17
votes
Accepted
Reading given name of German great-grandaunt?
The name is Agnes.
You can compare each of the letters to those shown in this BYU Script Tutorial for German handwriting.
I extracted the relevant letters from the alphabet image on that site, and ...
- 18.5k
15
votes
Accepted
German or Czech town (or city)
This seems to say "Auscha," which is indeed the German name of a town known in Czech as Úštěk.
- 274
11
votes
Accepted
What is uniform worn by Herr Schedler in photo taken late 19th century in Hannover?
Based on the following the photo is by H. Richers who operated from at least 1878 to 1913 in Hannover (the link has his street address).
Looking at the ears, chin, eye sockets, nose and mouth ...
- 5,531
10
votes
Accepted
Origin of young German lady's attire with fore-sleeves and head cover in 1878 photo from Hannover?
Folk costumes - Volkstrachten - are traditional clothing that can be highly specific to a region or even a village. The woman in your photo is wearing parts of the Oesterten-Tracht or ...
- 7,926
10
votes
Is there such a thing as Ashkenazi Jewish surnames?
Ashkenazi Surnames really only came about in the early 1800s actually. The Jews of Western Europe (Germany, France, and England etc) took surnames sooner than their coreligionists in Eastern Europe. ...
- 161
9
votes
Seeking details of travel to South Africa in 1920s
If you are on Facebook, there is a closed and private group called 'South African Genealogy' that has lots of helpful and active members who know their way around the South African information sites.
...
- 341
9
votes
Accepted
Translating profession from two records written in Kurrentshrift
The occupation is
Möbelpolierer
[furniture polisher]
Probably different tasks depending on the employer: at a residence, a furniture store or a factory
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8
votes
Accepted
Forced Emigration of Zipf ancestors from South-West Germany (Baden/Wurtenburg) in mid 19th century?
This answer provides some historical context, but does not completely answer the question.
Baden & Württemberg experienced large emigrations in the 1820s to 1850s, to Hungary (recruited by ...
- 7,926
8
votes
Tracing my Swiss German roots through to World War I an unknown fallen soldier
Update: new information on birth place
Let’s sum up what we know for sure:
You had a great-grandfather with the surname Rebholz
What we assume:
He was born in Sigmaringen
What is unknown:
his ...
- 5,377
8
votes
Returning World War I era German dog tags?
I would contact Volksbund, an organization that takes care of German war graves, and Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt), a federal organization maintaining records on servicemen, and ask if it helps to ...
- 5,377
8
votes
Accepted
Finding vital records in Upper Silesia (Prussia/Germany)?
If they were catholic or protestant
Statistically (based location, given names and surname), as ethnic Poles and living in rural Upper Silesia, your great-great-grandparents were Catholic. (Catholics ...
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8
votes
Finding vital records in Upper Silesia (Prussia/Germany)?
I wanted to address a point that originally came up in the comments to bgwiehle's answer.
Places are known by different names throughout their history. If a place was called by a particular name ...
- 24.4k
8
votes
Accepted
Reference Key for Injuries for WWI German Casualty Lists?
Casualties in the Verlustlisten include the following keys and abbreviations:
t or † (“tot”) – dead
gefallen – killed in action
† an seinen schweren Wunden – died because of his serious injuries
v. ...
- 5,377
7
votes
Accepted
What are these abbreviations in a Verlustliste (zurueckgeh, krgef, A)?
This means that he was retained (“zurückgeh.” = “zurückgehalten”) by a neutral country until now (“bish.” = “bisher”), as this list of abbreviations for the navy lists suggests. Now he is prisoner of ...
- 5,377
7
votes
Accepted
How should I interpret this Buchenwald camp card?
I understand it as follows: He arrived in Buchenwald 26 January 1945 ("26.1.45 eingel.") and was send to Sachsenhausen on 6 February 1945. This is however not verifiable just from the card. The ...
- 5,377
7
votes
Accepted
Pre 1794 records for Rothenditmold, Kassel, Hessen, Germany?
I am no export on Hesse, but I did a little research:
Your LAGIS results are civil registration which started in 1874.
Church records for several parishes in today’s city of Kassel were destroyed ...
- 5,377
7
votes
Accepted
Is there such a thing as Ashkenazi Jewish surnames?
I am not an expert, but am adding my humble bits to the answer:
There is no such thing as a jewish surname, indeed.
First of all a surname itself is not a jewish thing. Jews are not indetified by ...
- 413
7
votes
Accepted
Interpreting 17th century German dates?
original, probably an exact transcript of the church register entry
"verm. 2. post trin. 1649"
with abbreviations expanded, German and Latin
"vermahlt 2. [Sonntag] post Trinitatis 1649"
...
- 7,926
7
votes
Decoding trophy cards of german soldiers (WWII)
I can confirm that the text on both cards is indeed in German. Your first card is dated to 1920, the second one seems to have been stamped by the post office in 1917. As far as I know Sütterlin was ...
- 561
7
votes
Information and photos of WW2 RAF aircraft and crew?
This article describes the incident:
http://aircrewremembered.com/roy-arnold.html
and leads me to search for "Oblt Walter Schneider" which comes up with another website or two.
https://...
- 71
6
votes
Tracing my Swiss German roots through to World War I an unknown fallen soldier
Update: Since the original question and the early answers were written, John has found out that his great-grandfather was not born in Kreuzlingen, but Sigmaringen, now in Baden-Wurttemberg in Germany. ...
- 24.4k
6
votes
Is there an online list of Kindertransport records?
Yesterday, online records related to the Kindertransport children became available through FindMyPast:
This is a fascinating collection of digitised government documents
relating to the ...
- 11k
6
votes
Accepted
Is name Angloher derived from Anglii from northern Germany?
Surname derivation from the Angle tribe, once based in northern Germany, is unlikely.
The highest concentration of Angloher residents of Germany per Geogen is in south-east Bavaria, near the Austrian ...
- 7,926
6
votes
Reading information about illegitimate children in Brackenhammer family, Kirchheim, Germany
Unless a specific line needs to addressed further, the transcript is as complete as possible at this time. (Image unavoidable, tables not possible here). "?" where unsure. s/o = struck out
Notes:
...
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6
votes
History of German small town of Angloh?
Technique
Generally when you cannot find information on very small or insignificant placenames, you research nearby larger places (because events may apply to a larger area) or the next placename in ...
- 7,926
6
votes
Reading given name of German great-grandaunt?
I also found it useful to have this PDF around for comparing the letters. The benefit being you can zoom it in quite a bit:
https://feefhs.org/sites/default/files/guide/german-gothic.pdf
Once you get ...
- 211
6
votes
Accepted
Finding details of where Polish soldier in German Army was living before Great War?
The 113th infantry regiment was from Baden (Freiburg im Breisgau).
The garrison for the 113th infantry regiment can be looked up online, e.g. in GenWiki or in the literature ( Das 5. Badische ...
- 5,377
6
votes
How common was it for a father to be at the birth in the late 1700s early 1800s?
While the father may have been present or nearby for the births of his children, more likely, a female relative or a mid-wife actually assisted. Especially first births were likely to take the ...
- 7,926
6
votes
Accepted
Finding records of Berlin Airlift Service by Robert Whitehead?
The "Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation" have a website with a fair amount of information. That includes "The Men Who Participated". That has a list of units that were involved, only some of which ...
- 4,417
6
votes
Verifying that Josef Berg died as shown in WWI German military record and finding his grave?
For searching in the Verlustlisten you shouldn't use Ancestry’s incomplete version, but the complete and manually indexed version by Compgen - Verein für Computergenealogie: Verlustlisten Erster ...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible