It's been another huge gap since I've updated this, but while I could plead a lack of free time as an excuse again, this time it's a bit more emotional. On 15 April 2012, my beloved Oma passed away in her sleep at the age of ninety with my grandfather right by her side, and as she was the biggest reason for this whole project, it was too painful to go anywhere near it for quite a while. More to the point, I lost one of the most crucial influences on my life and the person I've become, the strongest woman I've ever known, and one who taught me and gave me more than it's possible to repay in a lifetime. She was never the easiest of people to deal with, but digging into the family history gave me a huge insight into why she was the way she was and I'm still filled with respect and awe that she did so much and overcame so many tragedies in those nine decades. For all her flaws, my Oma was someone I feel lucky beyond belief to have known, let alone to have as my grandmother, and when I look at what an impact she had on my life and those of everyone in our family, it amazes me that one tiny woman could change the world around us so much. She loved us enough that she wanted us to be the very best we could be and even if her methods were painful, I never doubted the motives behind them. She may not have said the words until the last six months of her life, but I always knew beyond a doubt how much she loved me. In true German fashion, she showed it every day in her actions (especially when it came to stuffing your face with her incredible cooking, because if you left her table hungry, something was horribly wrong) and in what she gave us every day. A child of the Depression and WWII, she always took pride in what she owned and made sure none of us ever had to go through the deprivations she did. I never put it to the test, but I'm sure I could have worn a different outfit every day for at least a month or two without repeats, and while there were the cringe-worthy items I'd wear once (or twice if forced) just for her, she even managed to influence my taste in fashion with her classic style. There are a hundred little things that will always make me think of her, like grilled cheese sandwiches, egg timers, and sailboats among so many others, and though it still hurts, I'm quicker to smile than cry now. While I always tried my hardest never to take Oma's presence in my life for granted, it wasn't until she passed away that I started figuring out just how many ways she's had a major impact in my life, a list that's still growing almost seven months later. Having her in my life at all was one of my greatest blessings, having her in it for all three decades is still a bit miraculous for me.
The title of this entry comes from one of my best friends, also deceased, who was trying to explain the Irish (all Celts, really, but he was from Ireland) view of death and why wakes and funerals are more like parties. It's an outlook I absolutely love because it focuses on all the good that person brought to the world instead of just the passing, and as Oma didn't want us to grieve for her, I think it's an idea she'd agree with. If for no other reason than that, I'm making the choice to celebrate her life instead of mourning her death and I think it's a choice she'd approve of.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Be Careful What You Wish For
If you've gotten this far in the blog, then you know that the main reason for the whole genealogy project was to uncover my mother's side of the family and get to know the people who, for good or ill, had such an effect on that family that it's still being felt over a century later. I knew there were things that weren't going to be pretty, and given that the whole Lihl family was kicked out of the region that had been their home for centuries, I thought I had a fairly good idea what I was getting myself into. It seemed I had prepared myself well enough, at least while searching through the parish records and finding the children who died young, the women who died in childbirth, and the usual difficulties in centuries past. Finding the letters from Emma's family members who hadn't emigrated with her, however, blew the idea of 'prepared' all to hell.
For years, I had known about the Sudeten Germans being forced to leave their homes after 1945 as a result of post-war Czechoslovakia's unabated anger over Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland, and as Germany had just lost a second war, I knew the economy had tanked and food was probably still rationed. What I didn't know was where they went after leaving Bohemia or what life outside the Sudetenland was like for those expelled, and thus finding the letters was my biggest genealogy (and yes, on a personal level, too) wish granted, though I quickly came to realise that maybe some prayers are better left unanswered. Transcribing the first letter from Daniel to Emma, I was also translating as I went, and while the the letter starts off fairly normally, even somewhat amusing as he wonders if the people in Saxony even know how to wash their hands, it quickly goes down-hill from there. Daniel describes tiny cottages as the best available for the Sudeten refugees, and not everyone could even get one of those, though it seems he was able to buy one with money Emma was sending. He also talks about making their own soap from lye and ashes, as well as making some kind of coffee with the ashes (I think mixing what coffee they did have with the ashes to make it last longer), but the worst was when he talks about the food shortages. A tiny piece of uncooked meat was a luxury, rice was the main source of food, and even that was strictly rationed. This was from people who had always been poor, though back in Bohemia, they wouldn't have considered themselves that way. They had their own homes, could provide for their families, and if they didn't have much money, they could make what they needed and made a life that was at least rich in happiness. I was already choked-up reading about what little food they could get their hands on, and quickly progressed to full-on crying when Daniel expresses his hopes that the troubles will soon be over, that they may even be able to go home someday. From the dates and return addresses on later letters, it looks like they moved from Saxony to Bavaria, but I don't think they ever managed to return home.
