Can you determine by a city name where this town is located ?

           No qualified yes. A list below of the points which you CAN pinpoint.

                  ....pönen                            Eastprussia only

                  ....lauken                            Eastprussia only

                  ....wethen                           Eastprussia only

                  .... fier                                 Brandenburg

                   ....hammer

                   ....ningken                         Eastprussia only

                   ....kuhnen                           Eastprussia only

                   ....girren                             Eastprussia only

                   ....nehlen                            Eastprussia only

                   ....lacken                            mostly Eastprussia, 4 in Pommerania, 4 in Silesia

                 Sz....                                    Eastprussia only.

                 Tsch......                              mostly in Silesia, none in East or West Prussia

                   ....zywen                            Kreis Lyck only

                   Town names which are only found in particular areas.

                   Ellguth and  combination of it like:  Fürsten-Ellguth etc.          Silesia only

NIEDER SCHLESIEN or  Lower Silesia is considered  the northwestern half  of  Silesia. It contained the counties of : Breslau, Glogau, Goldberg, Grünberg, Löwenberg, Lüben, Militsch, Namslau, Oels, Trebnitz

OBER SCHLESIEN or Upper Silesia is considered the southeastern half of Silesia. It contained the counties of : Beuthen, Cosel, Falkenberg, Gleiwitz, Gross Strehlitz, Grottkau, Guttentag, Kreuzburg,  Leobschütz, Neisse, Neustadt, Oppeln, Ratibor, Rosenberg, Tarnowitz 

GRENZMARK:    The area  of  Posen and Westpreussen which remained German after the plebiscite of 1919.  It contained all or part of  the counties of : Deutsch Krone, Flatow, Schlochau,  Züllichau-Schwiebus. 

MASUREN:    The area between the Kernsdorfer Höhen and Seesker Höhen in southern Eastprussia  sometimes  called  the:  “Land der 1000 Seen”  Well, there are more than 2000 lakes.

KASCHUBIEN:    The area in northern Pommerania  Nobel Prize winner for literature Günther Grass considers himself a Kaschubier.                                                                            

ERMLAND:    The area in Eastprussia which lies east of the Passarge river and the Frische Haff.

NETZE DISTRIKT:

NEUMARK:       Some disagreement in regards to the actual area. In general it is considered the area  east of the Oder river. The capital city was considered Küstrin.  Limit to the North  a line . It was aquired in 1260 by  Markgraf von Brandenburg. From 1402 to 1455 it was verpfändet ( pledge as security for a loan) owing the Deutschen Orden,  which was subsequently paid off.                

NIEDER LAUSITZ:

POMMERELLEN:  Landschaft ( Region) West of the unteren Weichsel ( lowerVistula) river.

                                         Name changes  for  Kreise/Counties.

  With an announcement  in the Ministerialblatt des Reichs-und Preussischen Ministerium des Innern ( Nr. 40 vom 28.9.38)

  the following counties were renamed to:

                                  Pillkallen     ......to..   Schlossberg

                                  Fischhausen             Samland

                                  Niederung                 Elchniederung

                                  Reppen                     Weststernberg

                                  Stallupönen    .          Ebenrode       

                                  Darkehmen               Angerapp

                                  Persante                    Belgard

Kreis Friedland, Ostpreußen  became Kreis Bartenstein in 1927.

    The date of July 16, 1938 was the deadline in the “final” push to germanize all foreign sounding townnames.   If you encounter a townname with 1938 attached to it, this would have been the date when it took place. In general dates behind any names are the year for which I have documentation. This does not mean for the year only but was valid for the year given.

