Good News & a European or German Genealogy Research Tip from a Professional German Genealogist: If you lack the name of a specific place of origin of USA/Canada immigrant ancestors, where is the best place to do their European research? In the USA!
Aren’t you happy for this client? We & they are! They’d been trying to find this for many years!
Indeed, last night, 22 May 2011, I spoke with someone for the first time ever. I had some fun & found the names of the precise cities in which her ancestors–on both sides–had been born in Switzerland AND the city in which they last resided in Germany!
This, from the 1930 US Census & NY Passenger List, respectively. The Census usually does not provide a city name, but they did in this 1930 entry! In addition, it also gave cities of origin for THEIR parents!
Yes, the surname spelling had been seriously botched, but Lynell & I know just about all the tricks to finding people. After all, due to our 80+% success ratio, we were the very 1st 2 persons handpicked to begin the Paid Expert Ancestry.com Research Line (PEARL).
I later was THE primary German research consultant for Ancestry.de.
This research breakthrough just once again goes to show that just jumping the water to Europe is generally NOT the solution to a European genealogy case that lacks the name of a specific place.
Well, back to another client case, where we ARE deep into microfilmed European records, “drinking from the well,” as our now-deceased client, Roene Fischer, of Texas, called it. Similarly, we cracked her case in the naturalization records of Cook Co., IL (which she thought she already had; nope, there was another record which gave his exact date of birth, which is crucial for a Berlin’s numerous civil registration office(s). The civil birth record & then the parish registers in Berlin led us to what the client thought was “Sadske” which turned out to be Zaatzke, Brandenburg, Preussen (Prussia)!
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