Teach Yourself to Read German Script (Part II)

Did you do your homework?  (See Part I)  If you are comfortable writing the alphabet and some words, you are ready to move on to the next stage.  In the first part, we learned to read the letters when formed in an ideal manner.  Now we're going to look at a real-life example, where the scribe did not make every letter perfectly.  But we'll start with an easy example, where the scribe had good handwriting, the Tiegenhagen, West Prussia, Mennonite church book.

You could use any handwritten German document; but this one is written clearly; and even more importantly, John Thiesen has made an exact transcription.  So we can compare the handwritten German text to the typewritten transcription.

At this point, we're only interested in reading the letters and words, not yet about understanding the meaning.

Let's download a random page from the church book, p. 30-31.  Then download John Thiesen's transcription for comparison - it's a large Word document, so be patient - and find page 31.  We'll use the righthand page, page 31, because it has more Kurrentschrift on it than the lefthand side.  (Note that personal names are usually written in Latin script not Kurrentschrift.)  Start at the top and look at the Latin transcription and follow the Kurrentschrift.

Did you see that one of the column headings is missing in the transcription?  Can you figure out the word on your own? (Answer at the end.)

Source:  Tiegenhagen Mennonite church book, Tiegenhagen, West Prussia, Volume 1, Page 31, held by Mennonite Library and Archives, North Newton, Kansas, accessed online at http://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/cong_314/book1/30-31.jpg on 29 September 2016.

Portion of transcription of page 31.

Once you feel comfortable looking at the Latin transcription and deciphering the Kurrentschrift original, do it the other way around.  Try to read the original and see if you get what is in the transcription.  You may have to write out the original letter-by-letter.  Download and read a few more pages until you feel comfortable with it.

Congratulations - you've made your first step into reading a real genealogical document!

ANSWER - The missing word is "Wochen," which means "weeks."

Teach Yourself to Read German Script (Part I)

Many important genealogical records are written in German script - if you don't learn to read German script, you will always be dependent on the kindness of others to translate for you.  And there will be vast troves of material that you will never access because you can't read them.  While it takes persistence to read German script, anyone can learn to do it.

When I started teaching myself to read German script about four years ago, I knew practically no German.  I had picked up some German words and phrases as a kid from my parents, but I had forgotten most of those, and I had traveled some in German and learned airport and railroad German (Flughafen, Hauptbahnhof, etc.).  But I knew very little that was relevant to genealogy.  So don't think that I am some super German speaker.

German script is properly called Kurrentschrift, and it developed from medieval cursive and was used in Germany until the Nazis banned it in 1941.  It is often called Gothic script, but this is not correct as Gothic refers to a type of printing with wide black letters used in many European languages.

Here is an example of Kurrentschrift handwriting:

Source:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Deutsche_Kurrentschrift.svg

And this is an example of German Fraktur, a type of Gothic printing:

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraktur#/media/File:Fraktur_walbaum.png

As you can see, Kurrentschrift is what is used in old handwritten German documents.

The first and most important step to teaching yourself to read Kurrentschrift is to determine that you will keep at it until you succeed.  I guarantee it will be frustrating at times, but you can't quit until have succeeded.  If you're not willing to make this resolve, don't waste your time starting.  When you get discouraged, remember the genealogical treasures troves you will uncover by persisting.

Second, the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, has a good guide to the alphabet.  Read it and practice writing the letters several times until you are comfortable with them.  This is just like learning the alphabet in kindergarten.

Third, Brigham Young University has a tutorial to teach you to read Kurrentschrift.  Go through each section of the tutorial (listed on the left side of the home page) and learn to write words in Kurrentschrift.  Writing it yourself is important because that burns it into your active memory (as opposed to reading which is only passive).  Then you can take a little test at the end to see how well you are doing.

You have your homework - get started and let us know about your progress with a comment.

(In the next post, we will discuss how to read an actual page from a Mennonite church book.)

