Dear Liste members,
I have a number of addressed envelopes to Amerika with difficult-to-decipher
handwriting of the originator addresses. Sadly, there are no house
addresses, and the letters were destroyed because my grandmother did not
want them to survive because she could not read German and did not
understand their content. Luckily my Aunt, when carrying out her mother's
wishes, thought to save the envelopes.
Below are links on google.docs to four scans. Is anyone able to determine
what the meaning of eigener is in this usage, and what the other words such
as Abfc?, Ob/Abfimder? mean?
I am stumped.
Thank you for your assistance.
Suzanne Berger
Dear Suzanne,
I read
1.
Absender (= Addresser) B. Hengemühle in Borkhorn
bei Löningen Amt Cloppenburg
Grosherzogth.(um) Oldenburg
Absdr. (Absender) Eigener (could be bondsman) B. Hengemühle in Borkhorn
bei Löningen Amt Cloppenburg
Grosherzugthum Oldenburg
2.
Absender Eigener B. Hengemühle in Borkhorn
bei Löningen Amt Cloppenburg
Grosherzogth.(um) Oldenburg
3.
Absender Eigener B. Hengemühle in Borkhorn
bei Löningen Amt Cloppenburg
Grosherzogth.(um) Oldenburg
Abs. (Absender) Heinr. Rolfes
Borkhorn b(bei)/Löningen
Deutschland
4.
Heinrich Hengemühle. Anvisiert (was aimed by Mr. Grote of Zeller)
bei Zeller H. Grote, Ahausen
in Oldenburgischen
Regards,
Traute (Buck)
I'm not very good at deciphering German script. Bob Benen can do this
very well but here's some help. Abs. stands vor Absendert or return
address and Eigner is simply the title of an owner of a farm. In other
uses you might see Zeller instead as the last of your items
illustrate. Zeller = Bauer or farmer who farms his own land vs a
Heuermann who doesn't own.
Fred
Absender Eigener B. Hengemühle in Borkhorn
bei Löningen Amt Cloppenburg
Thanks Buck & Fred, between the two of you, alles klar!
Absender = Addresser , of course! (You should see the palm print on my
forehead.)
Interesting appendages to names. Is this still common in Germany?
So Eigener means B. Hengemühle owned his farm in Borkhorn and one of the
letters was sent via Zeller H. Grote, and Zeller means Herr Grote owned and
worked his own farm in Ahausen.
I still owe on my mortgage so I'm signing off as,
Mortgager S. Berger
´¯`·.¸¸..><((((º>·´¯`·.¸¸..><((((º>·´¯`·.¸¸..><((((º>·´¯`·.¸¸..><((((º>´¯`·.¸¸..><((((º>´¯`·.¸
*Congress: Spending money not yet earned - to be paid by children not yet
born.*
You got it. Germans and their titles are legendary the world over.
Everybody has a place and needs to let everyone else know what it is.
Ever see all the titles behind a doctorate of any kind?
It all goes back to the feudal society where all this started.
Today it is quite common to see titles such as Dr. Dr. rer. nat. ..... etc
fred
Fred, thanks for another great tip. I will write and let you know, but I
will do my LDS homework first. What is crazy is that we are talking about
such a small region and I have connections to so many old families from just
that one little area, e.g., Hengemühle, Huebener, Renken, Macke, Shulte,
Kessen, Vanderheide, Kemphaus, Lamping, Thole, Schnieders, Künner, Bergmann,
Wedemeyer, Eveslage, Strüwing, kl. Arkenau, und Rolfes. We're talking
Borkhorn, Löningen, Essen, Osteressen, Bünne, Ahausen, Uptloh, Addrup,
Brokstreek, Quakenbruck and Dinklage = less than 25 mi start to finish.
~Suzanne
Hi Fred and Susan,
I don't think, that this has anything to do with titles.
