I would just like to take a minute to thank Gene for being such a good sport and generous gentleman and looking up all this stuff on German immigrants. Gene you are the greatest! Thanks! Liz

I have had only 12 sets of requests. I have answered all of them already. I did indeed find some good stuff for some poeple. GERMANS TO AMERICA has about 85 volumes--they are adding more all the time. Each volume, listing several thousand passengers by arrival date starting in 1850, has its own index, so it is helpful to have a master index (like I do) so I can search all the volumes at once electronically. In the early dates, the authors only listed ships where the majority of the people were German, so in the 1850s, the volumes are not too thorough. They do get better. If I cannot find your person, try different spellings--the old German farmers didn't spell too well I guess, or maybe it is us??? Some people have sent me only a name (like George Mueller) and there must be 50 people with that name. Another sent me a common name and said he was born in the 1830 to 1840 range, which again is too broad to help find their person. Another sent me some Russiam names, even though one might think that the people had to be German--wouldn't you think? And another sent be a very rare name--spelled the way she spelled it, there was not one of the nearly one million names I have in the index spelled that way. Be creative in your spellings; maybe the ship's captain was French and couldn't spell the German correctly. A good book about all this is THEY CAME IN SHIPS. To repeat--send me first name, surname, dob and date of immigration. It helps if you have names fo others that were traveling together--sometimes a rare first name, like Xavier, is the clue we need to find them. I can only look at 1850-1888 arrivals. If I find the reference, then go to the original manifest (microfilm) to probably find out more. I found that my 3gr grandfather came over with his eventuial bride and her family--maybe there was a budding romance on board? We'll never know, but it is fun to speculate... One of the strangest ones was a rare surname (Dehmer) with a first name of Joe. However, there were no Joe Dehmer's listed, but there was an August and a Franz Dehmer from the correct city. When I went to the microfilm, as the date was in the right time period, I found that the folks at Ellis Island had crossed off the names of two Joe Dehmers from the same city, on the same ship, that arrived together and made them change their name (used their middle names). The "Joe" for both is clearly seen in the record as that was doen by the ship's captain! When I told this to my wife, she recollected the story, but she had not recalled it for many years and it might of been forgotten if..... Anyway--send in more requests if you have some. Gene Gene Wengert Professor of Wood Processing, Emeritus Univ of Wisconsin-Madison & President The WoodDoctor's Rx, LLC 2872 Charleston Drive, Madison, WI 53711-6502 608-271-4441 Preferred e-mail: WoodDoc@Badger.Alumni.Wisc.edu

Good afternoon list. I have found some information that applies to my family tree but it is within a very large gedcom file. I managed to download the gedcom to a separate Family Tree file, but how do I incorporate just the information I want into my Family Tree Maker file? Any help is greatly appreciated. Cathy

If you are still doing lookups, could you please look for: Herman Behrens, Bremen to NY--supposedly he arrived New York May 16, 1881, but I couldn't find it looking in the volumes. and Caroline Sophie Maeier, port of New York, supposedly arrived July 1, 1884, can't find this either. Thank you for your help!! Pam pam@pammitchell.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eugene M. Wengert" <wengert@calshp.cals.wisc.edu> To: <INALLEN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2001 12:27 PM Subject: [INALLEN-L] Germans to America Look-Ups--Ramblings > I have had only 12 sets of requests. I have answered all of them already. > I did indeed find some good stuff for some poeple. > > GERMANS TO AMERICA has about 85 volumes--they are adding more all the time. > Each volume, listing several thousand passengers by arrival date starting > in 1850, has its own index, so it is helpful to have a master index (like I > do) so I can search all the volumes at once electronically. In the early > dates, the authors only listed ships where the majority of the people were > German, so in the 1850s, the volumes are not too thorough. They do get > better. If I cannot find your person, try different spellings--the old > German farmers didn't spell too well I guess, or maybe it is us??? > > Some people have sent me only a name (like George Mueller) and there must > be 50 people with that name. Another sent me a common name and said he was > born in the 1830 to 1840 range, which again is too broad to help find their > person. Another sent me some Russiam names, even though one might think > that the people had to be German--wouldn't you think? And another sent be > a very rare name--spelled the way she spelled it, there was not one of the > nearly one million names I have in the index spelled that way. Be creative > in your spellings; maybe the ship's captain was French and couldn't spell > the German correctly. A good book about all this is THEY CAME IN SHIPS. > > To repeat--send me first name, surname, dob and date of immigration. It > helps if you have names fo others that were traveling together--sometimes a > rare first name, like Xavier, is the clue we need to find them. I can only > look at 1850-1888 arrivals. > > If I find the reference, then go to the original manifest (microfilm) to > probably find out more. I found that my 3gr grandfather came over with his > eventuial bride and her family--maybe there was a budding romance on board? > We'll never know, but it is fun to speculate... > > One of the strangest ones was a rare surname (Dehmer) with a first name of > Joe. However, there were no Joe Dehmer's listed, but there was an August > and a Franz Dehmer from the correct city. When I went to the microfilm, as > the date was in the right time period, I found that the folks at Ellis > Island had crossed off the names of two Joe Dehmers from the same city, on > the same ship, that arrived together and made them change their name (used > their middle names). The "Joe" for both is clearly seen in the record as > that was doen by the ship's captain! When I told this to my wife, she > recollected the story, but she had not recalled it for many years and it > might of been forgotten if..... > > Anyway--send in more requests if you have some. > > Gene > > Gene Wengert > Professor of Wood Processing, Emeritus > Univ of Wisconsin-Madison > & > President > The WoodDoctor's Rx, LLC > 2872 Charleston Drive, Madison, WI 53711-6502 > 608-271-4441 > Preferred e-mail: WoodDoc@Badger.Alumni.Wisc.edu >