I don't know what my family's politics were. I don't know if they were among the Sudeten Germans who supported Hitler or not, and though I can't believe I'm saying this, I don't think I care. Considering in the 1930s when he was annexing the Sudetenland, the Nazi movement was more about improving the economy and rising from the ashes of the post-WWI devastation than anti-Semitism, I could certainly understand why it might have appealed to them. While I won't deny that the Czechs had the right to be angry that part of their country was taken from them, it doesn't justify the expulsions after the war. An entire region of people was forcibly removed from their homeland, Czechoslovakian citizens as much as the people expelling them, for no other reason than that their territory had been annexed by Hitler and the Czechs outside the Sudetenland wanted revenge. These weren't firebrands or even anti-Czech, just humble people who wanted to live out their lives in peace, and instead bore the brunt of Czechoslovakia's hatred of Hitler and anything at all linked to Nazism. No matter how hard I try to imagine how I'd feel if it happened to me, I still don't think I can comprehend the extent of the devastation my family must have felt. My Sudeten fairy-godmother was among those expelled, a teenager at the time, and when she talks about what she and her family went through, it rips my heart out, but hearing the same kind of stories from my own family hits even harder. Their sheer determination to survive and even thrive is overwhelming, and I wonder if things like that are passed through DNA, because that kind of courage and strength seems bred into the bones of my family.
While I have every intention of sharing with Oma the later letters and the places the family went after leaving Bohemia, I don't know whether or not to pass along the contents of the earlier letters. Part of me feels she has the right to know, but the other part thinks it might be too much for her and not worth upsetting her over what happened almost seventy years ago. It's difficult enough for me to hear about all these years later, so how much worse would it be on Oma, who actually knew and loved them? She still remembers Hannelore fondly, even if she found Johanna too stand-offish to be close to, so while I don't want to hurt Oma with the knowledge of what they suffered, I also don't know that I have the right to keep it from her. I'll have to run it by Pop-pop. For myself, I'm glad I have the letters as a way to get to know the people I've been curious about my entire life, but at the same time, like so much of this project, it came with an emotional cost I wasn't entirely expecting.
For years, I had known about the Sudeten Germans being forced to leave their homes after 1945 as a result of post-war Czechoslovakia's unabated anger over Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland, and as Germany had just lost a second war, I knew the economy had tanked and food was probably still rationed. What I didn't know was where they went after leaving Bohemia or what life outside the Sudetenland was like for those expelled, and thus finding the letters was my biggest genealogy (and yes, on a personal level, too) wish granted, though I quickly came to realise that maybe some prayers are better left unanswered. Transcribing the first letter from Daniel to Emma, I was also translating as I went, and while the the letter starts off fairly normally, even somewhat amusing as he wonders if the people in Saxony even know how to wash their hands, it quickly goes down-hill from there. Daniel describes tiny cottages as the best available for the Sudeten refugees, and not everyone could even get one of those, though it seems he was able to buy one with money Emma was sending. He also talks about making their own soap from lye and ashes, as well as making some kind of coffee with the ashes (I think mixing what coffee they did have with the ashes to make it last longer), but the worst was when he talks about the food shortages. A tiny piece of uncooked meat was a luxury, rice was the main source of food, and even that was strictly rationed. This was from people who had always been poor, though back in Bohemia, they wouldn't have considered themselves that way. They had their own homes, could provide for their families, and if they didn't have much money, they could make what they needed and made a life that was at least rich in happiness. I was already choked-up reading about what little food they could get their hands on, and quickly progressed to full-on crying when Daniel expresses his hopes that the troubles will soon be over, that they may even be able to go home someday. From the dates and return addresses on later letters, it looks like they moved from Saxony to Bavaria, but I don't think they ever managed to return home.
