As some of you may have read, last week I found a living relative in Germany
and I wrote them a letter. Well today I received an email from them, and it
was in English! Just wanted to share my joy. No information has been
exchanged yet, except for the fact that they are indeed my relatives! Wish me
continued success please!
andrea wieters
Congratulation!!! What a find! Keep us informed.
Pat
AndiLea19@aol.com wrote:
As some of you may have read, last week I found a living relative in Germany and I wrote them a letter. Well today I received an email from them, and it was in English! Just wanted to share my joy. No information has been exchanged yet, except for the fact that they are indeed my relatives! Wish me continued success please!
Congratulations, Andrea! I'm so happy for you!
I do hope you get to meet in person, as well.
Mona
We share your joy! Congratulations!
Peggy
Continued success indeed. Genealog-osis sometimes works. 
Pull the life raft, it's no longer needed.
Jb
Hi
Is that not great?
I had the same experience in the 1990s, with several lines, and had to fly
over and visit them!
Bob Doerr in the beautiful Missouri Ozarks
Hi Andrea,
Congratulations on Germany replying, this is great news indeed, I hope they are as excited as you are. I think this is truly wonderful. You have now given me a little more incentive to get on with finding my German family. All of my mothers Ancestors on both sides of her family are German and after leaving Germany for Holland they then worked with and for the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and ended up in Ceylon and South Africa. I have found most of them in those countries but have not yet found the German roots. Anyhow Andrea I do wish you all the best of luck with your new found family !!!!
Regards from
MaryJane.
MaryJane,
Have you posted the names of your German family on this list?
Hi R & B ,
Thank you for asking and yes I left them here a couple of time but here they are again for your information.........
Fredrik (or could it be Fredrick) ANDREE from Celle Hannover, he arrived in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) via Holland in c1764 (in the records I have he was a Soldier) so he could have been born around 1740ish ?
Godfried KOCH b 11th September 1734 in Alt Ruppin, Brandenberg, Germany, he arrived in Ceylon via Holland a little before 1760 as he was married in ceylon in 1760.
John Andre LORENZ (could have been Johann Andree ? LORENZ I do not know the date of birth but he died in Templeburg Germany in 1777, have no info on his wife but I do know that he had a son Johann Friedrick Wilhelm LORENZ who was born in Templeburg, Germany on the 25th June 1772, he also went on to Ceylon as he married in there in 1805.
I have another name of OERTEL but I am not sure whether they came from Germany or Poland ?? My GG Grandfather was an Edward Carl OERTEL whose father probably went to South Africa as I can find no info in Ceylon re the Oertels but I do know there are some in S A but no joy with them as yet. E C Oertel was probaly born around 1858
The are the first few names I am looking for at his time , there are more but If i can get these families found at some stage then I shall seek the rest of them, a few at a time , it's not easy I know. I have their genealogies more or less up to the present time but nothing before their Ceylon arrival. There are patterns of first names which may help ? Just ask for these and I wil glady let you have them.
I know that Andree and Koch are quite common German names and Lorenz is not a rare name either , so I have a feeling it will be like looking for a Smith or a Jones in England !!!
I am to be married (after us being together for 17years) in Ceylon in the City where my mother was born and in the Chruch where she was Christened (in about 20 months time, possibly before ?) and it would be so wonderful to invite my German cousins as well as all my Ceylon (Sri Lanka) cousins along with those who live elswhere in the world who want to come too. BTW I shall be a 55 year old bride then by then it is better late than never lol
If and when I find my German family !!! they will not only gain myself but a heap of other cousins world wide too. Maybe that is enough to scare them off lol .......poor things
Many Thanks ,
MaryJane.......in Suffolk UK.
Informative article I just ran across on a RW list:
How German Is American?
http://mki.wisc.edu/HGIA/Settling.htm
Includes a distribution map of Germans in America from 1890 that is a winner (evidence strongly suggests Germans must have something for the Great Lakes).
http://mki.wisc.edu/HGIA/Census_map.htm
Get your printers ready. That includes you Rena. :-o
Jb
hallo Mary-Jane
I just clicked on this site..and some 90 odd OERTEL's came up in Cape town,
that is where you need to look first, before ppl wandered elsewhere inSouth
Africa.
If you find one of your choice, let me know.. i go wednesday to Cape town,
to the archives...
copy the notes coming up, like KAB MOOC or whatever..the numbers and all..
then i can send you the further details, which will be in cape town, and can
make some digi's for you.
Kind regards
Willemine
South africa
Hello again,
I came across this website which lists your Fredrick Andree from
Zelle Prussia. You may have been in contact with the person with that
listing:
http://www.kingsgrovesports.com.au/default.cfm?l1=4&l2=25&l3=0&l4=0&l5=0
Scroll down and you will see Andrees listed. Perhaps you could contact
the person who has that information.
I'm wondering if the Celle you referred to should be Zelle. There are
many towns named Zell in Germany. However, I did find a very small town
called "Zelle" on mapquest.com. It is south of Berlin near the 101
highway, east of Wiesenhagen (which is south of Trebbin).
I know nothing about that part of Germany. It is also possible that the
Andrees came from one of the many cities named Zell--or Celle.
Barbara
Hi,
Correction! Zelle is west of Wiesenhagen, not east. It must be very
small because it doesn't even show up in my very detailed autoatlas, but it
is on Mapquest.
You have Godfried Koch from Alt Ruppin, Brandenburg which is a very
small town, northwest of Berlin. A town by the name of Neuruppin is nearby.