Standesamt --Civil Registry. Under French influence, as an aftermath of the Revolution of 1848 and accompanying the cultural war in Prussia the governments in many German states ever stronger interfered with church record keeping. In 1860 the "civil marriage in need" was introduced, ten years later the civil marriage was obligatory. But births and death have been registered in Church Books ( KB ) until the law on legalization of the personal status system and marriages of 1875 ( Reichsgesetz über die Beurkundung des Personenstandswesens und der Eheschließung ) Prussia had introduced state record keeping in 1874 after the rhenish model. The Prussian personal status law was the pattern for the Reichsgesetz proclaimed on February 6th 1875 and in effect as of January 1, 1876. All regional regulation and proceedings were superseded by an unique civil personal status registers, Totally independent from church books. All Marriages, Births,.and Deaths had to be registered with this arm of the government. Marriage announcements, intention to marry (Aufgebot) would be hung in public display in case.anybody had any objection to it. The time frame was about 14 days.

                                         Abbreviation used in the database.

    Urk. - Urkundlich     Written records exist since :

    1936  ---    Müllers 6th edition of  Großes Deutsches Ortsbuch was printed in 1936. It is given as source of some of the information in this database for additional clarification. It also contains the Nachtrag - addendum  for 1937.   It contains on 1380 pages over 140000 town names and other useful information.

The basis for all town names are the Ortlexikons of 1905

    The Polish and German way of differentiating same town names is often accomplished in the following way. The German way is to say  “bei”  ( pronounced  by  - near) and lists a larger town, hill or river, near the given town. For example:  Hermsdorf  bei  Priebus, or Hermsdorf  bei Sagan, Frankfurt an der Oder. The Polish way is very similar. A town would be called  nad  the equivalent of the German “bei” or “an der”.  For example: Neustadt an der Warthe becomes Nowe Miasto nad Warta, or Grabow an der Prosna, becomes  Grabow nad Prosna. “The Prosna is a small river ( Grenzfluß) which was the border between the old Imperial Germany and the Czarist Russia”.  Another Polish way of calling it is: Hermsdorf, Kreis Waldenburg -  Walbrzych-Sobiecin. The town’s name is Sobiecin and in this case the name of the Polish province in which Hermsdorf is located is Walbryzskie. This method  is normally not used in North America, but is in widespread use in the United Kingdom.  It is indigenous to Europe because of the density of the population and the closeness of villages.  You simply run out of names. Sometime it was a certain lack of imagination  also. See the over 100 Neudorf’s and variation of same for example.

 NOTE !!!:   Due the density of towns and the rather large scale of maps I have, also insufficient information of  county borders I may  have to ask you to be a little careful as to the territory from 18”45’ to 19”08’ east and 50”20’ to 50”10 north. It is general  area south of Gleiwitz/Gliwice and Beuthen/Bytom and around Kattowitz/Katowice in southern Silesia.    All locations and distance from : are accurate.

Convention normally used:

*............. geboren- ...............................born

00...........verheiratet..............................married

+.............gestorben...............................died

(*) ..........ausserehelich Geburt. ..........born out of wedlock

~~...........getauft....................................christening, babtism

0 ............verlobt....................................engaged

...............begraben...............................buried, interment

+* ..........Totgeburt...............................still birth

0I0 ........geschieden............................divorced

0-0 .......uneheliche Verbindung.........living common law

To make Umlauts:

Depress alt and enter on the NUMERICAL pad the following numbers and release after.

ä....... 132

ü........129

ö........148

Ü........154

Ö........153

Ä........142

ß.........225

For the letters of the Swedish, Danish and Islandic alphabet:

æ ..... 0230

Æ.......0198

ø.........0248

Ø........0216

ð.........0240

Ð.........0208

å..........0229

Å.........0197

Ä.........0196

Date calculator: Have you ever found a tombstone that gave you the date of death and age in years, months and days ? A number of old tombstones are that way. Here is an example: Suppose you have a stone that says an ancestor died on the 6 May 1889 at the age of 71 years, 7 months, 9 days. Using a calculator, enter 1889 for the year, 05 for the months, 06 for the day. That gives you 18890506. Then subtract 710709, which is the age of the deceased ( 71 years, 07 months, 09 days ) This gives you the result of 18179797. Now subtract 8870 to correct the month and days. The answer is 18170927 - which is 1817, ninth month and 27th day or 27 September 1817. All you have to remember is the constant 8870, which is supposed to work in all cases.