I don't know what my family's politics were. I don't know if they were among the Sudeten Germans who supported Hitler or not, and though I can't believe I'm saying this, I don't think I care. Considering in the 1930s when he was annexing the Sudetenland, the Nazi movement was more about improving the economy and rising from the ashes of the post-WWI devastation than anti-Semitism, I could certainly understand why it might have appealed to them. While I won't deny that the Czechs had the right to be angry that part of their country was taken from them, it doesn't justify the expulsions after the war. An entire region of people was forcibly removed from their homeland, Czechoslovakian citizens as much as the people expelling them, for no other reason than that their territory had been annexed by Hitler and the Czechs outside the Sudetenland wanted revenge. These weren't firebrands or even anti-Czech, just humble people who wanted to live out their lives in peace, and instead bore the brunt of Czechoslovakia's hatred of Hitler and anything at all linked to Nazism. No matter how hard I try to imagine how I'd feel if it happened to me, I still don't think I can comprehend the extent of the devastation my family must have felt. My Sudeten fairy-godmother was among those expelled, a teenager at the time, and when she talks about what she and her family went through, it rips my heart out, but hearing the same kind of stories from my own family hits even harder. Their sheer determination to survive and even thrive is overwhelming, and I wonder if things like that are passed through DNA, because that kind of courage and strength seems bred into the bones of my family.
While I have every intention of sharing with Oma the later letters and the places the family went after leaving Bohemia, I don't know whether or not to pass along the contents of the earlier letters. Part of me feels she has the right to know, but the other part thinks it might be too much for her and not worth upsetting her over what happened almost seventy years ago. It's difficult enough for me to hear about all these years later, so how much worse would it be on Oma, who actually knew and loved them? She still remembers Hannelore fondly, even if she found Johanna too stand-offish to be close to, so while I don't want to hurt Oma with the knowledge of what they suffered, I also don't know that I have the right to keep it from her. I'll have to run it by Pop-pop. For myself, I'm glad I have the letters as a way to get to know the people I've been curious about my entire life, but at the same time, like so much of this project, it came with an emotional cost I wasn't entirely expecting.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Hands-On History
I have most of the contents of the bag of letters sorted now, grouped by language as well as content, and I'm nearly done transcribing and translating the first of the letters from Daniel to Emma. While as always, the Sutterlin script is making it a bit of a challenge, not to mention the water damage that's blurred the ink rather badly in spots, it doesn't take away from the awe factor of having a resource like this. Emma passed away a good decade before I was born and as a result, I only know about her from stories, so part of this project was to get a better sense of who she was and what her life was like. When I started hearing more stories about Emma, like how she saved up the money to emigrate or how she coped after her husband left, and later about her siblings from the time they were raising Oma and Rudi, those little pieces of the puzzle weren't enough for me and I wanted to know everything I could. That's why these papers are such a treasure, because they were all things that she made a deliberate decision to keep and that alone tells me a great deal about her. There are several letters to Emma from friends who were also German immigrants, though they wrote to each other in English (probably to improve their fluency), a letter and Mother's Day card from Oma's first husband Jimmie who died in 1950 when his plane crashed, and even one from Oma to Emma while Oma and Jimmie were stationed in Neubiberg, Germany. Oma describes their apartment in detail, but the fascinating part for me was when she talks about what it was like in post-war Germany, as it seems to have been a concern of Emma's. Given that Emma and Oma had a troubled relationship at best, it really touched me that Emma had kept that letter, and the next time I go see Oma, I want to bring it and see if she remembers writing it.
