Genealogy Forum NEWS
October, 1997
Land Records
REVOLUTIONARY WAR BOUNTY LAND RECORDS
Submitted by DearMYRTLE
Following the Revolutionary War, our young nation was short on funds and long on land "ownership." With the attitude of the right of eminant domain, our early leaders rewarded military service with bounty land grants.
Your ancestor may have been granted land, which he either chose to settle, or to sell to someone else who preferred the area. He could have been granted the land by not only the Federal but a state government. It depended on whether he served in the state militia or the Continental Army. Your local LDS Family History Center has access to the Bounty Land Records on both the state and federal level. This will save you a trip to the national Archives in Washington, D.C. or particular state archives.
Others of you may have ancestors who received bounty lands for the War of 1812, and other military service through 1855, just prior to the Civil War. You'll want to check on these records, since they often include information about the property developement and settlement, including mention of family members and next of kin living on the land.
Wouldn't you just LOVE to know that?
Myrtle :)
GERMAN TOWN LOCATOR SERVICE
submitted by DearMYRTLE
In Wednesday morning's SUMMER LEMONADE CHAT (weekdays 9am eastern June-August), there were a lot of questions about German research. Since our topic this month in "Land Records" I thought we'd add this to the conversation! One participant requested the following information:
QUOTE:
GERMAN TOWN LOCATOR SERVICE
available by sending an e-mail request to:
Arthur.Teschler@uni-giessen.de
I had been instructed to make the subject of the e-mail : _GEO_
I merely typed the town in the first line: Ebingen
Then, since it was my first time I requested help on the second line: INFO
So the text of my e-mail only had two words on two lines as follows:
Ebingden
INFO
I composed my request ofline and used FLASHMAIL to send it out. About 15 minutes later I was flashmailing again, and found my reply waiting! WOW! They must answer this automatically?!! Here's part of the response I got!!!
Prefix: Ebingen
Ebingen (W"urtt)
Part of: Albstadt
GKZ : 08 4 17 079
County : | | +---- Zollernalbkreis(Balingen) [BL]
RegBez : | +------- T"ubingen
Land : +--------- Baden-W"urttemberg
ZIP : 724??
Popul : 25462
Locat : (Albstadt) 48d13m N 9d02m E
Maps : TK25 7720 Albstadt; TK50 L7720 Albstadt; Euro Ka59
Since I had requested additional information on using the service, I received about 3 pages of explanations, some of which I have summarized as follows:
This service is intended to give you placenames, locations, postal codes and other information on towns and villages in Germany today. I use a database of currently about 50000 entries, based on the 'Postleitzahlenbuch' (postal code book) of the German mail service.
Send a message to Arthur.Teschler@uni-giessen.de with the Subject line _GEO_ (Capital G E O enclosed by underscores). Use exactly this subject, anything else ('geo', '_Geo_', 'Re: _GEO_') won't work.
There are three ways to search:
a) prefix search - Give the desired placename on a line [example: Altenberg will give several 'Altenberg' as well as 'Altenberga' and 'Altenbergen' (as) only the first ten letters are used in the search.] This exact search gives additional information on County, Zip etc
b) substring search - An asterisk (*) may be used to denote ANY arbitrary letter combination [example: Alt*berg (gives all places starting with 'Alt' and ending with 'berg' *burg (gives all places ending with 'burg' substring search is forgiving about umlauts and German sharp-s]
c) soundex search - Preceding the query with a '?' switches to soundex mode. This means:
- a,e,i,o,u,h,w,y and umlauts are ignored,
- b,p,f,v are considered equal as well as (c,s,k,g,j,q,x,z,"s) (d,t) and (m,n)
- double consonants are treated as one.
- The first letter is kept as given, capitalization matters for the first letter only. The resulting pattern is used for a substring search.
BEWARE:
A very short SOUNDEX pattern creates a huge number of matches which sometimes seem to have nothing to do with the entered pattern. Use method b) instead
HOW TO INTERPRET THE RESULT:
(search line was Ebingen)
Ebingen (W"urtt)
Part of: Albstadt
GKZ : 08 4 17 079
County : | | +---- Zollernalbkreis(Balingen) [BL]
RegBez : | +------- T"ubingen
Land : +--------- Baden-W"urttemberg
ZIP : 724??