He Became a British Subject

My great-grandfather Gerhard T. Siemens #6463 (1834-1908) immigrated to Canada in 1874 and was naturalized, thereby becoming a British subject.  (All Canadians were British subjects until 1947.)  I wanted to know more about his naturalization.  Here is the little bit that I have found - it may give you some ideas for searching for the naturalization of your Canadian ancestor.

First, the 1901 census asked when a person was naturalized, and the enumerator recorded that he immigrated in 1874 and was naturalized in 1882 (circled in red).

Gerhard Siemens household, 1901 Canada census, Morris Municipality sub-district, Provencher district, Manitoba, p. 4, household 30, lines 4-12.  Accessed at www.ancestry.ca on 29 June 2014.

This, of course, is better than nothing; but it's not a primary source.  Gerhard told the enumerator who wrote it down.  We hope that Gerhard remembered the right date, that he wasn't distracted, that he didn't stutter, that the enumerator heard him correctly, that there wasn't a baby crying at that moment, that the enumerator didn't forget to ask him and just filled in some number.  It's a secondary source.

I have obtained Gerhard Siemens' Saskatchewan homestead file from 1907, and he affirmed that he was naturalized before 1889 in Manitoba.  That fits with what the 1901 census stated, so that is a confirmation.

Sworn statement of patentee Gerhard Siemens,  7 February 1907, homestead file #1239121, Land Registration District of Assiniboia, Regina, Saskatchewan accessed online at Saskatchewan Archives Board Homestead Index 1872-1930, Reference #S 42.1239121, http://sab.minisisinc.com on 16 April 2014.

Detail of homestead statement above.

But I would still like to have a primary source.  Citizenship and Immigration Canada holds the naturalization records for 1854 to the present, but the original records for naturalizations before 1917 have been destroyed.  Only a card index remains, and there is not much information on the card index.  A Canadian citizen or resident can make an Access to Information request and pay 5 CAD to get a copy of the index card.  I am neither, but fortunately I have cousins who are Canadian citizens, so they ordered a copy for me.

The index card was rather sparse, but upon close examination it does give the answer.

Gerhardt T. Siemens naturalization card, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, file #032790-85.  Index card from Access to Information request on 24 August 2016.

So what are the results?  It has his name (Gerhardt T. Siemens) and date of birth (34/05/21, which is 1834 May 21, his new-style birth date).  And it shows that he was born in the USSR, which means that the card index must have been made sometime after 1922, when the Soviet Union came into existence (otherwise it would have shown Russia as his birth country).  But the document is a primary source to the fact that he was naturalized, something that the 1901 census and his homestead application do not do.

There is also a mysterious section of "actions," which appears to be the record of correspondence between officials.  These are all dated in 1885 and 1886 - was Gerhard naturalized at that time instead of 1882 as the census reports?  Does the pre-printed "85" at the end of the file number "032790-85" indicate that his citizenship was granted in 1885?

But at the lower right of the white card, there is a faint date.  I had to look carefully even to find it.

I am quite sure that it reads "85/12/23," which would be the date 23 December 1885.  When combined with the dates of the correspondence happening in late 1885 and early 1886 and the preprinted "85" on the form, this makes me think it is his naturalization date!

Why did the 1901 census enumerator record 1882 as his naturalization?  I don't have an answer.  But by 1907, it seems as though Gerhard was uncertain about his naturalization date, since he wrote "before 1889" on the homestead application.  I think 23 December 1885, is the best date for his naturalization, although the evidence is conflicting.
   
IMPORTANT NOTE - If your ancestor was naturalized after 1917, which would include the Russländer immigrants, then much more information is listed on the card index, which might make you more eager to send off for the file.

Using the 1835 Census of Molotschna Colony, Russia

In 1702, Petr I the Great, tsar' of Russia, ordered that a census be taken of all of Russia for drafting men into the military and collecting taxes more efficiently.  This was the first census of Russia.  (Although the 1897 census is often described as the first census of Russia, this is not quite correct - it was the first census of the Russian Empire, and Russia did not formally become an empire until 1721.)  The first census was revised periodically in what was called a reviziia in Russian.