As for the letters from Daniel to Emma, it's a pretty extraordinary thing to have access to, let alone to be able to hold in my hands. I'm certainly no stranger to handling old documents, as the staff in the Rare Books room at Penn State can testify, but while I've always had a sense of awe when dealing with those, these letters are something different entirely. These are pieces of my family's history, answers to some of the questions I've had my whole life, and so the feelings are much deeper handling these than any of the centuries-old manuscripts I've dealt with in the past. The best way I can describe it is visceral, the sense that I'm reaching into the past and touching a piece of my family, and I now feel connected to them in ways I never thought I could. It's made me realise that I'm far more emotionally-invested in this than I expected, but it makes the break-throughs and the hunt itself even more rewarding.
As for the letters from Daniel to Emma, it's a pretty extraordinary thing to have access to, let alone to be able to hold in my hands. I'm certainly no stranger to handling old documents, as the staff in the Rare Books room at Penn State can testify, but while I've always had a sense of awe when dealing with those, these letters are something different entirely. These are pieces of my family's history, answers to some of the questions I've had my whole life, and so the feelings are much deeper handling these than any of the centuries-old manuscripts I've dealt with in the past. The best way I can describe it is visceral, the sense that I'm reaching into the past and touching a piece of my family, and I now feel connected to them in ways I never thought I could. It's made me realise that I'm far more emotionally-invested in this than I expected, but it makes the break-throughs and the hunt itself even more rewarding.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Hitting The (Grand)Mother-Lode
Yesterday, the hubby and I went to see Oma and Pop-pop, and while the men were folding laundry (I know, but it DOES happen sometimes), I was talking to Oma and told her about the possibility of us getting stationed in Germany, which she's all kinds of excited about. That got her telling me all the places we should see while we're there, and then onto the genealogy project because I mentioned getting to see the archives in person and finding more information. That's about the time Oma remembered that she had papers and such of her mother's, and sent Pop-pop to find them. What he came back with blew the whole case wide open.
A plastic bag full of water-damaged paper might not look like much, but to me, it was the genealogy mother-lode. Underneath a few old receipts for house maintenance and letters from a lawyer was a stack of letters, specifically to Emma from her brother Daniel, who was still in Bohemia when WWII ended and the expulsion began. My jaw immediately dropped as I thought it might be the clue I needed to where my family had ended up, and I couldn't wait to get them home and translated from German to English. Oma seemed really happy she'd been able to help so much, as it makes her feel useful, and Pop-pop was all excited about the letters, too, being the history nut he is. It turned out the letters weren't merely clues. They were far more than that.
Finding the letters themselves was a huge break-through on its own, but then I started finding them in the original envelopes. After sorting through all the ones from Emma's fellow German friends who had also emigrated, I started finding letters from Daniel, also in the original envelopes and complete with a return address. Not only did that tell me they were in Russian-occupied Saxony (just over the Bohemian-German border from their home), but it even gave me the exact address in the town of Aue. Some of the letters aren't dated and I'm only just starting to scan, transcribe, and translate them, but it means I have a really good place to start the search for my expelled family. I'm hoping the letters will reveal what happened to Emma's other siblings, as the tendency was for families to leave together, and that means my chances of finding Oma's relatives have just skyrocketed from slim-to-none, to pretty damned good. When I realised that, I broke down and cried happy tears, since I was terrified I wouldn't ever be able to find them, let alone while Oma was still alive. I now feel like for all she's done for me throughout my life, I can give her something special in return, and that's the family she had lost. This is exactly why I started the project in the first place, and now, it's a reality, which is a pretty awesome feeling.
