German Roots in Russia

From Poland to Russia Did your German ancestors come from Poland or Prussian Poland to Russia, but you don't know from which exact village or town? Here are a few examples of where German Roots in Russia was able to determine the (so far unknown) place of origin of families in Poland who later on moved to Bessarabia or Volhynia:... WEISS (Alt Posttal, Bessarabia): JOHANN GOTTFRIED WEISS married Christina Kühn on 27 September 1801 in Neutomischel [Pol.: Nowy Tomyl] in the Kingdom of Prussia. He was born ca. 1780 near Chmielinke [Pol.: Chmielinko] in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He also emigrated to Bessarabia where he initially can be found in Wittenberg and later in Alt Posttal. KÖNIG/KOENIG (Paris, Bessarabia): CHRISTOPH [CHRISTOPER] KÖNIG was baptized on 6 August 1797 in Biaa Rawska, New East Prussia [Neuostpreußen], Prussia. Christoph’s parents resided in Chuta Chodnowska [pol.: Chodnów], located a few miles east of Biaa Rawska in 1797. Shortly after his birth they moved to nearby Józefów Hauland [pol.: Józefów]. Here, he was confirmed on 17 May 1811. In 1814/16 he left Józefów Hauland with a few other German families from this village im central Poland to settle in Bessarabia. Eventually, he settled in Paris. HANNIS (Beresowo Hat, Volhynia): This surname is likely of French (Huguenot) origin. FRIEDRICH HANNIS was born on January 15, 1864 in Liliopol, ód Voivodeship, Poland. In between 1875 and 1878 he moved with his parents to Volhynia, initially residing north of Novograd Volhynsk but later on moved to the Beresowo-Hat / Wyschkowka area. We have achieved a 85% success rate in determining the place of origins of Germans who had come from Russia via Poland. Interested? Ask us!

This is amazing news and comes in handy to those who are trying to locate their ancestor's villages in Russia. :)

The year 2020 will certainly go down in history as a year during which we have all experienced unprecedented change. The pandemic has drastically changed our lifestyles and our ways of working. I am grateful for the opportunity to have connected or worked with you over the year. I want to take this moment to thank you for your trust, especially in this period of great upheaval, and to wish you a wonderful holiday season in the company of your loved ones, despite the constra...ints. Happy Holidays in good health and cheers to a better 2021!

In 2019, the Canadian Parliament declared the second week in September to be Mennonite Heritage Week. Yesterday was the official beginning of the very first Canadian Mennonite Heritage Week! The first Mennonites arrived in Ontario in the 1790's from Pennsylvania. A mass-migration of German-speaking Mennonites from Russia occurred in the late 19th century and early 20th century. They came as refugees and escaped from conscription into the Rcan mostly be found in the Prairie Pr...ovinces nowadays. Today over 200 thousand people of Mennonite heritage call Canada their home. For a brief overview of Mennonite-Canadian history check out the link below. Happy Mennonite Heritage week everyone! https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mennonites

Did your ancestors arrive in the United States or Canada after fleeing the Soviet Union during WWII as displaced persons (DP)? If so, there is a good chance that you will find copies of their application documents at the Arolsen Archives. Although the Archives primarily focus is on Jewish Holocaust survivors and refugees, their files also contain documents for many Germans from Russia, who were residing as stateless persons and wishing to emigrate overseas in the late 1940's.... Their search interface is not the most user-friendly, however the results often are amazing! https://arolsen-archives.org//searc/search-online-archive/

While we are still in the middle of the Corona pandemic, waiting for a vaccine to be discovered, the Spanish flu lasted for a period of almost two years from 1918 to 1920. Whereas most influenza outbreaks disproportionately killed the very young and the very old, the Spanish flu pandemic resulted in a higher than expected mortality rate for young adults. Joseph "Joe" Goetz for example was born on August 2, 1896 in the village of Jammerstal in the historic region of Galicia, ...which then was a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire (nowadays situated in Ukraine). Joseph emigrated to Canada (Manitoba) with his parents in 1906 and during WWI he was a private in the Canadian Army. He died in Europe two days before the capitulation of the German Empire on Nov 9, 1918. The cause of death was H1N1 - the Spanish flu. The Spanish flu originated in Kansas and was brought over to the European battlefields by American soldiers, where in some units it had caused an even higher fatality than actual combat deaths. When the war was over, returning soldiers brought it back home, enabling the virus to spread quickly. Some estimates put the total death toll of the virus to as high as 50 million, which would correspond to a fatality rate of 5 percent of the world's total population at that time. If you visit an an old cemetery nowadays you will inevitably run into tombstones of young adults who had died between 1918 and 1920. Many of those individuals were victims of the Spanish flu.... https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/176956208/joseph-goetz

Easy (temporary) access to a"goldmine": The St. Petersburg Archives is offering free access to their online records during the pandemic, through April 30th. This includes post-1885 records of many Lutheran Black Sea German parishes, including Bessarabia, Cherson, Tauria etc....... The records contain birth, marriage, and death records from metrical books and civil registration records, as well as historical photographs and more. Registration is free and image access fees are waved during this period, which may be extended, depending on how things go (use Google Chrome to translate the website and to create an account). https://spbarchives.ru/paid_access

While we are all (hopefully) social distancing from each other, binge-watching TV series had become a "sport". "Tiger King" featuring "Joe Exotic" aka Joseph Schreibvogel has been the most-watched show of the past two weeks on Netflix. Joe's great-grandfather with the same name came to Kansas in 1876 from Russia, as part of the first wave of Volga German immigrants to this state. I guess "Joe exotic" is one of "ours". Not sure what to think about that... ... Stay safe and stay at home everyone! https://gen.medium.com/joe-exotics-family-history-could-be-

Just a little genealogy humor to brighten up this gloomy winter day