Dear Listers,
I have visited the 1852 census project and have
questions which I hope
somebody can answer. I am looking for Heinrich
Flemme the father of my great grandfather Hermann
Flemme (born 1854), but that
name does not appear
on the census. However ....1) Does anyone know of an on-line website which has a
sample of the old
handwriting style? In particular I am wondering if a
faded "FL" could be
mistaken for "H".2) Where in modern day Germany is "Hoya", is it still
known by that name and
is it pronounced with 2 syllables, "Hoy - a" or with a
silent 'H' ?Rena (England).
Hi Rena:
Your problem with letters in script reminded me of my
search for my grandfather's mother's family. I looked
at one of my greataunts death certificates and was
convinced that the name was Heddermeyer. Searching for
that name produced no results. My grandfather was from
Anderten Amt Hoya KOH, so I ordered the census from
Jens. Guess what? In Anderten there where a whole lot
of Neddermeyers.
I have a ring bound book (88 pages): "If I can You Can
Decipher Germanic Records" by Edna M. Bentz. ISBN
0-9615420-0-4. It has alphabets-German-Danish, use of
umlauts, relationships terminology and symbols,
abreviations, church year and feasts, months and years,
glossary of illnesses and occupations in German, Latin
and Danish.
She has an extensive list of how each letter may have
been written. However, that in itself becomes a
problem, because she has as many as 30 variations for
each (Upper case) letter. In the case of F, at least
half of the variations look like an F. There are others
that look like G R P T and J. However, the lower
case letters are easier. For l, there are 9
variations, most of which look like a l. If you look
at an entire sentence and compare each letter to her
examples you can figure out the characters which may be
in question. However, the next sentence is written by
someone else----and you are back at 0. The only time I
really had luck was in a situation where the same
pastor made all the entries for baptisms,
confirmations, weddings, etc for an 8 year period. The
consistency was great.
In reference to your comment about Hoya 1, Hoya 2, etc.
It sounds like you may be confused with the census
break down into parts: i.e. Hoya part 1 Hoya part 2,
etc. Jens can best fill you in on that question.
Gale Bösche