To London from Germany....and back again?

[carol8353]

I have recently discovered that one of my ancestors Lydia Rapkin married Eugene FIRNKORN (son of Herman Firnkorn) in Marylebone in Dec 1905.
He was a chef.In March 1907 their son Emil Eugene was born.

Then they vanish.The surname just does not exists any more over here.

I have just heard from another family member that her elderley aunt recalls them being 'deported' in WW1,and Lydia being stoned by German women,presumably for being a British girl marrying a German man.

How can I find 1, where Eugene came from originally? and 2, where did they go to? Back to Germany? Or somewhere else? Would the whole family have been interred, including a child born in 1907?

All suggestions gratefully received 

Carol

[Rena]

Hi,
I suggest you look in the modern German white page phone book on this webpage and click on English version.  Enter your surname in the lefthand box which asks for "Name/place/no. and click on search/suchen. About 26 names with their address, phone nos. will come up.

http://www.dastelefonbuch.de/

The address contains a number (rather like our zip codes)instead of a town/district/ort and unfortunately I'm not up on these but if you click on each surname you will see the next page has a facility to click on a map for the address.  I suggest you make a list of each name and from the maps find out which district/town has the highest number of your surname.  With luck this will be the original town of origin for your ancesters.  You then have to find the area archives for the area you have chosen and you'll have to Google for church archives/'kirchen archives' or 'genealogie'.  Often it's a large church diocese which houses them.
Good luck
Rena - searching in Kingdom of Hannover

[carol8353]

Rena

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'll try it, and see what it tells me.

All the best

Carol

[jorose]

I can tell you that by marrying Eugene, Lydia would have lost her British nationality.  I don't believe the women/children were interned, just the men:

http://www.movinghere.org.uk/galleries/roots/intro/migration/parliament5.htm#

http://www.duden.de/index2.html?duden-suche/werke/famnamen/000/004/Firnkorn.4605.html - incidentally, the name means a farmer or corn-dealer. 

[Rena]

My gt.grandfather was born 1845 in what is now Saxony, Germany, arriving here mid 1860's and upon his marriage to a Yorkshire woman automatically was able to call himself a British Subject which can be seen against many names on census entries.  All four of his sons born between 1876 - 1894 in Yorkshire were conscripted into the British army & one was killed in action 1918 and their immigrant father had to report daily to the local police station.  However, a cousin of the boys was interned in Knockaloe.  I heard this story when I was young and now that I have taken up genealogy I realise the reason behind this was that the English born cousin did not have any English forebears/lineage and the fact that some of his family had lived in England over 40 years didn't amount to much.

Rena

[carol8353]

Thanks for that website Jorose. I know that the family moved to Germany when war borke out- not sure of exactly the year,but a relation recalls her motehr getting letters to say that her sister Lydia was being stoned by German women if she went out in the street.

What a horrible lifestyle- and all cos she fell in love.Their son, of course born here in 1907, would have been British I assume?

Carol

[Rena]

In those days father was the legal guardian. I suppose it's something else to research!

good luck,
Rena

[loo]

Your story is very interesting.  You might, when you have time, find some interesting reading in the bibliography I have posted on WW1 internments:  http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,112434.0.html   

It is my understanding that men could never gain citizenship by marrying British women during the 19th C., but that many of them chose to pretend they had acquired it by listing themselves as British Subjects on census forms (no verification of the information they reported was required for the census).  If I could lay my hands on the source of this information, I would happily give it to you!  However, the version of the immigration act which was current at the time would be the authority.  Kew claims that all naturalisations during this period are recorded there, but there are many more people listed as naturalised on the census than have records at the PRO, including some of my own rellies.  The fact that Rena's ggf had to report regularly demonstrates that he was an alien, not a naturalised Brit, as far as I know.
It's true that the women also lost their citizenship automatically, and also lived with restrictions, but I don't know of any being interned.  The book on St. Stephen's House discusses the plight of the wives and children at some length in Chapters 7 and 8.

I can't account for the cousin being interned, except if he was considered to be of an age where he could be militarily useful but was still living in his father's household and therefore could be seen to be subject to his father's will.  They did not bother with male children who were not old enough to fight.

[throckenholt]

I have one where the husband came over from Hanover in the 1870s, married an English girl and had kids in London - he died in 1909.  In 1915 she (the wife) was renaturalised - she lost her nationality when she married - mainly because of the stigma of being "German" and all her sons were on active service with teh British Army at the time.

Her naturalisation papers were available through the national archive service - so that may be a place to check if there are any details of deportation.  I thought they interned German nationals - hadn't heard they deported them (could they do that - given they were at war with the other country at the time ?).