The Center for Volga German Studies in Portland, Ore., has put together a list of the revisions to the first census.
1st Revision – ~1719
2nd Revision – ~1743
3rd Revision – ~1767
4th Revision – ~1775
5th Revision – ~1798
6th Revision – ~1811
7th Revision – ~1816
8th Revision – ~1834
9th Revision – ~1850
10th Revision – ~1857

For Molotschna Colony in south Russia, the 8th revision, taken in early 1835 in Molotschna, is available in its entirety and is one of the most valuable genealogical records for Molotschna because it lists the name, age, relationship to head of household, and village for every person. Here is some information on how to use it.

First, you will need to look your ancestor up in the index that Richard Thiessen compiled.  The index is of every head of household and of stepsons and other males who have a different last name from the head of household.  For example, let's assume I'm trying to find my ancestor Jacob Fast who emigrated to the US in 1874.  I know that he was born in 1831 and emigrated from the village of Lichtfelde.  I've extracted all the Jacob Fasts from the index, but since he was only 4 years old in 1835, I'm not likely to find him in the index of heads of household below:

Richard D. Thiessen, "Index to the 1835 Molotchna Census", Russian Mennonite Genealogical Resources web site, corrected version of 28 March 2010.  Accessed online at http://mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/1835cein.htm#F on 15 September 2016.

As expected, I find no Jacob Fast from Lichtfelde born at the right time.  The Jakob Kornelius Fast at Lichtfelde #25 was born way too early in 1787.  So I need to look for my Jacob's father. 

Let's assume that Jacob's father was at least 17 years old when Jacob was born in 1831 and no older than 70.  That means that Jacob's father would have been born between about 1765 and 1818.  Let's look for all the Fast heads of household in Lichtfelde born 1765-1818.

So there are three Fasts living in Lichtfelde in 1835, all born at the right time to be Jacob Fast's father.  The name of the village and farm follow the person's name.  So let's look in the English translation of the census at each of the three Fasts I marked.

The English translation of the census is available from the Mennonite Heritage Centre in Winnipeg for 50 USD.  (It's also available free to use at most Mennonite archives.)  It's a valuable document, but the translation was made from a very poor copy, so there are lots of mistakes in it.  I've posted corrections to a large part of the translation, comparing it to a good-quality microfilm of the original; but there are many pages I haven't looked at.

When I check the three Fasts in Lichtfelde, there is only one with a son Jacob, and that is Gerhard Abram, the second one marked on the list above.  Jacob (circled in red) was 4 years old in the census, so he would have been born in about 1831, so that matches.

Gerhard Abram Fast household, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Lichtfelde village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #16.  Translated by Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Now let's confirm it by looking at the original.  A microfilm of the original is found at many Mennonite archives, but I purchased a copy for 10 USD from the California Mennonite Historical Society in Fresno, California. 

Gergard" Abragamov" Fast" household, 25 February 1835, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Lichtfelde village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #16.  Found in Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fond 89, Inventory 1, File 357, p. 333R-334.  Accessed on microfilm from California Mennonite Historical Society, Fresno, California.

The original confirms that Jacob (circled in red, Якобъ in Russia) was Gerhard Abraham Fast's son and that he was 4 years old and thus born in ABT 1831.  So I've confirmed that I have found the right Jacob Fast.  The census also gives me his father (and mother) and higher up on the page it says that his father emigrated in 1817 to Russia.  Now I have enough information that I could go searching for Gerhard Abraham Fast in West Prussia.

 

What's That Surname?

Here's a fun one - before you scroll down too far, try to figure out the surname of Cornelius below:

Cornelius [guess who!] death record, 20 March 1810, Tiegenhagen Mennonite Church Book 1780-1831, West Prussia, p. 95.  Downloaded from http://rep.mefor.org/kb/kb26.pdf on 28 November 2015 [link has been removed].