In older times there were not many different names. The most usual names were Johann, Josef, Heinrich, Maria, Elisabeth. So people had a problem to talk about a person with the name Johann Meyer. Is that the farmer Johann Meyer or the tailer Johann Meyer?
The profession in front of the name was to differ the Johann Meyer's not to show a tilte.
But Fred, you are right when you write that some titles are legendary. That are not the farmer and the tailer. More the Kammerherr, Komerzienrat and so on. Today you find nothing like this in germany, maybe in Austria. The tiles Dr.Dr. rer. nat. you wrote is title you get on the university when you study mathematics, chemical, physics and so on. Often when I get mails from the U.S. I see the signature Ph.D., Doctor ....
This has nothting to do with "legandary" german titles. This title somone gets for his knowledge!
I hope you see the different.
Kind regards
Bernd Bl�mer
M.o.c.c. & M.o.t.h.i.
(Member of the catolic churh & member of the technical health insurance)
Hi,
if you want to have any information about the Uptoh or Addrup, please send a mail.
Kind regards
Bernd
www.alteronkel.de
Dear B. Blomer, M.o.c.c. & M.o.t.h.i.
LOL. Thanks for your input.
So a new question I have is, the recipient in Amerika certainly knew who was
writing to him; do you think the appellation was a matter of form, or gentle
humor?
Regarding Addrup and Uptoh, I have not begun to pursue that line nor have I
added my database to OGF, but here are the names associated with the towns:
*Addrup*: Josephine Lamping (1858-1933) ; Bernard Lamping, (1825-1911); und
Elisabeth Thole (1927-1870).
Bernard and Elisabeth were married 21-Jun-1851. Elisabeth had 5 children; 2
boys, three girls. Josephine was their daughter.
*Uptloh*: Elisabeth Wedemeyer, (1812-1893). Elisabeth married Franz Joseph
Kemphaus (1806-1877) of Bünne on 05-Dec-1806. Elisabeth had 5 children; 3
boys and 2 girls. (Franz died in Uptloh.) One of their daughters was
Lisette Kemphaus (1849-1933) who married August Kessen (1852-1925) of
Osteressen.
To my knowledge, none of these folk emigrated. It was August Kessen's
grandaughter that emigrated, then married into my family in Cincinnati.
Vielen Dank,
Suzanne Berger, S.Q.
(Searcher and Questioner)
Correction: Elisabeth married Franz Joseph Kemphaus (1806-1877) of Bünne on
17-July-1848.
My bad.
Suzanne
Vielen Dank,
Suzanne Berger, S.Q.
(Searcher and Questioner)
Now Suzanne happens to be a doctor of dentistry but nowhere do we see
the signs and titles. That is not the German way, right Bernd? 
As a historian of sorts I've dealt with German history my whole life
and one really gets the full flavor when seeing the culture from afar.
Fresh eyes so to speak.
Titles and status have always been a big thing in German culture.
Today the vast usage of titles of the past are gone but they remain in
academia just as colorful as always. Herr Doktor Professor so and so
and so is normal every day use but that's fine. That's Germany.
The designation we see on every past German census or counting form
always includes the word "Stand". It was what people were within
society - where they stood relative to each other. This is foreign to
other cultures. Everyone had their place. The city folks (Bürgers)
looked down on the lowly country folk who produced the food from the
land. Their status was differentiated by many different titles
depending on their job or birth or what they owned. A Zeller would
look down his nose at a lowly Heuermann or a Knecht as society was
very stratified.
Anyway, today it's all different but here we deal mostly with the
past. There is no such thing as Eigner today as everybody may and does
own something but such was not the case for most of German history.
Fred
I'm not that great at deciphering German and it t looks like Borkhorn, but there is a Bockhorn in Oldenburg. My husbands grandfather was from there.
Eileen
Hi Eileen, Bockhorn is north of Stadt Oldenburg, Borkhorn was a small
village, now a suburb of Löningen to the southwest. Thank you for your
perusal. Fred and Bern well resolved my questions earlier today.
Kind regards,
Suzanne