International Help (Specifically German) :)

Not sure where to post this.... but hoping to get some help from some of Stonewalls international peeps if possible, especially German ones :)

I've been trying to build a family tree and I can find information on everyone except for one key person. Noone knows where he came from (a stork apparently). I was able to find a copy of his death certificate but the city of birth is so badly written I cant make heads or tails out of it:

[attachment=3521]Birthplace.png[/attachment]

Saxony, Germany is all I know. I cant even begin to guess on the city though...... The city might no longer exist but I thought it was worth a shot in case someone might know :cheer:

I think what you really need is a cryptographer or perhaps a doctor. I'll take my best stab at this; my grandparents are German and their handwriting looks remarkably similar (illegible).

What makes this challenging, is that the form is in English, and the responses appear also to be in English, given that the country is clearly written as 'Germany'. The English form of many German cities/villages is spelled completely different from the German equivalent. Take the city of Cologne for example, is spelled Köln in German, so we need to understand that we're looking for the English counter-part.

I think we can probably agree that the first letter of the state is probably an 'S'. A list of German states can be found here, and my guess is that it's Saxony.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_of_GermanyState

My guess is that we're looking at 'feld' for the last four letters of the city or town, and the closest thing that I can come up with via Internet search is Dransfeld (link below), which seems to potentially match the rest of the handwriting that I can see. The first letter seems to be a 'D', with an unknown letter in between the 'ans' that follows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dransfeld

I'm not sure if I've got it right, but that's my best guess! Hope it points you in the right direction at least!

Is this a Customs document? If so, in the early 1900's when people immigrated the Customs agent (aka bad translator) would write a best guess answer when filling out the form, it was not usually written by the person immigrating. That said, this could be what the Customs agent, thought he heard. I would err to Voleron, even through the Spelling is off, if you say what is written out loud, you can interpret backward.

Both of my immigrant grandparents last names where changed due to this. Francis for my family was originally Franzius before immigrating,

My PhD advisor's grandfather migrated to US with his brothers, every single one of them has his last name spelled differently because of this.

I actually see more of "-frald" than "-feld" here, but as Mstfrancis said, I wouldn't really give too much weight to how the name was spelled in this kind of document.

Quote by Mstfrancis

Is this a Customs document? If so, in the early 1900's when people immigrated the Customs agent (aka bad translator) would write a best guess answer when filling out the form, it was not usually written by the person immigrating. That said, this could be what the Customs agent, thought he heard. I would err to Voleron, even through the Spelling is off, if you say what is written out loud, you can interpret backward.

Both of my immigrant grandparents last names where changed due to this. Francis for my family was originally Franzius before immigrating,

Big change, my family name went from Sloszar to Slosar.

Azrael- if you haven't try looking up passenger manifests it my help narrow the field

While I have to agree with Robin about the last part looking like a -frald, so far n my research I've found very few places in Saxony-A that used even -feld style endings with none using -frald. So unless the English translates into a different word entirely my initial interpretations are follows:

Before proceeding please understand I write the interpretations in upper or lower case to best resemble their appearance in the photo shown.

First: is a capitalized 'D' though there is some speculation it could be an 'O', but given the use of cursive by this person I would have expected the initial character to have better definition if it was. I.e. the little curl at the top.

Second: the curvature suggests an --> 'a' although I've seen more that start with a De/Oe than an 'a'

Third: is pronounced up top twice with the spacing below to suggest the letter is an 'M' -- There is possibility this is one or two 'n' together

Fourth: If you look close you can see a single thick dot above this character and below is a stick appearance. Interpretation is an 'i'
I do have an outside through that is not a dot, but an overstayed position leaving the ink to settle in, leaving to question if this is another character entirely, or part of the former.

Fifth & Sixth: -- There are two possibilities here --

1. They are the same characters and hurriedly written which resemble cursive 'r' which when written as such can resemble a sloppy cursive 'i' without the dot above; aka like drawing a mountain outline i.e the carrot sign ' ^ '.
--OR--
2. This is one character in hurried cursive which resembles the character 'u'

The 6th or 7th character, pending interpretation, is a clearly defined 'S'



Putting that all together leaves these interpretations:

Damirrsfrald (which does not phonetically sound accurate)

--or--

Damiusfrald

--or--

Danniusfrald (Which does resemble a Germany Village in Saxony-A called Dannefeld) Though I think it being a match is not highly likely.


