This is the diary I started for my last open thread. I had the intro done and notes in the body. Basically it was going to talk about the connections I've made by leaving "tracks" around the internet and following the tracks that others left behind. I wanted to show how fruitful it is to post comments and queries on a wide variety of genealogy-related message boards, websites, etc.
I didn't get much further in writing it before the due date. I eventually realized my problem was that none of the connections I was going to talk about actually yielded much fruit. Sure, I found a number of distant cousins, but they were all at the same brick wall that I was at on our common lines. So while I might have gotten a new picture or two there was nothing earth (or wall) shattering. I didn't think it would be very interesting to read, especially if I didn't find it interesting enough to finish writing.
That came to a screeching halt on - of all days - the day of my Open Thread (which I changed to talk about the AHSGR national convention which was held last week here in Portland, Oregon).
The story unfolds after a word from our sponsor...
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The day started like any other. I was giving my Open Thread diary one last proofread before scheduling it for publication. In pops an email from WikiTree with a message from an unregistered WikiTree user.
I am also searching for Jakob Holstein. My aunt's grandfather is descended from this man. I have found some interesting information about Jakob and his family.
Hmmm, kind of mysterious. I've been contacted through WikiTree twice before. Once from a lady related through my mom's family. The other time was more mysterious in which I was left with the impression that it was some elaborate spam operation.
Probably wasn't (just getting paranoid as I near middle age), but he stopped emailing me nonetheless. Late entry: So after all these months I just got a spam email from him about an amazing way to make money. Maybe his email account got hacked, or maybe my paranoia was justified. So I didn't fire off a response right away, but instead went about my day monitoring my OT diary and working.
Now some background... This Jacob Holstein (gggg-grandfather) was one of my ancestors who had originally migrated from Germany to Russia in the 1760's. There are 4 volumes of books by Igor Pleve that lists the original settlers (sometimes referred to as the FSL - First Settler Lists). The volume with Jacob Holstein says he, his wife Elisabeth and two daughters (Regina and Maria) were from Setzingen. So I had ordered the microfilm of church records for Setzingen from the Family History Library. I also ordered a film of church records for Zaisersweiher which had an indexed record that I found on familysearch.org for a Jacob Holstein born around the "right" time.
I reviewed the Setzingen microfilm several times and could not find any Holsteins. I kept looking because I wasn't confident in my ability to read old German script. I could easily have missed something - especially since "Holstein" does not look much like "Holstein". It can look more like this:
I did find the birth record in the Zaisersweiher microfilm. My problem was that Setzingen and Zaisersweiher are pretty far apart by 18th century standards. So I was stuck at not knowing if I found the right record or not. I had no corroborating evidence. No marriage between Jacob and Elisabeth, no birth record for Regina or Maria Holstein. Nothing. Frustrated, I put it aside and moved on to other lines.
Now later that afternoon I get another email. This one from the ancestry message board saying someone replied to a query I posted a while back seeking advice on researching in the Setzingen and Zaisersweiher areas for this family.
I am tracking the same family from Galka.
I have found some interesting info about this family which I am willing to share with you.
Okay, same person, REALLY trying to get a hold of me. I wrote back immediately. Turns out she did have something new. She's my new BFF (which is how I'll refer to her for the rest of this diary).
She found Jacob Holstein in a list of colonists migrating to Schleswig, Germany. You see, there is a sub-set of German-Russian immigrants who first migrated to Schleswig around 1760. Similar history here - the Danish King (Frederick V) encouraged settlers to come to Schleswig (then a part of Denmark) to farm the land. Settlers were not very successful farming this particular area and most left or were "dismissed" after a few years. Many of them decided to move on to Russia after Catherine the Great's invitation was issued in 1763.
I already knew about this history and the list of Schleswig-to-Russia settlers at this website after doing research on a related line. Jacob Holstein's son Jacob married Anna Maria Krug in Russia. The Krug family is not listed in the First Settler Lists compiled by Igor Pleve. However, the 1798 census list does show that Anna Krug moved from the German-Russian village of Grimm to Galka where she married Jacob. I contacted the AHSGR Village Coordinator for Grimm to see if he had any information on where they may have come from. He directed me to the above link, which does show the Krug family. What I failed to do at the time was: 1) look for other family names and 2) pursue further information.
BFF was successful in pursuing further information. She was directed to another site for a group called Plaggenhacke - an historical society in Germany for these Schleswig colonists. This site had contact information for the group. She emailed him asking for the records that he had on Jacob Holstein and hit the jackpot.
The Plaggenhacke contact not only had basic colonist records (the government regularly checked in on the colonists and kept records on their progress), but he also found Jacob and Elisabeth's marriage record from the local church! That record listed where they were from and Elisabeth's maiden name. According to this record, Jacob was from Schützingen NOT Setzingen.
Still, familysearch wasn't showing any records for "Holstein" in Schützingen. I went ahead and ordered the microfilm thinking it just wasn't indexed yet.
Looking on Google Maps, I found that Zaisersweiher and Schützingen are only 4 km apart. Close enough to think the one record I found might actually be the right one. But, I soon got another email from BFF saying she contacted the archives in Stuttgart. They told her they found a birth record in Schützingen saying he was born on April 13, 1738. That date did not match the Zaisersweiher record. Hmmm.
Not satisfied to just sit and wait for the Schützingen microfilm to arrive, I tried something else. I searched just on the first name and birth year in Schützingen. Bingo! Jacob Hohlstein. Now, familysearch has always returned records with closely matching names. In fact, it regularly returns records with a surname of "Alten" when I search for "Holstein". I didn't think I needed to alter the last name in my search. But searching just on Hohlstein as the last name and Schützingen as a residence and the whole world opened up. Found his siblings, his parents and their parents. Two more generations just like that. Some records were indexed as Hollstein which did appear when using Hohlstein. Lesson learned - always try different spellings. Don't assume the search engine will do it for you (even if it does sometimes).
