As regards terminology that is referenced on a entry found on Ancestry.com "Brandenburg Emigration Records" database for a passenger who emigrated in 1853 to North America. Can anyone suggest the meaning of the German word "Riemengeselle" as found in the database column heading: "Standing"?
Bette,
"Riemengeselle" is nonsense; I guess it's a misspelling and should read "Riemergeselle", where "Geselle" is a craftsman's assistant: someone who has learnt a profession and has been examined, but has not yet delivered his masterpiece. A "Geselle" was often required by guild regulations to travel for some years and work for craftsmen in different locations before he could himself become "Meister" (i.e. "master", meaning a craftsmen with full rights, like the right to run a shop or manufactury of his own). Travelling made him a "Wandergeselle", i.e. journeyman.
"Riemer" or "Riemenschneider" is a girdler (or belt-maker, or harness-maker), a profession that is hardly known these days anymore, but was still much in demand in 1853. Anyway, life could be quite tough for a "Geselle" if he didn't get the chance to become "Meister" (often it took year and years of travelling, and quite some money to pay the fee for the "Meister"-examination), and emigration was a popular way out of this misery, for in the German and Austrian states there was no way around the strict guild regulations. Emigration records are full of this-or-that-geselle. Later on in the 19th century you will find more and more this-or-that-meister entries in the records because industrialisation made more and more handycraft redundant.
By the way: if you do not know where an emigrant comes from (in your case it's obviously Brandenburg, but imagine you didn't have a clue), the profession (or "standing") entry can give you a hint. A girdler's assistant from Northern Germany would have called himself "Riemenschneidergeselle" instead of "Riemergeselle". And a butcher from Brandenburg would have called himself "Fleischer", while a butcher from Bavaria would be called "Metzger". Maybe this would be a project worthwhile for genealogy.net: a map showing the local names of old professions. But I'm afraid it would take a full-blown linguist to do it properly...
Best regards
Frank Horn, Frankfurt am Main