Before I can make anymore interpretations I would need some extra information, Azrael. What is the time frame we are looking at? Given the English being used I have to assume as well this was perhaps a document from Ellis Island? If so, a birth/death date can help me narrow down existing cites, towns, and villages from that time period.

First off i want to give a *HUGE* thank you to everyone for your responses and information! Very helpful, a lot of things i didn't think about (can you tell im not a genealogist? ;) ), and its given me some ideas to continue my search :) . I have been able to locate some distant family/cousins, one of which is a genealogist, and while everyone has pretty thorough family trees, noone (and I mean noone) can solve the mystery of this one person.

The portion of the document I posted is a copy of his death certificate from Missouri, i'm sure his wife who was still alive at the time provided the information but to Mstfrancis's point it was probably filled out by someone else, and someone that was in a hurry it looks like.

Voleron also brings up a great point i didn't think about, all my searches have been "Saxony Germany" but in German Saxony is really "Sachsen", so my searches wouldn't have pulled up any actual German documents.

I did take into account the name change (my last name did change, Kneusel is the original), Saintplazma good idea on the shipping manifests. I started checking, no luck so far but i'll keep looking :)

Jaime-Thank you so much for you analysis on the spelling! Awesome! :cheer: Birth year was 1863, and you bring up another good point, the city of birth may no longer exist. With world war 1 and 2 following it could have been wiped out/renamed..... Following is a complete copy of the certificate:


[attachment=3522]certificate.jpg[/attachment]

Outside of this all that I can find are census records and a marriage license, which don't really provide any info :(

So I received an email from my great Aunt with scans of 2 postcards she had in some of her old things. Turns out both postcards have a postmark that says "MANSFELD" which might be the city on the death certificate? (Voleron - VERY close to Dransfeld).

Not sure what the postcards say and the handwriting is difficult to read.... (and if I could read it I unfortunately don't know German). Anyone know German that can make anything out? Or is it too illegible (one seems to be more readable than the other) ?


[attachment=3528]Mystery.jpg[/attachment]


[attachment=3529]Mystery2.jpg[/attachment]

I'm going to take some time and analyze these. Let me know if anything changes before that or anyone finds the answer. Like the terminator said, "I'll be back."

I really wish the I.K.S. Donm poH was ready to fly, she could easily get me to this relative to clear things up.

I cannot read these. Though I can tell you I love the letter and the handwriting. It is astonishingly beautiful.

Oh, I just learned, that you are also into geneology - I am too! *hurray*

I will try to download the pic and zoom in. Unfortunately its the "Old" german handwriting from about 1850th ...

I will ask someone old in the village who still can read it and note it down.

(is there a function on this forum to mark threads so not to search for them?)

It will take me some times till I find one in the eldery home I guess, but will help.

Can read lots of it but not all!

Oh- and that Mansfeld (with town rights - thats why its "Mansfeld Stadt" on the stamp) directed me without a doubt to "Lutherstadt" - another name of that town because of Martin Luther - the church reformer - living there for a very long time. Its in Sachsen-Anhalt which were in 1910 seperate countries Herzogtum Sachsen-Altenburg and Herzogtum Sachsen-Anhalt-Gotha.

Maybe this "Adress book" might help you ...http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/Kategorie:Adressbuch_f%C3%BCr_die_Provinz_Sachsen

Awesome Khazaan, thank you so much! :cheer:

I didn't realize there was an "old German" until I started looking deeper into German history. I wasn't sure if what was on the postcards was old or new, good to know!

I checked the link to the address book (1872) The only town i see listed though is "Mansfelder" which I assume is the same as "Mansfeld"? No listing for my family name unfortunately. Good information though, I cant believe they have a PDF copy of an address book from 1872?!

I wondered what the "Stadt" portion of the stamp was, i thought it just meant town or city? I see they built a 3 part fountain in honor of Martin Luther. I was able to find the cities official website! I'm going to try the sites "Contact Us" form to see if anyone responds.

Thank you again for your help, GREATLY appreciated! :)