Someone did an incredibly useful rough draft transcription of the Tiegenhagen, West Prussia, Mennonite church book, 1782-1831, and he took it to be "Cornelius Fast."  I definitely thought the same thing for a long time.  In that case, there were two Cornelius Fasts in the village of Platenhof - one died in 1793 and this one in 1810.  I spent a lot of time trying to separate the children of the two men into different families without any luck.

But today I took another look at the surname.  Here's a scan of a larger area:

Notice that the second loop on what appeared to the "F" in Fast is actually the down-loop on the "z" in Schulz.  If you mentally block out that second loop, could the name actually be Jost?

Let's look at some of the J's the scribe wrote on the same page:

Here are three times where he wrote Jacob, Johan, and Jacob.  These J's look very much like the first letter in the surname above.  It has to Cornelius Jost.

So I can stop trying to separate the Cornelius Fast children in Platenhof, West Prussia into two families - there was only one Cornelius Fast in Platenhof!

More Death Certificate Gleanings

If you pay attention, almost any document can tell you a lot.  Let’s continue with the death certificate of my great-great-grandmother Katharina Bergman #7126 (1834-1916), about which I posted here and here.

Katherina Barkmann death certificate, died 25 November 1916, dated 27 November 1916, no. 60219, Office of Vital Statistics, Topeka, Kansas.

Date of Birth.   

First, her date of birth is only given as 28 December – no year.  But if we calculate her birth date by subtracting her age at death from her death date, we get a birth year of 1834.  Her granddaughter, Margaretha H. Reimer, recorded her birth date as 28 December 1834, in her family register, so that agrees.  But it sure would have been nice if the doctor had not failed to write the year.   Also, if you go back to the 1835 census in the previous post, you see that she was ¼ year old when the census was taken on 11 February 1835, which roughly agrees with a 28 December 1834 birth date.

Final Illness.   

Notice that the doctor attended her only on 22 November 1916, and that she died on 25 November 1916.  That means that she did not visit this doctor in the eight years that she lived in Meade from 1908 to 1916.  She was likely reasonably healthy for an elderly person and did not need to go to the doctor.  Very likely she had a stroke (the cause of death is “paralysis due to cerebral hemorrhage”) on the 22^nd, so they called the doctor to come out, and he told them that it was hopeless and that there was nothing he could do.  Otherwise, he would likely have attended her in the three days before she died.

Burial.  

Next, notice that she was buried on the 27^th, two days after her death.  There was no undertaker, so relatives would have prepared the body, just as had been done for thousands of years by nearly everyone. 

The burial location is “Mennonite burying ground.”  There is no cemetery with that name today, but if I didn’t know where she was buried, that at least tells me her grave is in one of the Mennonite cemeteries in Meade County.  Since I have visited her grave previously, I know that she was buried in the Emmanuel Mennonite Cemetery.

Tombstone of Katharina Barkman, Emmanuel Mennonite north cemetery, at S Road and 22nd Road, near Meade, Kansas, accessed at www.findagrave.com, memorial #25017516, on 29 June 2016.

Informant.  

Death certificates almost always list the informant who provided the non-medical information.  It is interesting to think about why this particular person was chosen as the informant.  In this case, it seems strange to me that Johann F. Bartel was the one.  She died at the home of her son-in-law, Jacob F. Reimer (according to my grandmother’s family register), so it would seem he should be the one who would talk to the doctor.  He was also the oldest among the sons and sons-in-law, so he would be the natural candidate.   But this required communicating in English with an outsider, a non-Mennonite, so perhaps Jacob F. Reimer did not feel comfortable doing that.  Or perhaps it was something as simple as Jacob F. Reimer being out in the barn when the doctor came.  I don’t have an answer, but it seems that Jacob F. Reimer would have been the natural one to be the informant, but he was not.

Don’t forget to milk a document for every bit of information that it can give you.

