Alexander, Good luck with everything. [I should have taken this off board.]
I think what will make everyone want to read the book is that mystery and the search. We feel your drive. And now we feel part of your search. Maybe for book two!! You have expressed your drive to find him so well. I and others know somewhat that feeling. I have it to find the unknown father of my Grandmother.
I don't have pictures of him and I may never find anything. He is not a person to me yet. I have a name August and that he died from kidney infection by a certain date. However, that could have been made up for the insurance papers. If not, at least they knew enough to write that. ? But the drive to dig is there. Almost the same goes for her mothers sisters. I just had to know. Thanks to Hans Peter Albers I was able to find out about them. So I can close the chapter somewhat. In away, For me that much information seems to bring them to life.
While I was browsing the Hitzacker and Dannenberg area by the east border, I realized the Nazi and Polish problem couldn't be ignored. [For one becasue the concentration camps were in near distance there and in Belsen Bergen]And not to be ignored because of the difficulties in research.
I can not imagine all the obstacles, difficulties you probably have had to get this far. I hope others in the know can help you. I am hoping good will makes its way to you. I can imagine that the book and the attention will draw the right information or the right people to you.
I hope more and more records do come to the light. I imagine you have a lot of tips of methods in your book.
When I was researching my grandmothers mothers sisters, I misunderstood some names I was given. They turned out to be in Danzig. It was not the Gr grandmothers sisters or family of Himbergen, Uelzen. The mistake was also because the area mentioned was Silesia.
Their names belonged to a person from near Danzig that immigrated from Eckersdorf. I have not attempted anything with what is now Poland. I know it will be difficult. I don't even know how to begin it yet. Probably to find the church. I am not sure, if I will like to know the horrors that they may have had to face like those of Czechoslovakia/Bohemia.
There are family secrets too and many want them to stay that way. I will have to stress the Privacy issue. So that will make it more difficult to keep the secrets and still dig. And that will be yet another Mailing list I will need to join. I will keep my discussion of that family to another list. Though border areas do bring problems to those in Hannover kingdom.
History is there and can't be ignored.
Franco Prussian war
In regards to my last post about the six week Franco Prussian War. I want to say there are some really good sites in great detail about the two sides of the war. So much on each battle. One article said that the citizens took up arms and I have been thinking that could be one way My Wilhelm could have been captured December 1870.
I wanted to read about dysentery and typus [is that caused by fleas] and the hardships. In Paris because the city was circled and blocked the French were starving and eating their horses. It mentioned There was forest at the area around the block which the german soldiers had to pass. With the robbing, potshotting and other crimes going on. I lost my battery Power after I read they ate their last horse.....
I am not sure about the climate of Metz and the other areas of France. William only had one pair of boots, one coat, Uniform, socks, and hat. One thing I noted is that Landwher [ could be spelled wrong] soldiers came to fight at the end. I shall have to go back a issue or two and see the meaning of that landwher. It said They had Wives and family and were older in their Forties or more. They were probably not good marksman or in combat physical shape. I don't agree with that opinion. Nor this one. That they would be more willing to surrender because of those who depended on them. The advantage though is that they were fresh to combat.
I thought that at that time period the young men joined around twenty years of age and were stuck in the military for a good many years. I don't think he was a landwer because he fought in Sch. Holstein/Denmark and Austria. I wonder how the others could become landwher and not be stuck in the service as long as William Meyer?
I'd give a link to that really good site I had found with such good detail, but the battery drained last night before I finished reading. Now, I have to google it all over again. And I have Holiday work to be done.
Thanks for the time,space, and attention.
Happy Holidays
jo Meyer