A plastic bag full of water-damaged paper might not look like much, but to me, it was the genealogy mother-lode. Underneath a few old receipts for house maintenance and letters from a lawyer was a stack of letters, specifically to Emma from her brother Daniel, who was still in Bohemia when WWII ended and the expulsion began. My jaw immediately dropped as I thought it might be the clue I needed to where my family had ended up, and I couldn't wait to get them home and translated from German to English. Oma seemed really happy she'd been able to help so much, as it makes her feel useful, and Pop-pop was all excited about the letters, too, being the history nut he is. It turned out the letters weren't merely clues. They were far more than that.
Finding the letters themselves was a huge break-through on its own, but then I started finding them in the original envelopes. After sorting through all the ones from Emma's fellow German friends who had also emigrated, I started finding letters from Daniel, also in the original envelopes and complete with a return address. Not only did that tell me they were in Russian-occupied Saxony (just over the Bohemian-German border from their home), but it even gave me the exact address in the town of Aue. Some of the letters aren't dated and I'm only just starting to scan, transcribe, and translate them, but it means I have a really good place to start the search for my expelled family. I'm hoping the letters will reveal what happened to Emma's other siblings, as the tendency was for families to leave together, and that means my chances of finding Oma's relatives have just skyrocketed from slim-to-none, to pretty damned good. When I realised that, I broke down and cried happy tears, since I was terrified I wouldn't ever be able to find them, let alone while Oma was still alive. I now feel like for all she's done for me throughout my life, I can give her something special in return, and that's the family she had lost. This is exactly why I started the project in the first place, and now, it's a reality, which is a pretty awesome feeling.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
What You Find Isn't Always What You Expect
Researching the Beu side of the family has led to a lot of re-evaluating on my part, finally coming to terms with some things and having new issues come up. What I knew about Gustav was anything but good, the man who left his wife and two small children to fend for themselves while he moved down to Florida and got himself a new wife without bothering to divorce Emma, even if she would have given him a divorce. As a result, Oma and her brother grew up without a father and were raised by a mother who never really got over losing her husband, and Emma's doting on Rudi while ignoring Oma left scars that still haven't healed. Those patterns ended up repeating themselves down generations, though to a lesser extent, and the family is still suffering for Gustav's actions eighty years later. I've never seen a photo of him, though I've been told repeatedly that he was extremely good-looking and charming, but I also never had any respect for the man who would do that to his own wife and children. I couldn't understand that kind of selfishness, and if I'm being completely honest, I never really tried to. For me, it was enough that he'd hurt people I love and immediately pushed aside any curiosity about the man I'd never known.
Once I made the decision to trace Gustav's line, I knew I was going to have to get a good look at his life, and I had mixed feelings about it. I could finally satisfy the curiosity in a way that I could pass off as detached and for someone other than myself, but I didn't think I was going to like what I found. As I found more and more pieces of the puzzle that was Gustav Beu, they were mostly dates and places and that allowed me to be quite impersonal about it, and I was relieved that it was turning out to be easier than I had expected. As usual, it wasn't a good thing to say, even just in my own head.
Oma and Pop-pop had been going through their things and trying to seriously pare down the amount of stuff in their house, and in so doing, they found the death certificates for both Emma and Gustav and called me over as they knew I'd been trying to get copies through Ancestry.com. That was how I found Emma's parents and was able to go from there, but for Gustav, it was almost all information I had already known and just backed up the facts I had. It so happened that around the time I found out parish records had causes of deaths, I was curious enough to find out how Gustav had passed (we always knew Emma died of colon cancer), and that's when I got something akin to a slap in the face. Rather than a time of death on his certificate, it says that Gustav was 'found' in mid-afternoon at his house, which means that when he had his fatal heart attack, he was alone, and dead by the time his common-law wife Mary came home. For a reason I still can't explain, it hit me hard enough that without realising it right away, I had started crying. I think it may have been that he suddenly became a real person instead of an unpleasant abstract, and no matter what he did, he was still my great-grandfather and he died without having someone there with him, probably scared and hopefully regretting the pain he had caused. While I can't deny that he still wasn't a particularly likeable person for me, I don't know that he deserved being alone at the end, and Mary was the only family he had by then. Emma at least had Rudi there, and when the time comes, Oma will have all of us, so while I remain convinced that I won't ever really like him, I can finally look at him and feel sorry for him. In the end, Gustav ended up a lonely man, while Emma had her children and grandchildren around her, and that knowledge makes it easier to have compassion for him. He traded his family for 'freedom', and I can truthfully say now that I hope that choice made him happy.
