Category Archives: Genealogy tips

Emigration table of Freinsheim 1853-1881

Posted on January 7, 2013 | 4 comments

In 2010, when I traveled to Freinsheim, it was my privilege to have a meeting with Dr. Hans-Helmut Görtz, a local scholar of Palatine history. He openly shared his knowledge and supplied me with many materials, including journal entries of the Protestant parish priest in the era my novel is set, articles about emigrants from Freinsheim during the decade my great-great grandfather left for Cleveland, and a book he had authored about local historical figure Johann Bartholomäus von Busch (Der kurpfälzische Vizekansler Johann Bartholomäus von Busch (1680-1739) und seine Familie). At the end of our meeting, Dr. Görtz assured me I should feel free to email him with questions. For the past couple of years, from time to time I have taken him up on his offer.

Cathedral at SpeyerHistory Museum of the Palatinate at SpeyerOver the holidays, Dr. Görtz sent me a pdf of a “Survey in table form of emigration to overseas countries from Freinsheim.” He found a copy in the Landesarchiv in Speyer (where one also can visit the 11th century cathedral and History Museum of the Palatinate, both pictured here). So far, I’ve been able to discern the following names: Wiegand, Selzer, Höhn, Schneider, Hoffmann, Kaufmann, Gumbinger, Diehl, Schulz, Amend, Retzer, Depper, Bisgen, Schwab, Bloch, Drescher, Haas, König, Kirchner, Weilbrenner, Weibert, Schalter, Arter, Reichert, Heinz, Schmitt, Först, Fränkel, Aul, Adler, Heim, Hermann, Jacob, Kohl, Köhler, Bawel, Debus, Schaadt. Check it out for yourself: Tabellarische Übersicht der Auswanderungen. The table is not complete (my ancestor Michael Harm, who left at age 15, is not listed), but I include it here for others who might have better luck, both with finding their ancestors and/or deciphering the Alte Deutsche Schrift.

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Posted in Freinsheim and Palatinate history, Genealogy tips, General, The Last of the Blacksmiths: A Novel

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Why didn’t I go there sooner?

Posted on June 21, 2012 | 2 comments

Early on in the research trail of my immigrant ancestors, I talked with writing friend Christine about my quest for passenger lists. She suggested the Seattle Public Library (SPL).

“Have you been to the 9th floor? There’s a great section on genealogy. You should definitely go.”

I knew she was right, but as time passed, whenever I thought about going something else always got in the way. Until the other day when I was riding the bus along 4th Avenue with 45 minutes to spare, and that smushed 4-layer cake of a library building loomed into view. On impulse I pulled the bus stop cord and hopped out to have a look.

When I finally arrived on the 9th floor (it was a long and winding up-ramp), the first thing I happened upon was a shelf of “Germans to America” bound volumes. I had no idea that “Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports,” exclusively Germans, had been compiled in chronological order. I had found my ancestor Michael Harm the hard way, by scrolling through hours and hours of microfilm at NARA.

I pulled out the “Germans to America” volume for the proper time period thinking, this looks so easy. Why didn’t I come here sooner?

Sure enough, there he was, June 30, 1857 on the good ship Helvetia. You see him there? Michael Harm? Okay, Michel Harne. Still, I’m convinced that’s him, because from letters in my possession I know he made a 43 day journey in 1857 when he was 16, leaving behind his immediate family, voyaging from Le Havre, France to New York City. One other corroborating piece of data on the list clinched the deal. Nearby Michel Harne on the list was the name Philipp Haenderich of the USA. Haenderich (Handrich) was the same last name as Michael’s grandparents on his mother’s side. It makes sense that Michael’s parents would not send him unaccompanied, not if they could help it.

But when I looked in the “Germans to America” volume for the name Philipp Haenderich, to my surprise, no Haenderich was listed. If I had relied on this bound volume alone, I might have missed some vital data.

A cautionary tale. These volumes are called “Germans to America,” and on the handwritten list, Philipp Haenderich is listed as a U.S. citizen so his name was not included.