I've since learned I can enter "Ho*lstein". Using the wild-card search returns all of them in one query.
A week and a half later, the microfilm arrives and I finally lay my eyes on Jacob's birth/baptismal record.
Speaking of lessons learned... I said earlier there were two things I failed to do when I first found that website of Schleswig settlers. I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. I reviewed the website and found three other familes who moved on to Russia and are in my tree. So now I contacted the Plaggenhacke contact to get the records he had for those three families as well as the Krug family. That makes 5 lines on my Dad's side for which I now have government documentation from the 1760's!
Here's a sample of one of the more interesting ones, Ludwig Heinrich Ziegler and his family. Note, I received the information as a Word document with German text. I ran the text through Google Translate which doesn't always return the best English. I think the text I was given is a summary of what the records show, not a direct transcription.
08.08.1761: Examination - Survey and review of the colonists. This drawing of the farms you get a job in the colony Friedrichsgraben. (It is the worst colony).
29.07.1762: He refuses to move to the colony and gets a new job in the colony Friedrichsholm.
01.02.1764: Colonists plot. Several colonists from Friedrichsholm plan to flee to Russia. Ludwig Heinrich Ziegler is accused. He is acquitted.
01.03.1765: Applied for leave.
01.05.1765: Message that he and his family have escaped.
So now I have leads on the German origins of five family lines. The Holstein line is the most symbolic being my direct paternal line, so that's what I'm most eager to learn more about. As eager as I am though, BFF is smokin' me on the research (I later find out she started researching this family in 1997). I get another email she's forwarded from the archives in Illingen (a larger city close to Schutzingen). She was looking for a gravestone for Jacob's father, Hans Jerg for whom we found a death record. The record indicated a birth year of 1698 and death date of 2 Feb 1758. The Illingen archives wrote her back apologizing that they don't find a gravesite, but they did find records from his death.
His profession was brick layer. His testamentary heirs were: 1. his widow Maria Eva, and the childs 2. Mattheus Holstein, also brick layer in Schützingen, 3. Margaretha 23 years old, living in Pensylvania, 4. Hannß Jörg, also brick layer in Schützingen, 5. Jacob, 22 years old, Schützingen, 6. Heinrich, 14 years old and 7. Friederich 12 years old.
In this archives is written all kind of ownership the deceased have had: We call it "Inventuren und Teilungen" . There are lists of his building, the garden, the grassland, winejards, all his clothes, dishes, books, cash and so on. It is very interesting. For example in the list of books is only a hymn-book of Baden-Württemberg.
Some wonderful things about this...
- One of his daughters is in Pennsylvania? I don't find a marriage record in Germany - surely she wouldn't have gone off to America unless she went with a new husband.
- I want a copy of the "Inventuren und Teilungen"! They are sending a copy to BFF who will be making a copy for me. Whoo hoo!
- And most important - I now have a contact in the area to talk to about a visit I want to make to the town next summer!
Whew! It's been 7 weeks and I still feel like I'm just getting started with this line.
I just had another lucky break. BFF and I were looking for Jacob's father's birth record. We have his marriage and death records, but the Schützingen records don't show his birth. The indexed marriage record (familysearch.org) says his father's name is Jerg. I did find a birth record for a Hans Jerg Holstein in the nearby town of Horrheim, but the father's name on that record is Mathaeus. In comes another email from BFF saying her contact at the archives found Hans Jerg's marriage record says he's from...(drum roll...) Horrheim! Guess the father on that marriage record is wrong - or was indexed wrong.
So now I have yet ANOTHER microfilm to order. But wait, what's that?
The microfilm you requested has been shipped to the selected family history center and should be available for viewing shortly. Contact the family history center for more information before ordering a renewal below.
Are you kidding me! It's already in transit to my local FHC?!?! I'm positive BFF found the record and ordered it to be sent to me (I've already given her my address so she could email me some Canadian documents related to my grandfather's uncle and she previously told me she no longer has the patience to sift through microfilm). But no, she says it wasn't her. Someone else in Portland must have ordered the exact film I need just days prior to me finding it. Unbelievable.
On Wednesday, I finally made it back to my FHC and found these records.
The marriage record for Hans Jerg Holstein and Maria Eva Speckmayer (parents of Jacob)
The birth/baptismal record for Hans Jerg Holstein
The birth/baptismal record for Maria Eva Speckmayer
Of course, as we all know, the breaking of one wall eventually leads to another wall. We're currently stuck at Jacob's grandfather, Mathaeus Holstein and his wife Catharina. Haven't been able to find an indexed record for them (birth, marriage or death).
So that's my big news which has been preoccupying my time the past two months. I need to extend some other microfilm loans for other lines that have been sitting at the FHC patiently waiting for my attention again.
BFF has been unbelievably helpful in other areas of research as well. She tracked down an obit for my grandfather's aunt in Canada and tried to look for an obit for his uncle who I think is the brother of my mysterious great-grandmother. Though she didn't have luck with the obit (the newspaper office can't find it), she did send me a copy of his homestead records from Canada that she obtained.
I already knew this aunt and uncle would probably be a dead-end. Their only child died single and childless before they did. The aunt's obit only lists survivors as "nieces and nephews in Conrad, Montana". Yeah, that would be my grandparents and my Dad. Oh well, it's nice to have a little more documentation in any case.
Anyone have their own stories on collaborative research? I have to say this is the most fun and excitement I've had in the past 18 months or so that I've been doing this.