Genealogical Research in Germany by Al Bromling, AGS #549
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AGS Kenneth Young Award for Best Original Article – Al Bromling, Heritage Seekers, June 2010 Genealogical Research in Germany by Al Bromling, AGS #549 In conducting family research, most of us build on the work of curious and dedicated individuals whose work created the basis for our own efforts. I picked up the trail of my ancestors through the initial efforts of two cousins, one in my father’s family and one in my mother’s line. It seems that starting to draw the family tree always raises more questions and opens opportunities to research further. It had been known that both my ancestor lines traced back to the northern Rhine valley in Germany, near the border with the Netherlands. Eventually, the fact that my wife is still actively involved with her relatives in the eastern Netherlands became a real asset in my efforts to trace my own family in the villages just across the border in North Rhine-Westphalia Wedding photo of Johann BENTFIELD and My paternal cousin had made good progress with Anna BLUMENAU 1910. family interviews and cemetery research in the USA and traced the roots from my second great The few family letters and the oral history through grandfather’s arrival in New York in 1848. His stories within the family inspired the first efforts to generation and the next generations were farming trace family roots. My first visit to North Rhine- folk in Wisconsin, Iowa, and, Idaho. When I began Westphalia was in 1990. But it was a family to research this family line to extend my cousin’s vacation and not a seriously prepared research visit. earlier work I found that these generations are Even such a cursory family search was exciting and traceable also using Ancestry.com research tools reinforced the drive for discovery of family roots. and the Public Member Trees available on the site. My grandfather and father immigrated to Alberta Following my retirement in 2003 I began to focus from Idaho in 1910. more energy on the project. The assistance of the Genies at the Library program provided both My maternal grandfather left the German village of technical and team spirit support. Ancestry.com, Wullen at the age of thirty, determined to find a Wikipedia, and Google became important supports better future than that available to the rural poor in for the research effort. Family research became part Europe at that time. Family letters passed down of travel planning in our family. In the spring of from that period describe a rather harsh life for 2008 we arrived at the German village of Wullen to agricultural day labourers. Bernard Johann Bentfeld trace the origin of my maternal grandfather. We had arrived in Alberta in 1903. Within a few years, travelled by car from nearby Netherlands, guests of family letters began to include optimism and my wife’s uncle and aunt. My wife and I had just humour blended in with the stories of frontier completed a hike on the upper Rhine and were hardship and immigrant success. He married Anna enjoying some rest time with her family. They had Blumenau, also from Ahaus, in 1910 and they become interested in my family research project and farmed at Heisler. volunteered to take us to the small village in AGS Kenneth Young Award for Best Original Article – Al Bromling, Heritage Seekers, June 2010 Nordrhein-Westfalia from which my grandfather Our contact (ansprechpartner) in Wullen was able had left in 1903 for Alberta. Uncle Fritz speaks Low to provide us with the name and address of the German, which quickly became an important factor Ahaus local historian. But it would be five months in our initial success. Visiting the Church, the before we could continue the search. The e-mail cemetery and the village well in this attractive little address of the contact in Ahaus proved to be most community were interesting but did not provide any valuable and my communications with him were clues for my research. excellent. I was able to describe my research project to him. Almost immediately, he provided records I had read that many German districts have a well- for one more generation. He also agreed to meet developed network of local family historians with us on our next visit, planned for September (familienforscher) but I had not figured out how to 2008 to help celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Uncle tap into this resource. Some local folks near the Fritz and Aunt Minie. village well were not able to help but they called to a nun on a bike who came over to help. She was the I need to make it clear that these local historians are local health nurse and knew the community. She community volunteers and their role is not to was able to tell Uncle Fritz exactly how to reach the conduct research on demand for folks like me. I home of the family historian of Wullen. was so very fortunate that Alfons Nubbenholt went to great lengths to help with my project. We met This finally gave us some traction and focus for our with him in September. During the intervening project! And we did make good progress. So often, period he had prepared a five generation narrative luck is an important research tool. (German text) that traced the Bentfeld line back to 1770 in Ahaus. With translation help from Uncle Fritz, the Wullen family historian was able to confirm that he had In spite of some translation challenges we learned computer access to records that would help. He was about the research efforts that Alfons had invested able to cite baptismal records for my grandfather to help with my project. Alfons is affiliated with a and for his 3 brothers and four sisters. He could regional group, Westfalische Gesellschaft Fur provide the name and birth date, and marriage date Genealogie und Familienforschung. Their mission of my great grandparents. We learned later that is to support family research in the West there has been a lot of digitization of church and Munsterland region. He is also affiliated with a civil records in Germany, but progress is uneven county level organization, Genealogie im Kries and the results are not easily accessible. Of course, Borken. These local historian networks are unique these digital records are in German and present to different areas of Germany and there is no quite a challenge for us in North America. Google standard way to make contact with the right sources translation offers only limited help. for your particular interest. Being able to trace one more family generation was Those conducting German family research will have a great step for us, but we were disappointed. That challenges finding the network pertinent to their was all he had. Only local family records were geographic interest. It is worth the effort because available. We were blocked again. We learned that these folks can help the searcher access material my great grandfather had moved to this village from that is not internet based, although some of it is now the nearby town of Ahaus. Records of previous digitized in local sources. The key resources are the generations of the Bentfelds’ line would have to be baptismal (Taufen) records, marriage (Heiraten) sought in Ahaus. The Wullen historian was able to records and burial (Begrabnis) records. When you confirm that my great grandfather had been try to tap into the local historian network that may employed as an agricultural day labourer serve your local area, patience is required. Record (tagelohher). This helped to explain why cemetery collections are fragmented. There was not a nation research had not produced any clues for my project. called Germany until 1871 and the geographic Only the names of more substantial village families naming, even at the village level, has gone through were etched on the headstones in the local cemetery. several transitions. Church records have also gone Fortunately, church records in Wullen and Ahaus through consolidations and dispersals during the could move us forward. period of your family research. The names selected by the family research networks do not match, state, AGS Kenneth Young Award for Best Original Article – Al Bromling, Heritage Seekers, June 2010 district or town naming. For example, the West Munsterland network has a regional name that only hints at its geographic boundaries. There are other research strategies, less dependent on luck and the mysteries of the internet. Since vital church records (Kirchenbucher) are the main source of genealogical information in Germany a direct approach is recommended. Write to the Catholic Bishops Conference: Sekretariat der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, Kaiserstrasse 163, 53773, Bonn. For records more likely held in Protestant sources, you may seek assistance from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Archives: 8765 West Roetger BROMMLING Higgans Road, Chicago IL, 60631-4198. The remaining mystery in my paternal line landed in New York in 1848. I have had limited success in tracing my paternal To this date I have not been able to tap into the line earlier than my second great grandfather family research network that might help with Roetger Brommling’s arrival in New York in 1848. research on my paternal ancestors. None of our Two recent findings from the Public Member Tree travel to date has brought us directly into the three feature of Ancestry.com may be the breakthrough I communities of Moers, Rheurdt, and Emmerich am have been looking for. Rhein. Recently, again with the help of Public Member Trees, I found that St. Georg Kirche There are inconsistent and confusing descriptions of records in nearby Bocholt cite the Brommling name Roetger’s village of origin.