Popul : 25462
Locat : (Albstadt) 48d13m N 9d02m E
Maps : TK25 7720 Albstadt; TK50 L7720 Albstadt; Euro Ka59
The first line gives the official name, with an added description to distinguish it from other places with the same name. If the place is now part of another town or village this is given in the second line.
GKZ (Gemeindekennziffer) is a number assigned to all municipalities.
County(Kreis) gives the County name and the County's automobile license plate designator. Some larger towns are not part of a county, they are 'kreisfrei.'
RegBez (Regierungsbezirk) is another administrative unit, usually consisting of several counties. Not all Lands are divided into Regierungsbezirke.
Land is one of the sixteen federal states which make up the Federal Republic of Germany.
ZIP is the new German postal code consisting of 5 digits. If you want to write to the Standesamt or Church usually the ZIP code is enough. For larger towns you'll get a range of ZIPs or the last digit(s) as ?. To get the correct ZIP you need also the street or mailbox number.
Popul gives the number of inhabitants as of 1989.
Locat gives the location in Latitude/Longitude notation. If the Database does not contain the location for the place itself I give the next larger town or the county's capital.
Maps gives the numbers of the 1:25000 (TK25) and 1:50000 (TK50) topographical maps. TK25 are 10'x6' (11x11km) TK50 are 20'x12' (22x22km). The actual size depends on the latitude. Prices are usually below DM 10 in Germany.
Euro refers to the search field in Euro-Atlas Germany/Europe published by American Map (US) and R+V Verlag (Germany). This Atlas is available at scales 1:300000 and 1:200000. Costs abt $15/DM15 (Germany). The new 1:200000 edition is at DM20 ($?)
Search modes b) and c) give the matching names only with a preceeding count.
DRAWBACKS:
Due to political changes in East-Germany (former DDR) the names of counties in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt and Th"uringen are likely to be wrong.Information will be updated as information is received.
The database contains the locations of only about 15% of the places. Sometimes the county's capital is rather far away. The location is merely given for orientation purposes, do not rely on it. As the map numbers and search field are calculated from the location they may actually denote the neighboring map or search field.
As there is still no common standard to represent European special characters on PC's, Mac's and UNIX-Boxes I give German umlauts as "a,"o,"u and German sharp-s (looks like greek beta) as "s. This is the so called TEX notation. It looks ugly.
I put a size limit of 20kB for each message. Do not try looking for all prefixes 'A' ;-)
IMPORTANT:
Many genealogists do research in what was East-Germany before 1945, which is now Poland, Czech Republic or Russia. The database only contains places in Germany of today. Austria, Alsace-Lorraine and Switzerland are not in the database, either.
Do not add additional descriptions to the placenames like 'Frankfurt/Main' or 'Linden,Hessen'. Just put the plain name on a line and pick out the one you seek.
You may put more than one query in a message and may mix the three search methods, but the response will be cut off at about 13Kb. Put each query on a separate line.
IF YOU DIDN'T GET ANYTHING:
Is it a German place name? If not you have to try other sources. Is it an area like 'Rheinhessen', 'Bayern' etc? You have to take a map. Are you sure about the spelling? Not? Try method b) or c)
Still nothing? Perhaps the place does not exist anymore or is just too small to be mentioned in the 'postal code book'. Or the spelling is totally off.
Anyway, I hope this service may help. Please do not hesitate to report any bugs:Locations that are obviously wrong
Cases where no location is given at all
Missing county information
Error messages or no answer at all
Suggestions to improve this service are welcome
AND: Be sure to have ordered the INFO file
(Put INFO on a line instead of a query) ENDQUOTE.
I can't believe the great service Arthur is providing! I do not know him, but think this will be of great use to German genealogists. Remember, you DO NOT have to go out on the internet gateway, you only have to send e-mail, and AMERICA ONLINE will take care of getting your request out, and receiving the reply. Try it this week and let us hear about your results.
This German Town Locator Service is a *must* in my book!
Migration Patterns
submitted by DearMYRTLE
"Just where did my people come from before this?" Since no one was drop-shipped by hot air balloon, there is a paper trail, however meager. When all seems lost, a study of settlement patterns of a state or region will actually merge into a series recognizable migration patterns, hence the subject of today's lesson.
