in the military, dodged military service, took care of things on the homefront, lost their own lives or loved ones or lived in an area affected by the war. Ask about any old documents, photos or letters that may survive.
There are lots of ways to ask your relatives these questions. Poll everyone at your next family gathering or reunion. Use Facebook (click here for some great tips) or other social media. Connect with other tree owners who have documented ancestors of WWI interest (see step 2, below) through communication tools provided at sites such as Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com and FamilySearch.org.
2. Identify ancestors affected by WWI. Look for families and individuals who were alive between 1914 and 1918. Where did they live? Was it an active war zone? Research local histories and maps to determine how their city–or even neighborhood or property–was affected. Scan death dates on your family tree–did anyone living in a war zone die during that time period?
Were they in a country that sent troops to war? If so, look for soldiers on your tree. The age of those who served in World War I varied. In general, look for men born between 1880 and 1900 who were alive in 1914. Again, look for death dates during the war.
3. Search military records on genealogy websites. Fold3.com’s WWI landing page is the place to start for WWI ancestors in the U.S., since it specializes in military records (you may be able to access it from your home library). Ancestry.com users can go to this landing page to search all WWI records from the U.S. and here to search U.K. records. Findmypast.com users can search WWI records here, including an extensive collection of British military records but also others from around the world. If you’re searching U.S. records, remember that draft registrations are not records of military service.
If you’re looking for a country or region not represented in these online collections, start Googling! Google search phrases such as “Germany WWI genealogy” will bring up results like these. (Click here to watch free video tutorials about Google searching for genealogy records.) You may discover new databases online or records collections you could access through archives or libraries.
Available at http://genealogygems.com
These tips are just to get you started. As you discover records, you’ll have a better sense for the stories of your WWI ancestors. Then you can start chasing those stories in newspapers, local histories and other sources. Turn to a book like Lisa Louise Cooke’s How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers to learn
British volunteers for “Kitchener’s Army” waiting for their pay in the churchyard of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London. August 1914. Wikimedia Commons Image
sleuthing skills you’ll need for searching out your WWI family stories in the news.
More WWI Genealogy Gems for You
Europeana World War I Digital Archive
5 Ways to Discover Your Family History in WWI
More Great Books to Read, Including Orange Lilies, a WWI-era Novella in the Forensic Genealogist series by Nathan Dylan Goodwin
by Lisa Cooke | Oct 17, 2020 | 01 What's New, Elevenses with Lisa, Heirloom, Records & databases |
The Family Bible: Elevenses with Lisa Episode 29
The family Bible is an important resource for genealogy. Here’s how to find family Bibles and use them for family history.
Watch episode 29 of Elevenses with Lisa to learn how to find and analyze your family Bible for genealogy
Start by watching this video to learn how to find and use family Bibles. Then keep reading below for all of the website links and resources to help you be successful in your research of the family Bible.
Elevenses with Lisa, the online video series where we take a break, visit and learn about genealogy and family history.
Places to Look for the Family Bible
The best place to start looking is around your own house!
Where you Can Find Family Bibles Offline:
- Reach out to close family and distant cousins, particularly female lines
- Archives
- Historical societies
I reached out to my cousin Carolyn. She relayed a strange story to me about the family bible that was in my Great Grandmother Lenora Herring’s home:
The Strange Story
“Many years ago, probably when I was in my 20’s or 30’s I was visiting at the Herring home in Oklahoma. Lenora had already passed but Jewel (her daughter) still lived in the house.
I was asking her some questions about the family history. She got out the Bible and said it contained the only information she knew about. It was a large Bible – I don’t remember much about its condition – and getting pictures of things certainly wasn’t the trend. But she opened it up to the pages where the family history was written and she proceeded to tear out those pages and give them to me!
A page torn from the family Bible.
Looking back on that, I kinda wish I would have stopped her! So, she kept the Bible and gave me the family info pages! The Bible itself didn’t seem to impress me much. But I was very interested in what was written on those pages!
So after Jewel could no longer live in the Herring house and my mother placed Jewel in a nursing home, my mother disposed of all the things in the house and the house was sold to help pay for Jewel’s care. I was not there in Oklahoma when this occurred, but I guess Janette must have picked up the family Bible.
Eventually, Janette and I got our heads together and realized who had what. I’ve attached images of the family history pages. Some of it is hard to read – I think most of it was written in pencil. And for some reason, I didn’t make sense of some of the info till recent years.
I think there were multiple people that wrote on the pages – including my mother.
There was a Herring / Jump family reunion several years ago at the home of one of the Jump cousins. I went and so did Janette. She brought the family Bible to show. It was in very, very poor condition and if I remember right, stored in an old cardboard box……….”
