Hi Frances, Hi Newton,
Dear readers,
The mentioned website
http://home.att.net/~arnielang/HannoverCensus.html
has indeed the list of the LSD films of Hanover census records.
Please do not take it as searching for something to quibble about if
I add some short remarks.
1)
The correct body/instituation for all theses census records should
be the "Amt", not the "Amtsgericht" (the area adiministration, not
the court). This is important for anybody searching for these
records in Hanover itself, after we can find the "Amt" holdings under
the signatures starting with Hann. 74 ... (for instance Hann. 74
Hoya) while the ones of the "Amtgericht" have signatures starting
with Hann. 72.
2)
The Hanover Archive signatures and the way the Hanover holdings
are organized are based on the Amt organization after the big
administration reform of 1859. This means that you can find a lot of
towns and villages under a different Amt compared with the 1852
situation. Martfeld, Wechold and Eitzendorf are good examples for
this fact which might cause some confusion: Until 1852 all three
villages belonged to the Amt Hoya, from 1852 to 1859 to the new
Amt Martfeld, from 1859 on Martfeld belonged to the Amt
Bruchhausen, while Eitzendorf and Wechold belonged to the Amt
Hoya again after the Amt Martfeld had been closed down again in
1859. You will find the 1852 census of all three villages in the
holdings of the Amt Hoya after the holdings were usually not
divided after 1852 even if Ämter were split or changed.
3)
Some of the information in the LDS catalogue are wrong. There
never has been a Amtsgericht or Amt in Garlstorf, Amelinghausen,
Bardowick or Hohenmoor. In these cases a name of one village in
the records has obviously been taken as the name of the Amt.
There was no "Standesamt" in Uslar in the 1850s. It should say
Amt here as well.
4)
Almost all of these films contain a number of other records than the
1852 and some inly census-like records. This is surely not a fault,
but an advantage after researchers who already know where their
ancestors came from can check different records of different
periods of time.
5)
There are some films which do not include the 1852 census, any
even some which do not include any real complete census at all
(like Fallingbostel)
6)
It`s important to know that the LDS films only cover a portion of the
175 Ämter and 45 cities (which did not belong to any Amt) which
existed in 1852. Most. but not all of the 1852 census records
preserved in the State Archive Hanover were filmed. No census
record filming had been done yet in the State Archive Stade,
Osnabrück and Aurich (all three archives have a lot of census
records) and in the relevant Kreisarchive (some Kreise have never
handed over their 19th century census records to the State
Archives). Most of the cities still have their census records (if
preserved) in their own archives and they do not plan to hand them
over to the State Archives. LDS has filmed census records in the
town archives of Hildesheim and Emden, but not in the other town
archives.
An example:
I will be at the town archive of the small city of Bodenwerder on
Thursday and Friday. They have a complete set of census records
from the not very detailed census of the 1830s and 1840s to the
detailed censuses taken in the 1850s and 1860s. But it took me
some weeks (almost months) to find out after the honorary town
archivist himself was sure that they do not have such records in
their holdings.
Well, that`s all for today.
Best greetings from Bremen, Germany,
Jens
P.S.: My wife`s family is from Wechold and Eitzendorf. They were
the owners of the old mill in Wechold for some decades and some
lines of her ancestry go back to 1700 in Eitzendorf.
Jens Mueller-Koppe
HISTORICAL RESEARCH SERVICES, Germany (HRS)
Schanzendorfer Str. 9B
D - 28307 Bremen
Germany
www.hist.de
1852 Hanover Census Project
www.edition-hist.de