Some weeks ago my sister had the opportunity to visit Germany with a friend. On their itinerary was a visit to the BallinStadt emigration museum in Hamburg. I was quite excited by the opportunity to have some “boots on the ground” to hopefully do a bit of research into our German great-grandparents coming to the United States.
We had a bit of a hurried conversation via Viber concerning the “facts” of our ancestors, at least as we knew them. My first mistake was that I was trying to go by memory and it was nothing short of faulty. But here is a bit of advice for you from me. Write out their story.
I am fortunate to have copies of letters that my grandfather wrote in the late 60’s and early 70’s concerning his upbringing, family and what little he knew of his parents and their history. Once I assembled the basic information about my great grandparents such as their birth and death dates I worked to create a paragraph or two about each of them and what those letters revealed to me.
For many years I said that my great grandmother was from Alsace Lorraine. She was not. I simply had parroted the information that other family members had stated. But once I reread the letters written by my grandfather, Otto, I realized that I had made an error. Not only that, I had failed to view the family relationship from HIS viewpoint and not mine. Otto was clear and concise with the relationships and names but I had failed to strip away the extraneous information and focus on the “facts”. I put the word facts in quotes because he wrote this information as he understood it about grand parents he had never met and parents that had died 50 plus years prior.
Ancestry.com now has a useful feature called Story View whereby it takes the life events of a person, census records, directories and photographs and presents them in a timeline. This was my first step in writing the monograph on the Albert family members. The next step was to re-verify those records and if they were indeed applicable to my ancestor. After that, I pulled out the letters my grandfather wrote to my father and picked through them for info and wrote down each event as it was mentioned. Once that was completed, I plugged this new information into the the existing timeline created by Story View. While I realize that you may not have personal papers of your ancestor, this methodology works with any new written or spoken information that you obtain.
Next, I made notes of specific events or “facts” that were conflicting. In this case my grandfather stated that one of our ancestors was a court painter in Germany, however my uncle (grandfather’s son) stated that was true but attributed it to a different ancestor. In this case I feel certain that SOMEONE back in the day painted for the kingdom of Germany but just whom remains to be proven. That is a search for another day.
Enough babbling….Here is how this abbreviated history reads:
William Augustus Albert married a girl from Alsace-Lorraine, France and they were the parents of 6 sons and 1 daughter. Augustus (remember the naming tradition of the Germans using middle names as their call name?) was a professor at Leipzig and a captain in the Landwehr. He died when his youngest son, Robert William Albert (10 Oct 1841-2 Mar 1914) was about 4. His mother (unnamed) died when he was about 12. William attended music school and then became a cooper. He married about age 23 (circa 1867) to a local girl of German and French descent named Clara Auguste Schreiter (Sep 1846-15 Dec 1902).He served in three wars (1864-1866-1870) as a sharp shooter. Their home was in the country near Chemnitz and about 100 miles east of Dresden. Frederick Otto Albert was born there 17 Feb 1882, the sixth of seven children. They left Germany that September from Hamburg to San Antonio, Texas via the port of Galveston.
Ultimately, the museum was an excellent place to visit but it did not provide any assistance regarding our ancestral search. But all is not lost! I learned quite a few things by condensing three generations of family history into one paragraph. Information was clarified and several new clues emerged just when I thought that I had exhausted all of my leads. This also gave me a clear picture of the relationships my grandfather Otto had with his father and grandfather.
Take a few moments to gather the details of one of your more notorious forebears. Then re-examine any papers or information gathered on that person. Fresh eyes can reveal much. If you have fellow researcher review the material, often they see information or leads that have been there all along that you may be skimming over. Then as a triple check, take the time to write it out on a piece of paper. Give it a try and I bet you will learn something new, after all it is your story!
Footnote:
Clara Auguste Schreiter’s surname is the source of much consternation. I have been unable, thus far, to verify if it is Schreiter, Schneider, Schroeder or some other variation. In the three documents I have located that mention her surname, it is spelled different each time.
If you have any information concerning the Albert family in Texas or Iowa, please contact me. I would love to hear from you!
I took an unexpected trip to Peru to visit the Amazon and I was rather flat footed before my trip to Germany. My dear friend Carol who I was visiting in Germay was kind enough to locate the Hamburg immigration museum in Germany for me. It was incredible experience but I should have been better prepared. I would love to go back and obtain more information for my very hard working sister. She has done so much and discovered so much about our families! I wish I could have done more.
My grandfather Otto was a truly wonderful person who loved, art, gardening, nature and me! He loved telling me stories and acting them out, swinging with me in their big outdoor swings, playing the piano and violin, and singing original songs he had written. He had a perfect military posture and a fit physique that everyone commented on. He had a full head of silver hair and kindly twinkling blue eyes. He was a striking man.
His bed was located in a cozy sun room surrounded by windows and many birdhouses. He never tired of his little friends. They were the subject of many of his drawings. Grandpa Otto had a special way about him and I will never forget the way he made me feel when he called me “my little Debbie”. Sweet memories of a and special wonderful grandparent. Thank you Becky for giving us more information about him!