Once I made the decision to trace Gustav's line, I knew I was going to have to get a good look at his life, and I had mixed feelings about it. I could finally satisfy the curiosity in a way that I could pass off as detached and for someone other than myself, but I didn't think I was going to like what I found. As I found more and more pieces of the puzzle that was Gustav Beu, they were mostly dates and places and that allowed me to be quite impersonal about it, and I was relieved that it was turning out to be easier than I had expected. As usual, it wasn't a good thing to say, even just in my own head.
Oma and Pop-pop had been going through their things and trying to seriously pare down the amount of stuff in their house, and in so doing, they found the death certificates for both Emma and Gustav and called me over as they knew I'd been trying to get copies through Ancestry.com. That was how I found Emma's parents and was able to go from there, but for Gustav, it was almost all information I had already known and just backed up the facts I had. It so happened that around the time I found out parish records had causes of deaths, I was curious enough to find out how Gustav had passed (we always knew Emma died of colon cancer), and that's when I got something akin to a slap in the face. Rather than a time of death on his certificate, it says that Gustav was 'found' in mid-afternoon at his house, which means that when he had his fatal heart attack, he was alone, and dead by the time his common-law wife Mary came home. For a reason I still can't explain, it hit me hard enough that without realising it right away, I had started crying. I think it may have been that he suddenly became a real person instead of an unpleasant abstract, and no matter what he did, he was still my great-grandfather and he died without having someone there with him, probably scared and hopefully regretting the pain he had caused. While I can't deny that he still wasn't a particularly likeable person for me, I don't know that he deserved being alone at the end, and Mary was the only family he had by then. Emma at least had Rudi there, and when the time comes, Oma will have all of us, so while I remain convinced that I won't ever really like him, I can finally look at him and feel sorry for him. In the end, Gustav ended up a lonely man, while Emma had her children and grandchildren around her, and that knowledge makes it easier to have compassion for him. He traded his family for 'freedom', and I can truthfully say now that I hope that choice made him happy.
Ha-Lihl-Lujah!
Neuhaus seems to have had ten or twelve large families who kept intermarrying, though each generation had more than enough children to safeguard against true inbreeding (just because it was Austria doesn't mean they were emulating the Hapsburgs), so when Emma's grandmother, Johanna Lorenz, came up, I assumed that as Lorenz was one of those key families, Johanna was from Neuhaus or Hirschenstand as well. That was my big mistake, and I like to think I've learned my lesson. Still, it was a wall I hadn't been able to break, and that meant of Oma's eight great-grandparents, I only had five that I could trace back and even those had their issues. Of the three remaining, two require getting in touch with the Ribnitz archive, and the last was Johanna Lorenz. I then figured that if I had images of the records from Ribnitz, I should do the same for Oma's Lihl relatives, and that's when the case broke open.
As I knew Johanna's husband, Simon Lihl, was from Neuhaus and had already obtained his dates, I started tracking down the exact entries to capture the images, and while I had their marriage date from his birth record, there was nothing in either Neuhaus or Hirschenstand for their actual marriage record. Looking at his birth record a bit closer, and I noticed that next to the notation for his marriage to Johanna was something that the priest had scrawled, and vaguely looked like it could be her place of birth. Earlier in the day, I'd checked back on Jelení 22, and I noticed a village on the archive database for a village right near Neuhaus and Hirschenstand, called Sauersack (now Rolava-Přebuz). Because that little tidbit had stuck in my head, being able to make out the first three letters of the village listed for Johanna made me able to guess that it was Sauersack, and upon inspecting the other letters closely and checking them against my Sütterlin charts, I knew I had a match. Off I then went to verify the current Czech name, see if it was online at Pilsen, and that's when I found his and Johanna's marriage record, written in beautiful Sütterlin that was actually legible (not something that can every be taken for granted). The entry also gave me Johanna's parents' names, Wenzl (it could also be Menzl, but it looks more like a W) Lorenz and Susanna Glöckner, which I could then trace back to their 1827 marriage in Sauersack, and I'm working on their lines as well.
