Living in the Past: A Family History

Despite the fact that I've been teaching this semester, I've managed to come up with a few new things.  And now that school is almost over, I can get back to blogging and digging up the past. I went to the Sacramento German Genealogy Society conference last weekend, and in early June I will go to the Genealogy Jamboree put on by the Southern California Genealogy Society.  This is four days of fun, fun, fun, including a whole day on DNA and genetic genealogy which I hope will get me over the hump to understanding the basics. Stay Tuned!

Nothing to report, really -- I just want to express the frustration of a genealogical researcher who has spent pretty much the whole day putzing around in the halls of time and has come up with nothing.  I've looked at so many sites today, databases, forums, etc. etc. and haven't come up with a crumb of information, not even a lead.   from A Woman's BJJ Blog This is the thing about genealogy -- it's days, weeks, months of boredom punctuated by moments of great joy and excitement.  When something breaks open, it's a thrill, but most of the time, it's just plain drudgery. I did send a couple of emails -- to a woman at the new version of the asylum attached to the University of Goettingen (now called "Asklepios") to ask if they had historical records, and to a man who posted something about Langers in Silesia back in 2002.  The email hasn't bounced back, so is it possible that he still is using that address?  I wonder what email address I was using i...

Now that school has started again, I have much less time for genealogy, but I'm plugging along.  I found and ordered two small books:  one is an 1890 history of the "lunatic asylum" at Goettingen, written by the man who was the director for many years, including the time that great-grandfather Max Langer was there, and the other is a book on a weaver's revolt in Silesia (remember that Max Langer's father was a master weaver in Niesse). I've started reading the asylum history in the chapter that seems to be most about the way that patients were treated.  I'm very relieved to learn that Ludwig Meyer, the director of the institution, was a major figure in the enlightened treatment of the mentally ill, very well-known in the late 1800's.  He was a professor of psychiatry at the University of Goettingen (which the asylum was attached to), and from what I've read so far, he advocated treating the mentally ill with dignity, preserving their essential huma...

Well, how things can change in one little day -- first I woke up this morning thrilled to discover the birthplace of my great-grandfather, and very shortly thereafter, I learned something disturbing about the circumstances of his death. I belong to a group on facebook that is made up of people interested in family history in Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen).  I joined because Grandpa Gustav Berneburg was born in that region, in Hannover, and I mentioned the other day that someone is helping me look for records there.  But since Goettingen, where Max Langer's death notice came from, is also in Lower Saxony, I was so excited with that news that I posted something about it to the group and included a link to the story on this blog. I was startled, to say the least, when a very short while later a group member (a very, very nice and knowledgeable man) came back with a full translation of that very-difficult-to-read document.  Brace yourself, because the news is a little shocking....

In a previous post, I mentioned I was communicating with an official in the Stadtarchive in Goettingen, Germany, where EDC's great-grandfather, Maximilian Langer, appears to have died.  This is mysterious, because Goettingen is some distance from Bremerhaven, where as far as I know, all Langer/Berneburg family life occurred in the 1890's and early 20th Century.  His wife, Wilhelmine, died in Bremerhaven, so the mystery is, what was he doing in Goettingen? The official has been extremely helpful in giving me information to decide whether to order the death certificate, which is unusual to say the least, because it's a "marginal note" instead of a normal certificate.  When I asked whether it contained his place of birth and/or his parents' names, she decided to go ahead and make a scan of it and send it to me.  Wow!  (Note:  German officials are known for being, well, official and going by the book, so I was very surprised that she took the time to make the s...

We may have a breakthrough on the Berneburg side -- cross your fingers!  I recently discovered that there's a facebook group for "Genealogy for Lower Saxony," which includes Hannover, where Grandpa Berneburg was from.  It's a group of nice, helpful people, some in Germany, others elsewhere. One very nice woman will actually go to archives for you!  So she has all the information we have on the Berneburg family and will be getting back to us at some point.  Again, keep those fingers crossed! Map of Lower Saxony When I look at this map, I see that Bremen and Bremerhaven are included -- I'll have to ask whether anyone in the group is able to do a search up there.  More to come, I hope! Update on Maximilian Langer:  I heard back from the lady at the Stadtarchiv in Goettingen, and she has the death certificate from 1896!  She says, though, that it's not a regular certificate but some kind of "marginal notation," so I'm trying to get more information o...

So on we go with the Berneburg/Langer frustrations.  Next up is Great-Grandpa Maximilian Langer, Grandma Sophie's father.  My aunt's notes say that he was born in "Schliesen," or Silesia, which once was part of Prussia but now is in Poland, down by Czechoslovakia.  Silesia is a province, however, not a town, so that information is missing.  Looking at both German and Polish record sites (and puzzling out Polish is difficult, believe me!), I find nothing.  The nice elderly man from Bremerhaven who helped me a little gave me the information that Maximilian was born "about 1855," and died "before September 11, 1909," but I can't read the scanned documents he sent me, so I can't confirm that (and he's not responding to my emails).  Now, September 11, 1909, I happen to know, is Grandma and Grandpa Berneburg's wedding date, so I'm guessing he looked at some kind of a wedding record and saw that Grandma's father was "deceased,...