Prussia - Papenfuss

[meles]

Working on OH's tree. Mother's maiden name is Papenfuss. Surely such an unusual name will be easy to trace? 

Found them coming from Prussia in the late 1800's.

So - how do I look up Prussian records? Any other Papenfusseseses out there?

meles

[KGarrad]

Probably depends on where in Prussia?

What was Prussia is now spread over: Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium, Czech Republic, and Switzerland!

[meles]

I knew this would be hard...

No idea. The South African papers just say "Prussia". I assumed that the name was Germanic.

meles

[KGarrad]

So he could be German . . . or Polish, or Czech, or . . . !!!

Even if he was German, you need to know which State?

Maybe the Anglo-German Family History Society could help?

[Gaie]

Hi

There's lots of Papenfusses on FamilySearch.  Selecting "Papenfuss" "Germany" "1800"-"1900" seems to bring up the Prussian ones, including Berlin, Hanover/Hannover and Danzig (Gdansk) amongst other place-names.

A lot of the Papenfusses have two or three first names; hopefully this will help you find your ones if they're included in the database.

There's even 23 on FreeBMD!

KR
Gaie

[Gaie]

Ancestry say the name is north German/Dutch:

http://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=papenfuss

[meles]

Oh, thanks, Gale. Will explore that line.

meles

[Gaie]

A couple of sites just in case they came from Poland:

The Poznan Project, which is a database of marriages in the Poznan region in the 19th century, has 35 exact matches for Papenfuss; use the "Simple surname search" in the blue box on the right:

http://poznan-project.psnc.pl/

Geneteka, which is very much a work in progress but has births, marriages and deaths, has 95 records for the surname in the Pomorskie and Kujawsko-Pomorskie regions:

http://www.geneszukacz.genealodzy.pl/lang-eng

Click on the "Strona główna" button to the right of the little house icon to get a map of the regions in Poland.  Added:  Otherwise, http://geneteka.genealodzy.pl/

Urodzenia is Births
Zgony is Deaths
Małżeństwa is Marriage

If you can find their passenger lists they may have more information on their origins.

[meles]

Oh, that's interesting. OH now working his way through it all.

Thanks for the links.

meles