Websites and/or helpers for individual Kreise/Counties.

Kreis/County Allenstein. www.allenstein-landkreis.de

Neumark Brandenburg: http://neumark.genealogy.net

Kreis/County Belgard, Pommern www.belgard.org

Kreis/County Fischhausen/Samland Kirchspiel/Parish Germau Reiner Kerp mail@reiner-kerp.de

Kreis/County Guhrau, Schlesien: http://Steindorf-sabath.bei.t-online.de

Kreis/County: Gumbinnen, Darkehmen, Goldap, Stallupönen. Lutz Wenau, Lutzfw@aol.com

Kreis/County: Heiligenbeil, Ostpreußen, Manfred Boettcher, manfred.boettcher@gmx.de

Kreis/County Johannisburg, www.johannisburg.de

Kreis/County Landeshut, www.Landeshut.com

Kreis/County Gerdauen, Kirchpiel/Parish Löwenstein. Heide Allmendiger hallmendinger@yahoo.de

Kreiss/County Lyck, Ostpreußen. Reinhard Donder, Orion@orion-ham.de

Kreis/County Memel. Http://de.groups.yahoo.com/memelland

Kreis/County Ortelsburg, Ostpreußen, Martin Jend, mjend@t-online.de

Kreis/County Militsch, www.kreis-militsch.de

Kreis/County: Neidenburg, Ostpreussen, Reinhard Kayss, rkayss@t-online.de

Netzekreis www.netzekreis.de

Kreis/County Niederung - Elchniederung, Ostpreussen Gaby Bastemayer, bastemeyer@t-online.de

Raudischken, Ostpreußen, Village www.raudischken.de

Kreis/County Rummelsburg, Pommern, www.rummelsburg.de

Kreis/County Schlawe, Pommern, Margaret Ott www.schlawe.de

Kreis/County Schweidnitz & Striegau. www.v-zimmer.purespace.de/index.htm

Kreis/County Sorau www.sorau.de

Westpreußen: www.westpreussen.de

www.torun.ap.gov.pl/-2k Thorn/Torun archives in Polish and German

www.genealogienetz.de/misc.berufe/bp.htm A reference site for Berufe/Occupation and trades

www.mawer.clara.net/webaddresses.htm A good selection of genealogical websites.

www.hugenotten.de A site which is giving information about Huguenots

About ships/vessels: www.geocities.com/mppraetorius/ An incredible collection of information about the vessels your ancestors came across the ocean.

As of December 3, 2001 I have added the following codes into theGemeindelexikon/Townindex. For example at Silligsdorf, Pommern you see the number: IV-20-73 What it refers to is: the IV for the Ortslexikon IV which is Pommern/Pomerania. 20 signifies the Kreis/County,which in this case is Regenwalde, 73 die laufende Nummer / running number. The Kreise/Counties will be listed as time permitting. Covered in this database are the following Ortslexikon of December 1, 1908 covering a census taken on December 1, 1905:

Ostpreußen I

Westpreußen II

Brandenburg & Stadtkreis Berlin III

Pommern IV

Posen V

Schlesien VI

Auszügler is somebody who sold his/her landholdings and is living in a Auszugshaus. In Lower Saxony this is called Altenteil. Similar to the newer English term of a Granny Suite.

Memelland-Datenbank: Erfassung von Personendaten aus allen Ortschaften der Kreise Memel, Heydekrug und Pogegen. Zur Zeit erfaßt: Über 50000 Personen ( Stand September 2003 ) Kostenlose Auskunft durch: Ingopaul24@hotmail.com Ergänzende Daten sind jederzeit willkommen.

Memel Databank. Comprehensive list of over 50000 names for the counties of Memel, Heydekrug, and Pogegen. Free information is provided by Ingo Paul at ingopaul24@hotmail.com He would appreciate additional information to add.

Last update: January 2. 2005