Tips & Tricks to Tracking Your German Russia Ancestors...Tip # 8 TRAVEL HAS ITS OWN UNIQUE REWARDS..Continued

Travel is so powerful, it requires at least three posts to try to cover the bare basics. Last update I promised details on the second trip to Argentina. My quest to find relatives included connecting with Black Sea Germans from Russia. My second travel group was a small one made up of Tim Geiger, Carmen Gill and Lori Gill. We explored Buenos Aires, La Pampa and Mendoza during the visit.  I connected with Lutheran Germans from Russia in Buenos Aires and attended a lecture by Prof. Dr. René Krüger and learned more about how my Lutheran relatives lives in Argentina. (By the way, if you have not already registered for the 50th International Convention of AHSGR Our Golden Jubilee, you need to do so today.  My Argentine friends, Germán  Sack and Fabian Schlutheis, will be there).

Tim Geiger, Kevin Schultheis, Germán Sack, Fabian Schultheis, Anna Bartkowski, Lori Gill, Carmen Gill

We were welcomed to La Pampa by Elio Krank and Roxana Appelhanz, a couple who met at the Congreso I attended during the first visit!  We also saw the Gareis house in La Pampa, and created more connections along the way.  

Elio Krank, Roxana Appelhanz, Carmen Gill, Tim Geiger, Lori Gill, Anna Bartkowski

My most recent trip was the closest direct connection to my family.  After a 115 year separation, the descendants of Nikolaus Herrmann were re-united in Germany. Herrmann, an original settler of Mariental, was from Stadtbredimus near Remich in present day Luxembourg. 

When my grandmother left Mariental in 1913, she knew she would not see her parents again.  Her siblings?  Well, she wrote letters to her sister, Klara, but a reunion never occurred. I researched the family but did not discover that the Herrmann line survived World War II, Siberia, and all of their moves since 1941.

Not until my cousin Wladimir Herrman contacted me, did I realize the extent of their survival.  And, the Herrmanns welcomed me and my sister and brother-in-law with open arms, their hospitality, warmth and home-cooked meals went well beyond any reunion I could have imagined.

I could go on and go on, but I would like to make two key points which are further evidence that travel has its own unique rewards. 

First, Wladimir was the ultimate host, driving us to our ancestral villages as we looked for more clues about our ancestors. 

There is nothing to compare with the feeling than standing with your cousin at the church tower in Stadtbredimus where your ancestors attended services and were married so many, many years ago. 

Second, in addition to the new family connections, you never know what you will find, including a gold mine of new family information.  In my case, Wladimir compiled everything he researched into a book written in German and Russian, with every bit of historical evidence of our family.  The pictures, the people and the information are irreplaceable.  

While the books and pictures are invaluable, the memories of meeting  my family, safe in Germany, is priceless.  Isn't it time you considered making travel a part of your family research?

Tips & Tricks to Tracking Your German Russian Ancestors....Tip # 5...Community Counts...continued

As promised, Tip # 4 continues with examples of how being involved with the German Russian Community helps you make incredible genealogical discoveries.

It was tough for me to choose a few from the many discoveries I attribute to the community.  But here are two of my favorites.

My Mother and my Paternal Grandmother

This first story starts in my childhood, during visits with my grandmother who was very proud that her family, the Herrmanns and her husband's family, the Dalhaimers, descended from the original settlers in Mariental.  She also told us that her father-in-law told the story of the History of Mariental, but that my grandfather, who was very proud of his handwriting, wrote this story in a book. When we asked for a copy of the book, she said it was more like a pamphlet and she didn't have a copy.  Perhaps there was a copy somewhere in Russia?  She doubted it, she believed it must have been destroyed. 

At the AHSGR convention in Milwaukee in 2017, Mila Koretnikov was in attendance.  During one of her presentations, she mentioned that Nicholas Dalhaimer’s History of Mariental was available from the Engels Archive. I was shocked, and I had to reflect over and over to remember the conversation during the visits with my grandmother to remember the story she had mentioned. So I reached out to Mila for information, and she graciously helped me to purchase copies of the documents.

Cover of 1908
The History of Mariental from the Engels Archive

Nik. Thalheimer Marienthal

Sample Pages from The History of Mariental

While I can't prove this is my grandfather's writing, and it is only my memory of my Grandmother's story about the book, I have compared the writing to my grandfather's penmanship in the family Bible, and it a match for me.  The year of the publication matches the life span of my great-grandfather and grandfather.  And, my grandfather did not leave Russia until 1913, so he would have been there to record the history.  It's one of my treasures as I never knew either of these ancestors.

The second story occurred goes like this...

• If I hadn't attended an Arizona Sun Chapter meeting in 2005...
• I would have never met Judy Gareis
• If I hadn't met Judy, I would not have been sitting next to her at the AHSGR Convention in Hays, Kansas listening to Isabel Kessler in 2007
• And then Judy wouldn't have turned to me and said, "We need to go to Argentina."
• To which I replied, "I'm not going to Argentina!"

To be continued under Tip # 8!

©2019 Anna Dalhaimer Bartkowski

Tips & Tricks to Track Your German Russian Ancestors...Tip # 3 Sources, Sources, Sources in Russia...Organizations & Societies

Besides books, there are historical societies, organizations and individuals who have obtained records from Russia. All have excellent sources.  I can't cover everything each group has to offer, but here are highlights you won't want to miss.  Check out these focal points, but be sure to visit the entire website for additional outstanding information.

At the Center for Volga German Studies, there is a list of all of the Russian Censuses. The index listed below provides a Combined Surname Index to All Volumes compiled by Brent Mai.

And, then by village, there is a list of censuses that have been obtained, and who has the census.  Here are examples of 3 villages: Mariental, Rosenfeld am Nachoi and Rothammel.  This makes it easy to figure out how you can find a copy. New records are being published daily, however these volunteers do a great job of keeping up with many of the latest publications.

Every census provides great information, but if you can obtain an 1874 Family List (rewritten in 1896 with additional information), you have struck a gold mine of information. This time frame matches when many of our ancestors left Russia for the Americas, so this can help you build the link back to the original village settlers.

At the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, there is plenty of good information...especially under the village and research links.

Under the village link you can read about your village history and connect with your village coordinator for the latest updates on your village's content.

As you drill into the research link, you can see from the drop down on the picture below that there are a multitude of options for continuing your search.  You will want to check all of the levels here, however, I wan to show you specifically the German Origins page.

Under the AHSGR German Origins Project is a wonderful compilation listed alphabetically by surname and village which links your family back to the place of Germanic origin. Here you might find your original settlers before you are able to connect directly by each generation through the census or other records. And, that's OK because sometimes you have to work from both ends of a situations to get to the middle!

I mentioned earlier that it will take a few posts to get through all of the sources we need to explore, and the organizations and societies postings will continue soon.

©2019 Anna Dalhaimer Bartkowski

Tips & Tricks to Track Your German Russian Ancestors

Join me in January as I share my tips & tricks, learned over 40 years of genealogical research, so you can break through brick walls of tracking ancestry of German settlers in the Russian Empire. I will help to demystify the history and offer ideas helpful to anyone tracing European ancestors and descendants around the globe. It’s a great opportunity to meet fellow German from Russia researchers, too!

Where: Gilbert Southeast Regional Library in the Shakespeare Room, 775 N. Greenfield Road, Gilbert, AZ 85234. (At the crossroads of Guadalupe and Greenfield, just west of the Riparian Reserve).

When: January 12, 2019 at 10:15 -11:30 a.m.
Register at the Library website (http://evanced.mcldaz.org/evanced/lib/eventcalendar.asp) after 12/17/2018