1. COLLECT ALL DOCUMENTS ON A GIVEN ANCESTOR. Mention of birthplace is made in all types of records including passenger arrival lists; census records; birth, marriage and death records; land records; naturalization papers; military files; applications for insurance, religious and fraternal organizations.
2. STUDY LOCAL HISTORIES OF THE AREA WHERE YOUR ANCESTORS LIVED. These were especially popular in the late 1900's. Often a few words in town histories provide great clues to the former place of residence as follows:
"The Germans who settled this part of Pennsylvania came from the Palatinate, in the Rotterdam to London group, then to upstate New York down the Susquehanna River to the Tupelhocken Valley. Reading hadn't been developed yet, nor was there a road to Philadelphia."
The researcher is happily provided with suggestions of at least three other localities to check for the church or vital records to press these lines farther back.
3. STUDY MAPS OF TYPICAL MIGRATION ROUTES. Historians agree that travel in the colonial period of the US followed ancient animal paths. These were developed further by Native Americans, early trappers and eventually wagon trains of new arrivals. Topography played an important role, since routes tended to follow rivers or mountain barriers.
On a photocopy of a map, trace the route in reverse from your ancestor's known locality to the one or two likely places detailed in the usual migration pattern maps for the time period. Maps are found in the LDS Research Outline: United States, basic genealogy reference works, county histories and the like. See Norman Wright's Building an American Pedigree, listed below, for some standard migration pattern maps for most areas east of the Mississippi.
Using maps, genealogists who specialize in a particular state, can actually outline the pockets of each ethnic group that settled the region. They can draw lines of typical migration patterns into the region based on their years of research. Try to attend a class or read books by those recognized as experts in the locality your ancestors settled.
5. REFER TO EVERTON'S HANDYBOOK FOR GENEALOGISTS or ANCESTRY'S REDBOOK for information about a county, parent county and boundary changes. One fellow on my family tree stated that he was born in Virginia. His son stated in family records that his father had been born in Kentucky. It happened that the family lived on the same spot for several generations. What looked like a migration pattern, was only a change in govermental boundries.
At the time of the father's birth, the area was part of Virginia. There were several boundary changes over the years, with the final change making the area part of Kentucky. This also means that with each change of county, a different county courthouse kept records for the period of time it had jurisdiction over the family homestead.
Looking for birth, marriage, death, tax, land and probate records would have provided little had only one of the several courthouses been researched.
This isn't always an easy task -- this climbing family trees! I promise you, though, that your efforts in studying typical migration patterns will help you make progress. As you continue to read and study, you'll also pick up information on the "push-pull" factors that influenced your ancestors' emigration/immigration. Adding these source materials and maps to your family history notebooks will greatly enhance the final product.
Rule of thumb to remember the difference between
emigration & immigration:
Emigration begins with the letter "E" -- so does the word "EXIT" as in EXITing a county.
Immigration begins with the letter "I" -- so does the word "IN" as in coming INto a country.
Further Reading:
Leary, Helen, From Pennsylvania to North Carolina Piedmont: How to Find Your Great Wagon Road Ancestors. NGS 1997 Conference Program Syllabus, p300-303.
Lewis, Marcus, The Development of Early Emigrant Trails East of the
Mississippi River. 1933 Washington, DC: NGS Genealogical Publication, No 3.
Miller, Olga, Migration, Emigration, Immigration, Principally to the United States and in the United States. Logan, Utah: Everton Publishers. Vol 1:1974, Vol 2:1981.
Wright, Norman, Building an American Pedigree: A Study in Genealogy. Provo:
Brigham Young University Press, 3rd printing 1974, pp 421-518.
Wright, Norman, Pioneers on the Move, The Migrations Within North America.
Provo: Brigham Young University Press. 1969.
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Content © 1997 - 2004 GFNEWS, a monthly publication of Golden Gate Services, Inc. of Armada, MI The Editors welcome your ideas and articles, success stories, favorite genealogy research tips, comments and suggestions. The Genealogy Forum is a proud member of the FGS - Federation of Genealogical Societies