A Surprise on a Death Certificate

In a previous post, I described how I had gotten my great-great-grandmother’s [Katharina Bergman #7126 (1834-1916)], death certificate to prove her death location.  But there was a surprise on the death certificate – her father was Jacob Barkman!  This was completely unexpected because all the evidence I had said that her father was Peter Peter Bergman #12946 (b. 1810).

(Bear in mind that the surnames Barkman and Bergman are different spellings of the same name; and until about a century ago, the same individual would use both spellings interchangeably throughout his life.)

Katherina Barkmann death certificate, died 25 November 1916, dated 27 November 1916, no. 60219, Office of Vital Statistics, Topeka, Kansas.

 

At first I dismissed this new information.  After all, a death certificate is not an original source with regard to a person’s parentage.  The informant was Katharina’s son-in-law, Johann F. Bartel #63498 (1864-1937), who was born 30 years after her and in a different village.  It is likely that he never met her parents because they stayed behind in Russia when Katharina immigrated to the US with her husband and children in 1878, and he certainly wasn’t present at her birth.  And they were probably members of different churches in Russia (Ohrloff congregation for Katharina Bergman and Kleine Gemeinde for Johann Bartel), so their paths may not even have crossed in Russia.  Perhaps Johann Bartel was just wrong about her father.

Yet it is worth investigating – I would certainly like to know since I would be chasing the wrong ancestral line if he is right.  Where to start?

Let’s look at the 1835 census of Molotschna colony in Russia.  I have strong evidence that she was born on 16/28 December 1834, so she should be in the 1835 census.  In fact, we find her living with her parents Peter Peter Bergman and Aganetha Penner at Schönsee farm #3.  This census is my only evidence that her father was Peter Peter Bergman, but it’s fairly strong. 

Father Peter Bergman and daughter Katharina are boxed in red.  Source:  Petr" Iuliusov" Bergman" household, 11 February 1835, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Schoensee village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #3.  Found in Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fond 89, Inventory 1, File 357, p. 167R-169.  Accessed on microfilm from California Mennonite Historical Society, Fresno, California.

Next let’s look at the Jacob Bergmans/Barkmans in the census to see if any of them have a daughter Katharina.  There is a very helpful index to the census produced by the Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society available online.  I find two Jacob Barkman’s in the 1835 census who are heads of households – one who lived at Tiege village, farm #20 and another at Rückenau #11.  (The one in Lichtfelde #23 is the same one as the one in Rückenau - he moved there in 1821 according to the census.)  The Jacob Barkman in Tiege has no daughter Katharina, but the Jacob Barkman in Rückenau does have a 3-year-old daughter Katharina.  Could this be my Katharina?  When I look for her in Grandma, I see that she is #6629, born in 1832, died in 1923, and married to Johann Koop.  So she is a completely different person.  So neither of the Jacob Bergmans in the 1835 census had a child Katharina that could be my great-great-grandmother.

Richard D. Thiessen, "Index to the 1835 Molotschna Census," Russian Mennonite Genealogical Resources web site, corrected version of 28 March 2010.  Accessed online at http://mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/1835cein.htm on 6 Sept 2016.

However, let’s go back to the census image above.  Note that Katharina Bergman had an uncle living in the same house, Jacob Bergman #102754 (b. ABT 1818).  According to the census, he is not married and has no children, which is not surprising since he is only 17 years old.  Nothing more is known about him in Grandma.  Could he have had a child out of wedlock, and it was covered up by calling my Katharina the daughter of his older brother Peter?  And then Johann Bartel revealed the family secret eight decades later to the Meade County coroner?  I think that is unlikely because if she were the illegitimate daughter, she would have been with the mother and not with the father’s family.

In this case all we can do is weigh two pieces of evidence regarding her parentage against each other – the census recorded three months after her birth versus the testimony of a son-in-law on her death certificate 81 years later.  With nothing better to go on, I have to choose the census that shows her father was Peter Peter Bergman because it is a contemporary source recorded by an enumerator from the village who should have known, but I will keep in mind that the death certificate shows Jacob Barkman as her father in case I find some new evidence later on.