There's one of Oma's great-great-grandmothers that I'm still trying to decipher, a Barbara Heidler, but once I have her place of birth, there's only one line left to break: Caroline Beu, Gustav's mother and Oma's grandmother. Sadly, while I'm on the verge of cracking the Barbara Heidler entries, the records for Caroline and her four children, Gustav and his three siblings, are in the city archives in Ribnitz. The problem with that is it will likely take a visit in-person to the archives, which will only happen in the foreseeable future if the hubby gets stationed in Germany after all, so in the meantime, I'm planning to write to the archive to see what they can/will manage for me. That would also be the way to solve the mystery of Gustav's rumoured other family that he would have left behind when he emigrated, but more on that later. As much as I'd love to get his military records, the German government had a tendency to keep all those records in Berlin, and you can probably guess what happened to them in 1945. If I can get the information for Caroline and her children, however, I can see if Oma has any cousins left from that line, and with Caroline's maiden name, I can trace her back, too.
All in all, this is getting better and better as the blanks in Oma's family chart start disappearing. Hopefully, I can solve those mysteries in Pop-pop's tree, too.
As I knew Johanna's husband, Simon Lihl, was from Neuhaus and had already obtained his dates, I started tracking down the exact entries to capture the images, and while I had their marriage date from his birth record, there was nothing in either Neuhaus or Hirschenstand for their actual marriage record. Looking at his birth record a bit closer, and I noticed that next to the notation for his marriage to Johanna was something that the priest had scrawled, and vaguely looked like it could be her place of birth. Earlier in the day, I'd checked back on Jelení 22, and I noticed a village on the archive database for a village right near Neuhaus and Hirschenstand, called Sauersack (now Rolava-Přebuz). Because that little tidbit had stuck in my head, being able to make out the first three letters of the village listed for Johanna made me able to guess that it was Sauersack, and upon inspecting the other letters closely and checking them against my Sütterlin charts, I knew I had a match. Off I then went to verify the current Czech name, see if it was online at Pilsen, and that's when I found his and Johanna's marriage record, written in beautiful Sütterlin that was actually legible (not something that can every be taken for granted). The entry also gave me Johanna's parents' names, Wenzl (it could also be Menzl, but it looks more like a W) Lorenz and Susanna Glöckner, which I could then trace back to their 1827 marriage in Sauersack, and I'm working on their lines as well.
There's one of Oma's great-great-grandmothers that I'm still trying to decipher, a Barbara Heidler, but once I have her place of birth, there's only one line left to break: Caroline Beu, Gustav's mother and Oma's grandmother. Sadly, while I'm on the verge of cracking the Barbara Heidler entries, the records for Caroline and her four children, Gustav and his three siblings, are in the city archives in Ribnitz. The problem with that is it will likely take a visit in-person to the archives, which will only happen in the foreseeable future if the hubby gets stationed in Germany after all, so in the meantime, I'm planning to write to the archive to see what they can/will manage for me. That would also be the way to solve the mystery of Gustav's rumoured other family that he would have left behind when he emigrated, but more on that later. As much as I'd love to get his military records, the German government had a tendency to keep all those records in Berlin, and you can probably guess what happened to them in 1945. If I can get the information for Caroline and her children, however, I can see if Oma has any cousins left from that line, and with Caroline's maiden name, I can trace her back, too.
