Thanks Tom After many years searching for my great grandparents and where they came from in Wurttemberg I found their church in Philadelphia. The church included their villages in their death listing! I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It opened up so many records. I struggled and failed with the Old German records, but then learned there was an Ortsippenbuch, which I probably, misspelled available. I bought it and it made things so much easier. They came from Schopfloch and Oberiflingen. Thanks again for your info! Dottie Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 13, 2014, at 11:17 AM, Tom Kuehn <kuehngenes@gmail.com> wrote: > > Dottie, I just got lucky. > > A person in Northern Germany found my website and contacted me about a > sister-in-law to one of my ancestors. We exchanged information, and struck > up a friendship. He was instrumental in interceding on my behalf, > contacting a researcher in Baden, and then he also contacted a museum that > covered Weingarten archives. And he helped translate the old German script. > > I would not know how to find a person to help, and how to communicate with > them. In my efforts, the person in Germany writes to me in German and I > respond in English and it works out quite well - thanks to translation > software. The trick is reading the old German script and rewriting it in > current German. Baden script I could not read, but Weingarten is not as > difficult. > > Bottom line, the person found me because he found value in what I had > posted publicly of my website. I reciprocated by helping him with USA > research, and I sent him a book published associated with church in > Southwestern Missouri that had stories about the German immigrants > including the one he had inquired about. > > The real trick is that you have to find the place your ancestor came from - > which I did know from cemetery and other records in the St. Louis area. > Working backward got me to Germany. It is all pick and shovel work! > > The most important thing is to find the town they come from in Germany. > Obituary records often help, but what is listed as from Germany, is > sometimes Alsace-Lorraine because the person died while that area was > occupied by Germany. Then searching church book records page by page (no > index) you can find family members. > > Another tool that I learned of from the local Family History Center is a > series of books called "Map Guide to German Parish Registers: Kingdom of > Württemberg by Kevan M. Hansen. It maps out the Districts of the Kingdom > with Parish / Town Cross reference tables for each completed district. Not > all districts are completed yet. The two districts I was interested in > were: Donaukreis (which includes Ravensburg -> Weingarten), and Neckarkreis > (which includes Grand Duchy of Baden). As I recall the maps relate to the > 1871 timeframe for Kingdom of Württemberg. > > Hope that helps. > Tom > >> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 8:52 AM, Dottie Klein <scubamama@aol.com> wrote: >> >> Tom >> Great info! I was wondering how you found someone in BW to research the >> emigration records. I know the places they emigrated from but would love to >> learn more. >> Thanks >> Dottie >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> BADEN-WURTTEMBERG-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' >> without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BADEN-WURTTEMBERG-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message