The presence of Philipp Haenderich also brings up another point. When checking passenger lists and census data, it is almost as important to look at the names nearby as at the names of whoever we’ve been searching for. People tend to wait in line with people they know. Census information also provides more data than we might realize, because relatives often live on the same street, so you might find someone else nearby. At the very least, if you look at those listed around your ancestor, you’ll get a glimpse of the people in their lives.

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Posted in 19th century history, Genealogy tips

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Just the facts, Ma’am

Posted on June 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

I am very impressed by the Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS). Unless you’re a history buff, you might not know the term “Western Reserve” refers to the northeastern part of Ohio.

The Wikipedia entry for the Connecticut Western Reserve describes it thus: “the lands between the 41st and 42nd-and-2-minutes parallels that lay west of the Pennsylvania border. Within Ohio the claim was a 120-mile (190 km) wide strip between Lake Erie and a line just south of Youngstown, Akron, New London, and Willard …” The strip of land in Ohio included Cleveland. Hence, names like “Church of the Western Reserve” and “Case Western Reserve University.”

Among the Western Reserve Historical Society’s incredible collections, exhibits, archives and online databases, are the following: local funeral home indexes, Jewish marriage and death notices, biographical sketches, Bible records, Early Families in Cleveland Project, Allen E. Cole African American Collections and more. To see the comprehensive list of databases, click here. To search what’s available in their extensive library catalog, click here.

Each time I see something like “Bible Records Index” or “Early Families in Cleveland Project” my heart beats a little faster. Maybe I’ll find my ancestors there, I think. So far, nothing much has turned up. Why not? For one thing, they were German, so kept to their German clan. Perhaps their names appear in the German newspapers, hard copies of which are available in the WRHS archives library, but not digitized or inventoried by individual names. For another thing, these first-generation immigrants were working men. Furnace operators, barrelmakers, blacksmiths, machinists. The salt (and grit) of the earth. For instance, my great-great-great uncle Jakob Handrich, who immigrated to Cleveland in 1840, appears rarely (often with alternate spellings, Handrick, Hendricks, Henry). If at all. Here’s what I know.

Jakob Handrich Life Events
*Born circa 1822, presumably in Meckenheim
*Arrived July 29, 1840 in New York on Ship Anson, 18 years old, traveling with his parents, 2 older sisters and 1 older brother
*In 1841, Jakob settled in Cleveland, Ohio, trained as a cooper (barrelmaker) and earned $5 per week.
*In 1843, he found work as a blacksmith in a factory “where steaming kettles and machines for steamboats and railways were being built” and earned $1.50/day
*In 1848, he made a journey into the southern states, approximately 2000 miles, including Cincinnati, St. Louis, Mobile and New Orleans
*In 1849, he bought a property ($600 cash) and built a house himself (nicknamed “House Place”) and lived there with his elderly parents until their deaths in the mid-1850s.
*By 1858, Jakob had been swept up in the California Gold Rush and traveled around South America by ship to California. At first, he made a lot of money as a blacksmith in San Francisco, but then the times got bad and he traveled to Sacramento Sutte to dig for gold and try his luck.
*In 1862 he was still in California, and had amassed approx. $12,000 in the bank.
*In 1864, he was in Cincinnati and contemplated returning to California.
*In 1869, he had married, had one son, and lived again in Cleveland.
*In 1870, he went to look for work in Columbus, and traveled between Columbus and Cleveland in subsequent years.
*In 1896 he was laid to rest at Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio.

Little of the above info turns up in genealogy databases; it all comes from several dozen letters in my family’s possession. I have no birth record, marriage record, proof of children. Only his name on a ship manifest, and his gravestone, where his name appears as Jacob Handrick. Maybe that’s not even him, but it’s as close as I can get. Which leads me to believe there have to be thousands and thousands of others like him. Invisible souls. And he was male. Think of the invisible women–early city directories list only the men of the household, women’s names changed when they married, and so on. Without the letters, the fact that Jakob Handrich ever existed would seem a mere mirage.