All in all, this is getting better and better as the blanks in Oma's family chart start disappearing. Hopefully, I can solve those mysteries in Pop-pop's tree, too.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
A Lihl Night Music
Can you tell from the title that not only do I like puns (at least the witty ones), but that I love classical music? No, I thought not. I don't know why I listen to it while doing genealogy research, but I do. Probably to keep me relaxed when a brick wall makes me want to beat my head against it.
It occurred to me that I've spent far more time on the Beu side of the family than the Lihl branch, and as the Lihl one was really the one that drew me into this whole project (my namesake, Great-Aunt Hannelore, was a Lihl), I figured it's time to rectify that.
The progress has been mixed. Jeleni 22 still isn't online, and as more details have been posted, it looks to have just Hirschenstand (the village right next to Neuhaus, now known as Jeleni) and not Neuhaus itself (now Chaloupky). While that would appear to not be of much use, it actually is: according to Oma, Hannelore lived in Hirschenstand, which means I should be able to find her marriage record and hopefully, those of her children. I know she had at least one through Oma, who remembers the child having some kind of developmental issues (possibly as extreme as Down's Syndrome, as she mentioned it showed physically) and she doesn't think the child lived long. I don't know about any others, but if I can find Hannelore's married name, I can work on tracking down any descendents. The other lovely thing about each individual record, be it birth, marriage, or death, is that the priest tended to jot down the names and dates for the other key events in the person's life, so if you find one, you find it all.
On the other hand, I've had a lot of luck tracing things further back in the records that are posted. I didn't realise for quite some time that occupations and causes of death were also in the parish records, so I'm going back in to see if I can decipher those as well for the names I already have in the tree. I'm sure my mother would call me a ghoul for thinking it's cool to have causes of death along with the other vital records, but it's one of those things that pulls them out of the obscure, distant past and makes them not only relatives, but relatable. Same with the occupations. Those are the things that make our ancestors come alive, and remind us that while so many things change over time, there are so many more that stay the same.
All in all, I'm going to trace this back as far as I can, and then try to wait patiently until the later books are online. Hmm, that DOES pose a problem, now, doesn't it? Well, it looks like I have one more reason to hope the hubby gets stationed in Germany...huzzah for in-person research!
It occurred to me that I've spent far more time on the Beu side of the family than the Lihl branch, and as the Lihl one was really the one that drew me into this whole project (my namesake, Great-Aunt Hannelore, was a Lihl), I figured it's time to rectify that.
The progress has been mixed. Jeleni 22 still isn't online, and as more details have been posted, it looks to have just Hirschenstand (the village right next to Neuhaus, now known as Jeleni) and not Neuhaus itself (now Chaloupky). While that would appear to not be of much use, it actually is: according to Oma, Hannelore lived in Hirschenstand, which means I should be able to find her marriage record and hopefully, those of her children. I know she had at least one through Oma, who remembers the child having some kind of developmental issues (possibly as extreme as Down's Syndrome, as she mentioned it showed physically) and she doesn't think the child lived long. I don't know about any others, but if I can find Hannelore's married name, I can work on tracking down any descendents. The other lovely thing about each individual record, be it birth, marriage, or death, is that the priest tended to jot down the names and dates for the other key events in the person's life, so if you find one, you find it all.
On the other hand, I've had a lot of luck tracing things further back in the records that are posted. I didn't realise for quite some time that occupations and causes of death were also in the parish records, so I'm going back in to see if I can decipher those as well for the names I already have in the tree. I'm sure my mother would call me a ghoul for thinking it's cool to have causes of death along with the other vital records, but it's one of those things that pulls them out of the obscure, distant past and makes them not only relatives, but relatable. Same with the occupations. Those are the things that make our ancestors come alive, and remind us that while so many things change over time, there are so many more that stay the same.
All in all, I'm going to trace this back as far as I can, and then try to wait patiently until the later books are online. Hmm, that DOES pose a problem, now, doesn't it? Well, it looks like I have one more reason to hope the hubby gets stationed in Germany...huzzah for in-person research!
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