Don't give up on finding your German ancestors

[loo]

I never ever thought I would find mine, but I have!!!!!

I didn't know where exactly they came from, so it seemed hopeless, as all the expert advice says you must know exactly where they are from in order to proceed.  I did know it was Hannover area, but that includes lots of villages.

After two years of digging around all over the place, the Lower Saxony Archives online gave me an Auswanderer (emigrant) record and the name of a village for one of the people I was pursuing.  However, the curt response from the archivist to my query was that even if I insisted on pursuing this record when I wasn't sure it was mine, she would not be able to help me by sending it, at any price!  However, in another stroke of luck, I found the Kirchenbuch (parish register) for that village online, in German, and I was able to construct a genealogy for that surname in that village, although I was not positive this emigrant was related to me.
Then, one of my other recently-discovered relatives posted all the info in a query on a German genealogy site, and, presto, we found our entire family.  The person who responded had, for many years, wondered and talked with older relatives about what ever had happened to the 4 men who had left and gone to London in the late 19thC., who were still very much alive in memory.  After having no contact for about 100 years, the family is becoming reunited, and my mum, well into her 80s but very well, finally has a second cousin, to whom she even bears a physical resemblance (she never had any second cousins before).  Plus we have a history, and records going back to the 1500s!  Our new relatives seem like very nice and forthcoming people;  they instantly mailed us copies of a large number of documents.  I have no doubt at all that we have the right family.

Never, ever give up!  It can happen to you!!

Thanks to Rena and JustinL, who helped me out on this.

[lesleyhannah]

You are so lucky!! All I have are two certificates for my great grandfather - his marriage and death certs in the UK. His name sounds very German (but could be Dutch, Austrian etc) but because I didn't know my father's family, and they're all dead now, I guess I'll never discover the truth. Unlike my husband's German ancestors, my relative was a poor man, unlikely to have been naturalised, so there are just no clues.

So I was born with a German surname, and have no idea where it came from! So, I really appreciate your happiness in finding your family. I think your story will inspire others to keep looking.

[aghadowey]

Fantastic news Loo. Now you'll have to start planning a trip to Germany!
I have been able to trace my German relatives since my Grandmother knew the church she was baptised in, where her parents were born, names of grandparents and uncles & aunts although all contact had been lots years ago. So, a few years ago I wrote a letter addressed with the surname and name of village and got a reply from my mother's 2nd cousin. Since then we've kept in touch. Last May he, daughter, daughter-in-law & grand-daughter came to visit us in Ireland and in August I went there with 2 daughters. Everyone was so friendly and the village was just like my grandmother told me- the church on the hill to the left, their house up the hill on the right, etc. The food was wonderful either homemade or local and we even did a bit of sightseeing and shopping. Can't wait to go back some time.

[loo]

Yes, I do hope to meet my German family.  Trying to bone up on German at the moment, and finding it very difficult!!

Since I posted this, I have found another German link in another branch of my family - it seems that one of my father's previously-unknown second cousins married a German refugee from Hitler in New York city after WW2, and they moved eventually to Switzerland.  He is still living, and I'm trying to make contact at the moment.  This one is very interesting because, although the wife has unfortunately died, the husband has written some books which are extremely interesting to me, and had a very interesting family story of his own, regarding the build-up to the Nazi era, and their flight from Germany.  Some in my family had already heard of this family because of an interest in the subject, but never dreamed we were related.  The books are all in German, but me and my big fat dictionary are trying!!!...

But, to those of you who are still looking, take heart.  I did not even know my (German) great-grandfather's forename when I started.  All I knew was his surname and the fact that he came from "the continent".  The censuses gave me forename and "Hannover", and several other fellows with the same surname whom we had never heard of, but turned out to be relatives.

[springtime 60]

thank you for giving me hope  after reading your post i am hoping one day to trace my greatgrandmother who i know little about or where she was born.
i keep trying and one day i to hope to track her down. maybe there are relatives of hers that are wondering and trying to trace my connection
                   thank you again
                          ann

[springtime 60]

i looked at the lower saxon archives site and forwarded a request by email for help in looking for my great grandmother , i was intersted with your success from the site i had an email back asking for my postal address ,did this happen to you and was there a charge for the research i am just a liitle concerned that it is  an offical site and why should tthey askfor my address  before hand
                                         ann

[minchmike]

That is really encouraging.  I'm still looking for my German relatives and have just sent details to a German Genealogy publication so I'm hoping for some results.

[loo]

Ann:

That's interesting.  I got a totally different kind of response.  They sent me a letter (in English) by email, telling me that they couldn't possibly search out the record I had asked for in order to send it to me, "for internal reasons".  I shouldn't think it was confidential, so I  assumed they just didn't have any capacity for doing that sort of thing.  The archivist gave me the names of two professional genealogists who work in the area.  So, in short, the Lower Saxony Archives were not helpful at all.  But I got a roadblock-removing clue from searching their website, and was able to take that information and match it up with other information from another website.

Just to be very clear, I never got an actual record of any sort from the Archives.  I merely found info on their online index. 

I think they just ask for your address because they're a bureaucratic organization, and they like to keep track of everything.  Perhaps if you're German, you get put on a different track "internally".

I now have much better help!  My newfound German rellie is going to the Lower Saxony Archives in person tomorrow to look some things up!   

[KIWIBRIT]

Loo,

I too am looking for German & Austrian relatives. My great grandparents are shown on the 1901 census in London as being from these countries.

My family thought my great grandfather was French up until I found this census info a week ago, his surname was Radocaj (though the census had it as Radoschey) he was a Master Hairdresser working from home and his nationality is shown as Austrian. That's all that is known about him.

My great grandmother (surname Prohl) was supposedly from Tegel, Berlin and the census does show her as German so the family got that bit right.

I have their wedding certificate from 1896, the census info and my grandmother's birth cert also from 1901 (shown on the census as 4 day old infant child - good timing for the census).

I am struggling with where to go from here with both of them. Do you know of any records I could search in Tegel (I know the approximate year of her birth) and any of the same in Austria?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sean