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Posted in Cleveland and Ohio history, Genealogy tips, General, The Last of the Blacksmiths: A Novel

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Palatines to America: Ohio Chapter

Posted on May 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

In my first couple of years as a member of the Ohio Chapter of Palatines to America (Pal Am), I have become a fan (and Facebook friend). I happen to be descended from people of the Palatine region, as were the founders (in 1975) of Palatines to America, but the mission of Pal Am has broadened so much, the society might better be named “Germans to America.”

PALATINES TO AMERICA (Pal Am) is a national genealogical society of persons researching German-speaking ancestry, with emphasis on migration from the Germanic regions of Europe to North America (primarily the United States and Canada). Most of these immigrants were from Germany, but there was also a significant number from other areas of Europe including Switzerland, Austria, France, Poland, and other countries. … Now our membership includes people who have ancestors from all German-speaking areas. (from “About Us” at palam.org)

The organization, with over 2,000 members and chapters in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania (anyone with an interest in German-speaking immigrants can join, whether from North America or abroad), offers a wealth of German genealogy resources, newsletters, a bookstore, and more.
This year’s annual conference is coming soon:
June 14-16, 2012
“German Research: Methodology & Technology”
Indianapolis, IN
With seminars on researching, surfing the Internet, and more.

Pal Am is also offering a 74-hour search-till-you-drop genealogy research excursion to Salt Lake City September 23-30, 2012. Visit Pal Am’s web page, under Events, for details.

Pal Am also offers research and translation services.

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Mythic Palatines in America

Posted on March 22, 2012 | 2 comments

I did not realize this book was so rare. My relative Angela gave a copy to me–Pfälzer in Amerika (Palatines in America) by Roland Paul and Karl Scherer–to help in my thesis research. Searching out a link to it for this blog, I notice it sells for a high price. I can see why.

It’s not such a big volume, but it’s packed with cross-cultural historical info. Published in 1995 by the Institute of Palatine History and Folklife, it offers articles about 18th and 19th century immigration to America from the Palatine region. Most of the text has English translations. Included are  maps and explorations of the “waves” of immigration and their causes, bios of notable personalities, and letters written by immigrants to America (only in German).

I find the bios especially intriguing. I had not realized that Thomas Nast (b. 1840), “cartoonist, moralist, and ‘president-maker'” was a contemporary of Michael Harm (b. 1841).

When in Germany, I visited Villa Ludwigshöhe above Edenkoben, and walked through that town, but missed the part of Edenkoben with the Johann Adam Hartmann fountain. Born in Edenkoben, Johann Adam Hartmann emigrated in 1764 to America, finishing his days in Herkimer, NY. A neighbor of James Fenimore Cooper, many claim the main character of Cooper’s most famous series (Last of the Mohicans, The Deerslayer, The Pioneers, etc.) is in part based on Hartmann. Pfälzer in Amerika states:

[After arrival in America in 1764], Hartmann became a woodsman and hunter on the Indian frontier. When the War of Independence began in 1775, he had already had ten years of hunting and fighting experience which he now put to use. In particular, he is said to have been instrumental in winning the Oriskany battle against the British troops and their Indian allies in the Mohawk Valley on 6 August 1777.

A memorial plaque has also been installed in the village. “In Edenkoben and elsewhere, it is firmly believed that next to Daniel Boone, the man from Edenkoben formed the most important model for J. F. Cooper’s character, Leatherstocking.”

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Posted in 19th century history, Freinsheim and Palatinate history, Genealogy tips, The Last of the Blacksmiths: A Novel, Travels in Germany

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Leafing through old books

Posted on February 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

When my father downsized from his house into a retirement center, he sent my brother and me a list of books, and from afar, we chose which ones we wanted.

Years have passed, and I hardly remember what I picked out, except that I had an eye for old books. The other day I came across an especially old one, dated 1867. I know it came from my childhood home due to the bright orange bookmark tucked inside, Dad’s code for “Claire.”