My map shows churches there. You may find church (or other) records from
that town. For some reason, I cannot get into the LDS Family History
Library Catalog today. The search page works, but not the Catalog. I'm
wondering if you may find some records from there as well as Zelle.
And...the German phone book lists several Kochs today from Neuruppin and
Alt Ruppin.
As for John Andre Lorenz-- I think the town is spelled Tempelberg. It is
quite small and it does show a church there. It is east of Berlin. There
are phone book listings for Lorenz in that general area.
It is interesting that these towns are all somewhere in the Brandenburg.
Maybe they all got the word about Ceylon. I hope the LDS has some films for
those towns, but I still can't get through to the Catalog.
Go to http://meta.genealogy.net/metasuche/index.jsp search for all
those names and Brandenburg. You will find some of the names you are
searching for. There are some people you might contact there.
Look for Oertel there as well.
Good luck!
Barbara
Hi Will ,
You did not leave the URL of the site you cliicked on ?
My Oertels are as follows,
My Maternal grand mother was Martha Mary Oertel, born 1 November 1881 in (Ceylon)Sri Lanka. She was the daughter of Edward Carl Oertel and Elden Georgiana Walker.
Edward Carl Oertel and Georgina Walker married in Ceylon as far as I know but I think Edward Carl Oertel came across form South Africa?
Sorry I have NO dates other than what I have left here. So assuming E C Oertel was about 23 when he got married and perhaps a year later had my grandmother that would make his approximate DOB around the 1857 mark ?? Thank you so much for any help or links to this family that you can find.
MaryJane .(UK)
Hi Barbara ,
Thank you for searching but yes i do know the person who has that site , he is actualy cousin of mine and we have been in contact for some time now.
The DBU records in Ceylon state Fredrik Andree as coming from Zella or Celle Prussia (does that make a difference?)
I ,as other did, thought that perhaps because of Fredrik's strong German accent the Ceylonese could have taken the sound and pronunciation of the word Celle as Zella , Fredrik would have had to slowly pronouce his words as they were not totally English speaking at that time, The English came later on to Ceylon. So Celle would have been slowly pronounced as C (Z) E L L E, that's the theory behind the madness if you get what I mean ? lol.
MaryJane
This is very exciting, Andrea. It is a very emotional feeling to actually walk the paths of the village of your ancestors and to imagine them in that place. I'm sure you have many exciting adventures in store for you. Since we're both from this small village, I guess that makes us cousins!
Linda
http://www.national.archsrch.gov.za/sm300cv/smws/sm300qi?20060822204806EC032
384%26FUNC%3DN
sorry Mary Jane..
in Pretoria there are quite a few... have a look which ones you need.. and
will ask someone to have a look in PTA..
Cape town, sofar: not much... so trying the grandmothers name..thought of
Ellen, but dont think it is right.
play a bit.. and see what names you might recognize... and if not
tomorrow... probably within 14 days i will again to Cape T.
DEPOT KAB
SOURCE MOOC
TYPE LEER
VOLUME_NO 6/9/747
SYSTEM 01
REFERENCE 905
PART 1
DESCRIPTION WALKER, ELLEN. NEE WALKER. DEATH NOTICE.
STARTING 19140000
ENDING 19140000
I have not yet made a genealogy visit to Hannover because I'm still working to ascertain which little boy of the same age with the same name was my great-grandfather on the 1851 Census.
However, the other side of the family, from another part of Germany, revealed itself in early 1991 when we were given (12 years after the written request for information and the cashing of our contribution check) a copy of an autobiography handwritten in old German script by our immigrant's youngest son upon his entrance into a seminary in Maryland in 1851 (along with the record of all his religious assignments and the daily diary of his final months in the infirmary).
The autobiography told where he was born, the maiden name of his deceased mother and their village, name of their village church, etc. I was set! I had found "our place of origin!" And within 6 months I was there, standing in that church, walking those streets, feeling all that emotion you describe, Linda! I cried, it was just so impossible to believe!
In the next 12 years, I was to learn much more. For example, my ancestors changed villages in that general area every generation! They were tradesmen, not farmers! Just how many millers or blacksmiths or tailors could one tiny village employ? So one son would inherit and the remainder had to migrate! Hopefully they found good apprenticeships, married the boss's daughter, and inherited the business and the home. But move they did!
Then I learned that the direct male line in that region which carried the surname of my grandmother (which I'd always argued was French and not German) actually came to this part of Germany only in the 17th century -- and from the French-speaking Netherlands, Wallonia, with one indigo dyer moving on over to Germany when the Tapestry industry became so popular and widespread in the 17th century -- and thereafter the line intermarried with local, long-established Germans.
In 2004 I went back to 14 villages (counting those of wives) and didn't have time for the rest that I knew about! We went to the harbor of Antwerp and walked the old cobblestones at the harbor from which their sailing ship left for a truly treacherous voyage to New York.
Heading to Germany again in December, I plan to see more ..... and I hope I'll have the other side's "place of origin" in Hannover and perhaps even that "place of origin" for the 1600s in Belgium to visit also, this time!
So our ancestors moved just as we do. Maybe "the place" will turn out to be just one of many for you, too!
I recommend to each person to look for web sites for your villages before you go, through Alta Vista, Google and other search engines. I have had enormous luck in finding those, learning from them, having those who maintain the websites find for me and show me our ancestral homes and businesses, etc., etc.
Isn't this fun?
Maureen