Liebe List,
Last summer, I had a "DUH!" moment that I thought I would share with the list,
as it may help some of you, too! I suddenly realized that if we have our US
telephone books available on line, that maybe the Germans do as well (that was
the DUH!).
So I googled "German Telephone Book" and found several choices. I chose Das
Telefonbuch Deutschland simply because it had a button saying "Translate this
Page".
It helped to have a map open at the same time I tried to use the phone book.
Why? I had to know not only the towns that I wanted to search, but I also
needed to determine the postal area in which the town is located, because there
is more than one town in Sachsen with the same name. The name of the postal
area appears to be same as a town name in the vicinity (perhaps it's where the
mail truck comes from). So, when they give me the options for the locality, I
looked on the map and matched the name of a nearby town. I had two choices:
Lampertswalde b Großenhain Sachs OR Lampertswalde - Cavertitz. So, I looked at
the map of "my" Lampertswalde and found Cavertz less than 3 miles away. So I
picked that one and found there were 13 entries of my SURNAME in the Cavertz
postal area.
I do not speak/write German but I do have cousins from another branch of my
family tree who live in Germany and who have a pretty grasp of English. I
contacted them and they were more than happy to act as my translators. I wrote
a letter in English that explained who I am, what I was looking for, and all of
the information I had regarding my known family members from Lampertswalde and
forwarded it for translation... When it returned, I printed it and stuffed the
envelopes. I went to the post office and purchased international postage ($.92)
for each and sent them off. (Note: I had previously inquired at the Post Office
about including a self-addressed return postage envelope because it is expensive
to mail to The States from Germany. But, they said that they are no longer able
to do that.)
I never did receive a snail mail letter, but had included my e-dress with my
contact info. A few weeks later, I received an e-mail saying they were replying
for six of the addresses I mailed to... that the six families were all related
to each other, but unfortunately, not to me, However, Beate indicated that if I
was unable to connect with any of my relatives, she would be happy to go to the
church in my grandfather's home town to see if she could find any records for
me. Well, no one else responded so after a few more weeks, I emailed her back,
accepting her gracious offer.
There were problems... She only speaks German and Google Translate doesn't work
well with conversational German. This meant that many of her emails had to be
forwarded to my cousin for translation. And, then, my emails had to be sent
back to my cousin for translation into German. Both took staggered vacations so
there were times when several weeks passed before I heard from one or the other.
When Beate got to the church, the records were written in Old German so she had
to wait for a volunteer who reads Old English to show up at the Church (and of
course, he was on vacation!) to translate the records into modern German.
So, it wasn't until many months later, and the help of my two German "Engels der
Ahnenforschung" (Geneology Angels) that I discovered the names of three of my
2grGPs and of one of my 3grGFathers. The exact dates of my grandfather's
siblings birth have been confirmed and I found out the name of my grGFather's
first wife. Beate believes there may be more information available so I am
standing by for more family news!!!
So, if you know what town your German ancestors came from and if you don't speak
the language but have some one who can do translations for you, I highly
recommend trying this research method! It definitely worked for me!!!
KBo