Old books can be like treasure hunts. In The Psalms of David In Metre I was captivated by the subtitle: With Annotations explaining the Sense, and Animating the Devotion, By John Brown, late minister of the Gospel at Haddington. This John Brown was an Anglican minister who lived from 1722 to 1787. It turns out he was a self-made man, a shepherd in Scotland who taught himself to read Greek, Latin and Hebrew. In the songbook in my possession, each Psalm of David begins with Brown’s notes about content and meaning.

But there’s more. Tucked in the pages was also a postcard from 1911 advertising the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the First Presbyterian Church of Cleveland, founded in 1811.








In the heat of a big move, or at the end of a parent’s life, we might find ourselves in a hurry to get things squared away, to shuttle boxes off to the donation center without a second glance, oblivious to the treasures inside. Moral of the story: leaf through those books, including the ones you hang onto. You just never can tell what you’ll find inside.

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A brief history of the Palatinate

Posted on February 18, 2012 | 6 comments

To imagine one might write a “brief” history of the Palatinate seems grandiose, but I think Larry O. Jensen has done a pretty good job, in “Articles of Interest” in a 1990 issue of the German Genealogical Digest (Volume VI, No. 2). I summarize the contents of his article below.

The Palatinate? Known in Germany as the Pfalz (from the Latin term palatium meaning palace or castle). Also called the Niederpfalz, the Pfalz am Rhein, “Palatinatus inferior”, “Palatinatus Rheni”, Rheinpfalz, and Rheinbayern. Why so many names for one relatively small stretch of land along the Rhine River? Perhaps because this charming locality has seen a whole lot of history.

HISTORY OF THE PALATINATE
3rd century – Inhabited by Alemannic tribes
6th century – Conquered by the Franks, who established tribal districts, otherwise known as “Gauen”
9th century – Under Charlemagne, earls were established to rule the Gauen
12th century – King Friedrich I became the ruler.
1214 – Ludwig of Bavaria, of the House of Wittelsbach, became ruler of the Palatinate, by marriage
1410 – Four sons of King Ruprecht III divided the region into four parts. Ludwig III, the eldest, received the Rheinpfalz
1508-1544 – King Ludwig V introduced Protestantism, although he himself remained Catholic
1618-1648 – Thirty Years War. At the start, the Pfalz was ruled by King Friedrich IV, leading supporter of the Evangelical Union. In 1622 Heidelberg was conquered and plundered, and the Pfalz turned over to Bavaria’s Duke Maximilian. Spinola of Spain then invaded the Pfalz. The plague hit at around the same time, wiping out as much as two-thirds of the population. The Thirty Years War established the right of three religions to exist: Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist.
1673-79 – War between the German Empire and France, in which the Pfalz had to pay 250,000 florin in war tax. (1683, Pietists emigrate, establish Germantown, PA)
1688 – War of the League of Augsburg. King Louis XIV of France invaded and burned most of the region to the ground.
1697 – Treaty of Rijswik made the State Church Catholic, although Catholics were outnumbered 5 to 1.
1705 – Calvinist and Lutheran churches re-established.
1707 – Palatinate destroyed in the Spanish War of Succession. (1708 – another emigration led by Joshua von Kocherthal, many of whom settled in Neuberg on the Hudson River.)
1742 – The Palatinate grew and prospered in trade, agriculture, arts, and science.
1799 – France moved in to occupy the Palatinate, Napoleon officially took the region over in 1801.
1815 – Paris Peace Treaty gives the Palatinate to Bavaria. Thirteen districts were created: Bergzabern, Frankenthal, Germersheim, Homburg, Kaiserslautern, Kirchheimbolanden, Kusel, Landau, Ludwigshafen, Neustadt, Pirmasens, Speier, Zweibruecken
1832 – Hambacher Festival – enormous gathering of peasants and intellecuals from all over Europe at Hambach Castle to advocate for a democracy – the tricolor black, red and gold flag was first flown. The rulers quickly put down the movement, and forbid political assemblies.
1849 – Democratic Revolution of 1848 crushed by Prussia and Bavaria (prompting a wave of emigration from the region)
1871 – The Palatinate joins the united German Empire.

