Hi fellow GR -- This is the Second 2007 German Origins report. Please note that following this report I must take a sabbatical from this project and plan to resume work on it in the fall - Dick Kraus As of this report, First Settlers Lists, with annotations, have been newly added for Caesarsfeld, Degott, and Neidermonjou, while Gueldendorf and Hoffnungstal have been greatly updated. In addition, there are several new confirmed orgins (in red). Many thanks to the many people who have contributed information to the work of this report! We now have entered in the German Origins portion of the AHSGR web site: http://www.ahsgr.org/german_origins.htm mostly confirmed origins information on four Black Sea area colonies plus some mostly unconfirmed information on Mennonite villages there; unconfirmed origins information for six Belowesch colonies; and mostly unconfirmed, but increasingly confirmed, origins information for 60 Volga colonies including their First Settlers' Lists (FSL) and Mai & Marquardt info, along with some Stumpp info. Those colonies included so far are Bergdorf(Od), Blumenort(Menno), Glueckstal(Od), Gueldendorf (Od) and Hoffnungstal (Bess) in the south; Belaja Besha, Gorodok, Kaltschinowka, Rundewiese, Grosser Werder, Kleiner Werder of Belowesch; and in the Volga area: Anton, Balzer, Bangert, Bauer, Bettinger, Boaro, Boregard, Bradbender, Caesarsfeld, Degott, Dietel, Dinkel, Dobrinka, Doenhof, Dreispitz, Enders, Goebel, Graf, Grimm, Fischer, Frank, Herzog, Holstein, Huck, Jagodnaya Polyana, Jost, Kamenka, Katharinenstadt, Kautz, Keller, Koehler, Kolb, Kraft, Krasnoyar, Kratzke, Kukkus, Kutter, Laub, Lauwe, Leichtling, Louis, Mariental, Merkel, Messer, Moor, Mueller, Neidermonjou, Norka, Orlovskaya, Paulskaya, Pfeifer, Pobochnaya, Preuss, Roethling, Rothammel, Schuck, Sewald, Stahl-am-Karaman, Volmer, and Walter. The confirmed (in red) origins data portions of the site continue to grow as more of you share your origins research results with me for use on the site. On the introductory page there is a relatively new section of spectacular Origins success stories. Send me your own! Once again, I want to emphasize that the German Origins project is intended to include information regarding the origins of settlers in German Russian villages no matter where they were in Russia. I welcome and will include data for any colony in any region. Send it in and it will be included. If it does not show up, remind me ... oversights happen and can be corrected. There are 12 more Volga FSL in the first three volumes of Professor Pleve's books, plus two Glueckstal villages nearly ready to go. The order of the next entries, as currently planned, is: Kano, Kassel(Od), Cheisol, Jost, Neudorf(Od), Husaren, Dehler, Hoelzel, Hildmann, Ernestinendorf, Galka, Franzosen, Philippsfeld, Leitsinger, and Obermonjou -- unless one of you asks to have a village moved up in priority to just after the one on which I am currently working plus any village requested by someone else before your request comes in. That's all it takes -- one request -- first come, first served. Currently there have been no requests for any of the Volga villages. It takes me from one to four weeks to enter a colony depending on its size and on other priorities in my life. A priority list has been established for those Volga colonies for which First Settlers' Lists have not yet been published and to which I do not have access. As they become available to me, the first priorities among these villages for entry into this index, based on requests from you out there, are: Hussenbach, Stahl-am-Tarlyk, Schwab, Shcherbakovka, Schoenchen, Rohleder, Reinhard, Warenburg, Straub, Schilling. The Index improves with every update. My knowledge gets better and I continue to acquire better maps and finding lists for the villages and towns of the Germanies. So if you have an interest in finding a place, that was not adequately addressed in a previous update, it could be wise to check it out again after each new update to the GO index. The following is repeated (slightly revised, July 2006) from the first 2005 report: If you are a Village Coordinator and your village is up on the site now, I would greatly appreciate you checking the relevant entries. You will 1) discover some errors which you can happily tell me about, 2) find out one or two new things about the folk who first came to your village, and 3) discover that you know of some verified origins which you can then tell me about so I can add that valuable information to the site. If you are not a Village Coordinator, if you will check your family names in the index, you may find out some interesting things you may not have known before, or you may discover that you know of some verified origins which are not on the site which you can tell me about so that I can add that valuable information to the site. As I enter the data, I do my best to identify the German places that are mentioned in the First Settlers' Lists as the place from which emigrants to Russia departed. This effort may provide new hints for you, or you may find that I have mis-identified a place which will enable you to educate me. I have acquired good, new maps of the old German Duchies, Counties, Principalities, Baronies and the like, so my identifications are getting better ... but I still get stumpped (pun?) regularly and have so much more to learn! Teach me. However, it turns out, I think most folk will have fun checking out this new Index. Enjoy! Cheers, Dick Kraus, AHSGR German Origins project coordinator and Alexandertal VC 20 May 2007 ____________________________________________________________________________________You snooze, you lose. Get messages ASAP with AutoCheck in the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_html.html