I am trying to find out who the parents of Frederick Victor Sturm were.
He was born in Magdeburg Ackan in 1756 and then left Germany and served in the British army for 23 years from 1774-1797. He was awarded the Kings Colours in 1834 for action 55 years earlier.
He and his family lived in the little Devon port town of Topsham where I live and I would love to find out more about him.
Location
You mention "Magdeburg Ackan" but this place does not exist so first we have to find out the most probable place for it. Fuzzy Gazetteer helps with that and comes up with "Aken". Indeed, Aken is near Magdeburg. So I assumed that Aken is meant.
Next assumption is that he was of Lutheran denomination as this was the common denomination in that area. Note that in German the name would be written "Friedrich Viktor Sturm".
Church Records
Ok, let's check if the church records of Aken are online. The body that maintains the records is called "Landeskirchenarchiv Magdeburg" (State Church Archive Magdeburg). Some records are online at the service Archion. We now have to find out to which church district Aken belongs. There is a list at the website of the archive that maps town names to church districts. It mentions that Aken belongs to the district "Egeln". The Archion website linked above mentions that Egeln's records are unfortunately not yet online.
It looks like the records from the "Kirchenbücher der Kirchengemeinde Aken Reformierte Gemeinde" 1711–1800 have been microfilmed and are available at the archive at "Rep. R 03 - Kirchenbuchfilme aus der Kirchenprovinz Sachsen" number 440.
The archive mentions on its site:
Die Kirchenbücher wurden nach der Verfilmung an die Kirchengemeinden zurückgegeben, dürfen aber aus konservatorischen Gründen in den Pfarrämtern vor Ort nicht mehr zur Benutzung vorgelegt werden. Stattdessen stehen in Magdeburg die Mikrofilme zur Einsicht zur Verfügung. Fotokopien der Kirchenbuchfilme können die Benutzer im Lesesaal am Lesegerät vor Ort selbst anfertigen.
Schriftliche Anfragen zu privaten Zwecken, insbesondere zur Familienforschung, können von uns aus arbeitsorganisatorischen Gründen leider nicht bearbeitet werden. Falls Sie nicht persönlich zu uns kommen können, übersenden wir gern die Kontaktdaten von Berufsgenealogen.
Meaning that you cannot look at the records at the parish church but only at the archive. You can do copies on your own there. They cannot answer written requests due to their organisation of work. If you cannot visit the archive personally they would give out the contact data of professional genealogists. So unfortunately you would have to go there personally or find/pay somebody to go there for you until the records are online.
Heritage Book
Additionally, I found a local heritage book of Aken from the Verein für Computergenealogie. It contains a list of surnames and there also the name "Sturm" is listed. Unfortunately, no individual named "Friedrich Viktor" or just "Friedrich" that was born in the named year is part of the list.
Frederick Victor Sturm is my 3x great grandfather and the father of Christiana Maria Sturm exact DOB not known. VFS is the son of Johann Friedrich Sturm who was the priest in charge of St Nikolai church in Aken.I have emails back to about 2003 from the incumbent Pastor Rodriger in which he gave me details from the parish register of the birth and baptism of Viktor Friedrich Sturm in 1755. I also have a copy of his discharge notice from the army. My 2x great grandfather, Daniel Box, was also stationed at Exeter and married Christiana Maria Sturm in Exeter in 1807.FVS was married to Susan Pederick. If you go to familysearch.org and goto Christiana Maria (MT3Y-6B6) and Victor Friedrich (GZRC-2YK) under Life Sketch you will find a brief story of them both. At the moment I am not at home but will forward you copies of the correspondence with Pastor Rodriger. Let me know if you would like more information. Don Box Western Australia