There are many twists and turns in between, but were I to include them, this history would not be brief. Not at all. When I visited the Palatinate a little over a year ago, a member of the Bad Dürkheim history club noted they had suffered more than 20 wars between 1610 and 1850. No wonder the Spätlese (late harvest wines) are so popular — no doubt they take off the edge. These days, the people of the Palatinate are a fun-loving people, in a fertile, enchanting land.

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Posted in 19th century history, Freinsheim and Palatinate history, Genealogy tips, The Last of the Blacksmiths: A Novel, Travels in Germany

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Emigration geography

Posted on January 25, 2012 | 3 comments

When in Germany, I visited the Bremerhaven Auswandererhaus, where many genealogist types do research. A large number of Germans left for the Americas (New Zealand and Australia, too) via the northern ports at Hamburg and Bremerhaven. However, it’s not the route my ancestor Michael Harm took from Freinsheim in the Rhineland-Palatinate. He went through the French port at Le Havre, and he wasn’t the only one. According to Freinsheim emigration records, many of its citizens took a similar route in the 19th century.

The map here was made in 1596, so it’s a far cry from 1857 when it comes to locations of cities and borders, but nonetheless, I provide it here with Freinsheim inked in, showing also the usual route through Paris to Le Havre, in order to demonstrate how the French port of departure made sense geographically. It also made sense politically. Many young men who left snuck out of the country, since they were liable for military duty in the Bavarian-controlled Palatinate of the day. It seems the French were willing to look the other way when it came to the paperwork. Hence, consider Le Havre, France another place to look for your ancestors emigrating from southwestern Germany.

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Posted in 19th century history, Freinsheim and Palatinate history, Genealogy tips, The Last of the Blacksmiths: A Novel

Internet clearinghouse at Alltop

Posted on January 15, 2012 | Leave a comment

I put a badge here on my blog recently, orange and gray, that says “Featured in Alltop: All the Top Stories.” I applied for the privilege to be listed there, and am proud to be included. Before you go over there, here are a few tips.

At Alltop’s home page, the site appears to be another search engine, with top web sites and popular posts. That’s fine, there are some great choices there. But what I like best is the sort feature. Click on an alphabet letter in the top bar and choose your topic. For example, my blog falls under H, for History.

I debated about this — my blog might also fit well under G, for Genealogy. Seriously, check out both History and Genealogy for a grand list of blogs of interest — any included at Alltop have been vetted by the powers that be for content and activity.

So whether your topic is History or Genealogy or Germany or Cleveland, Ohio or something else entirely, go to Alltop to check it out.

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Posted in Genealogy tips, General

A Kit Bakke groupie

Posted on January 12, 2012 | 2 comments

Seattle author Kit Bakke wrote Miss Alcott’s E-mail (2006), a series of imagined conversations between the author and Louisa May Alcott. (Louisa May Alcott was more than a novelist, she led a life of advocacy for social reforms, as an abolitionist, a women’s rights activist, and a hospital worker.)

In the novel, Kit Bakke writes to Alcott about life as a baby boomer, filling in the deceased Alcott (1832-1888) on the progress of the women’s rights movement into the 21st century. Alcott “replies” via material Bakke culled from Alcott’s journals and letters. The book is extensively researched and full of information about 19th-century life among the Transcendentalist crowd (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Peabody, Henry David Thoreau) in Concord, Massachusetts.

This past week, I had the privilege of hearing Kit Bakke speak at the Whidbey Island residency (Whidbey MFA) on interviewing people for oral histories, and the permutations of truth in fiction and nonfiction. Afterward, I went up to introduce myself.

“I’ve heard you speak about six times now,” I said. “You might say I’m a Kit Bakke groupie.”

“I wish,” she said, laughing.

But it’s true, I am. These days, Bakke advocates for literacy and helps support writers as a founding member of the Seattle 7 Writers, a group actively supporting literacy in the Northwest. She’s also working on collecting oral histories, and recommended a couple of great sites:

Oral History Association
H-Oralhist
The Washington State Heritage Center Legacy Project
StoryCorps

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