Where You Can Find Family Bibles Online
Here’s a list of free websites where you can find digitized family Bibles.
Family Bibles at Library of Congress
Search for family Bibles at the library of congress
Internet Archive: Archive.org
Click here to see the search results for “family bible” at the Internet Archive.
The Streepy Bible is a great example of variation in handwriting.
Click here to see Genealogical records taken from the family Bible of James Monroe Palmer : born 1822, died 1897 and Caroline Frances Bacon, his wife, born 1830, died 1899 of Boston, Massachusetts.
A good example of a transcription of the records from a family Bible.
Ebay
Search for “family bible”. Try adding a surname.
Premium Members: Listen to my Premium Podcast episode 76 that includes strategies for using ebay for genealogy.
Google
Search for the surname along with the phrase family Bible using the quotation marks search operator. Example: “Cooke” “family Bible”
Resource for Google search strategies: The Genealogists’s Google Toolbox by Lisa Louise Cooke
FamilySearch
Search both the Card Catalog and the Digital Books collection for “family bible” and a surname.
In the Notes section of an item, you may find a link to click to view the digital version if one is available.
World Cat
Catalogs approximately 2 billion items from 10,000 libraries around the world.
Allen County Public Library
Archive Grid
Includes “over 5 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more.” Includes materials from over 1,000 different archival institutions.
Examining the Family Bible
- Check the title page
Is there a date that it was printed / published?
This may help you determine when it made its way into the family
- Look through every page as things may be tucked in there.
- Look through the pages – look for markings. You may find passages that were particularly meaningful to them.
- Was the publish date after many of the dates entered into the Bible? There’s a chance the info may have been copied.
- Use a photo editor to preserve and even improve Bible pages. I use Snagit to invert the image. Get Snagit with our affiliate link and get a discount for a limited time. (thanks for supporting our free content!)
- In the menu: Image > Effects > Filters > Invert. (Learn more about using Snagit for genealogy with my video and article How to Use Snagit for Genealogy.)
Interpreting the Family Bible
Here are questions to ask and things to consider as you interpret the contents of your family Bible for genealogy.
Was the information copied? If so, who then has the original? Keep in mind that mistakes could have been made during the copying or entered by memory.
Could the information have been recorded by people over time?
Is the handwriting all the same? If so, it’s more likely some copying.
Different handwriting in the family Bible may indicate more first-hand knowledge, or it may be someone filling in years later.
Analyze all of the entries. Like a scrapbook, there is significance to the order and each entry has significance. Is anyone missing?
Was there an incentive for inaccuracies? Was a marriage date fudged to hide a pregnancy before marriage?
Cross reference with other genealogical documents.
Did a wedding occur around the time of the Bible’s publication? The Bible may have been a gift.
Restoring the Family Bible
My cousin Carolyn had a large family Bible from her father’s side of the family restored.
The family Bible in need of restoration
“The woman who restored this Bible did an awesome job. She had available the correct restoration materials. It’s not perfect, like-new. But still very good.”
“She also did something to the leather to renew it in some way. When I first acquired the Bible, the brass latch would not close, but now it does! The Bible can now be viewed and handled (carefully, of course!) without it falling apart. She also constructed a special storage box for it, using archival quality materials.”
Since there wasn’t a restoration expert available in her area, she reached out to a book restoration expert in Indiana:
Leonard’s Book Restoration, LLC
“Website was helpful and they were pleasant to work with…They put a new cover on my own personal Bible, and I was very pleased with their work. A few years ago, I also had them re-do a small hardback Bible that my mother used. ”
Resources
Listen to the Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast Episode 68 on the Family Bible, Google Search
Rodney McCulloh shares his inspirational story of the path that he followed that lead him to the old family Bible.
Bonus Download exclusively for Premium Members: Download the show notes handout
Become a Genealogy Gems Premium Member today.
Answers to Your Live Chat Questions
One of the advantages of tuning into the live broadcast of each Elevenses with Lisa show is participating in the Live Chat and asking your questions.
From Sian: Is Archivgrid US-based only or worldwide?
From Lisa: It’s worldwide. In the “Search for a Location” list you can scroll down to see all the countries. You can also hover you mouse over the map and zoom out to see the full coverage.
From Kimberly: Hi from East Aurora NY. I can’t wait to take take another look at my grandmother’s Bible! Is it ok to add my information to her Bible?
From Lisa: While in the end, it’s a personal decision, I think it’s a wonderful idea to add information to the family bible. They are meant to be added to over generations.
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