2009 is Looking Pretty Good
Posted by David | Filed under Burger, Germany, genealogy, news
Back in July, I attended a panel discussion hosted by one of the St. Louis Genealogical Society’s subgroups, the German Special Interest Group. The one tip that stuck with me the most was to send letters to everyone who could possibly help. Send a letter to the mayor. Send a letter to the church/pastor. Send a letter to a local history museum. Just send letters. The more the better.
A couple of days later, I went to the post office and bought several International Reply Coupons. I typed a couple of sets of letters targeting Friedewald and Kaudorf, where my REINMÜLLER and BURGER ancestors once lived. The goal was to make it obvious I was really interested in finding new information for my ancestors. I was hopeful for responses from Friedewald, but anything at all would have been icing on the cake considering that I am already in contact with the regional Evangelical Archive for this area and they have been very helpful so far.
About two weeks after the letters were mailed, I received a reply from the Bürgermeister (mayor) of Bechhofen. (Kaudorf is now part of Bechhofen). He forwarded my letter to the church which now had the records for Kaudorf.
Roughly two weeks later, I went to the library in a futile attempt to finish a roll of microfilm so that I could have it sent back to Salt Lake City rather than renewing for another month. I stayed until the library closed, grabbed a late dinner and watched a DVD that had come in the mail. I did not look at the rest of the mail until right before bed, which was a mistake because one of the envelopes caused me not to get much sleep that night.
The postmark was German and the town name was one I recognized as being near Kaudorf. Inside the envelope was a three-page letter with information for five generations of my BURGER ancestors. My request had made its way to a local researcher who occasionally volunteers to help with records from the many small villages in the area around Kaudorf.
While I was, and still am, excited and happy to have all of this information, it also felt good to know that the collateral research I and a cousin had been pursuing was worth the effort. It turns out that our belief of another group of BURGERs who also resided (briefly) in Grundy County, Illinois, were in fact related. More specifically, the two men we thought were brothers to our Georg Stephan BURGER were in fact his younger brothers, and the woman named as their mother was Georg Stephan’s mother, too. (The only downer from this discovery is realizing that the missing immigration and burial information for a once suspected relative is now the missing, and unlikely to be found, missing information for a confirmed ancestor.)
The bottom line is, if you know the name of a town where an ancestor was from and you cannot get information from the Family History Library or any other local resources, just take the plunge and write to as many people as possible. My letters were in English and I still got results.
Genealogically, this year is shaping up to be pretty successful. Finally taking the next step, making contact in Germany, is starting to pay off.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I was interested to learn of your search for REINMÜLLER families since my great-grandmother was from Friedewald before settling in rural Dwight, IL.