Getting to the Roots of Your Family - RootsWeb - Ancestry.com

A misspelled locality can sometimes be identified by locating other individuals who may have come
from the same area. Check local U.S. records, passenger lists, data bases etc. for potential relatives
and neighbors from the “old country.”
Historical background can also be a very important tool. If the town was in a historical jurisdiction, such
as the Duchy of Ansbach, finding out the modern jurisdictions can help narrow down the playing field
and assist in locating helpful records.
PROBLEM #3: WE HAVE A PLACE, BUT THERE ARE OVER 40 BY THE SAME NAME.
• If the ancestral name is not too common, try using the current online German telephone
directory www.dastelefonbuch.de. Having two or more associated surnames makes the search
more effective. This website can do radius searches for 50 km or more.
Example:
Magdalena Grab was born in Rohrbach, Germany, around 1879. Her parents were Johann Grab and Friederike Eiermann, whose
mother’s was Philippine Allgeier.
Solution:
1. Meyer’s Gazetteer was checked – it lists 49 localities named Rohrbach in Germany.
2. The current online telephone book for Germany was searched for each surname +
Rohrbach [search all places by that name].
Results:
“Grab” Towns: Sinsheim, Bechhofen, Rohrbach (Stadt), Hoffenheim, Ludwigsau
“Eiermann” Towns: Sinsheim, Rohrbach (Stadt), Eppingen
“Allgeier” towns: Sinsheim, Eppingen
3. All three surnames occur in Rohrbach near Sinsheim, so the church records for this parish were checked first. Both Magdalena
Grab’s baptism and her parents’ marriage were found there.
• Check other records for additional clues, perhaps a region, court district, cultural area etc. to
narrow down the search.
• Play the “statistics” game! Search larger towns first. Your ancestor is not that likely to list a 10house
hamlet as town of origin. If he was Lutheran, check all Lutheran towns first. If he had a
distinctive occupation, such as knife maker or smoking pipe decorator, find out where these
trades flourished and check towns in those areas.
PROBLEM #4: THERE ARE SEVERAL TOWNS BY THE CORRECT NAME IN THE RIGHT AREA,
BUT MY ANCESTOR ISN’T IN ANY OF THE RECORDS I CHECKED.
• Perhaps the town name has changed or includes an additive, such as “Ober”, “Klein-, or “Kirch-“.
Use the Internet to learn all you can about each locality you can identify. Include qualifiers, such
as “near the Main river”, if you have them.
• The parish jurisdiction may have been different at the time the ancestor was in the records than
the parish listed in the gazetteer. Many gazetteers are based on a specific time period or year.
For instance, Meyer’s Gazetteer of the German empire is based on jurisdictions current in 1911-
1912, and the Prussian Gemeindelexikon on the census of 1905. Helpful historical information is
often found on the town/parish Web site or in the German Wikipedia.