Also, my gr grandfather's obituary contained his birth place. Usually you can find good obituary's from small town newspapers. ----- Original Message ----- From: kql<mailto:lenerz@worldnet.att.net> To: trier-roots@rootsweb.com<mailto:trier-roots@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 8:38 PM Subject: Re: [TRIER-ROOTS] Finding ancestral hometowns [was Perl and Borg] Michael Young wrote: > I need some help please. The only information I have about my great > great gandather is that he was born in Trier on November 25, 1825. At > some point he immigrates to the US , settles eventually in Chicago, > Illinois, and dies April 7, 1900. Any suggestions as to how to proceed, or > where to begin? Michael, There are a lot of places one can look for an ancestor's home town. You've already checked one: his obituary. Others include: Declaration of Intent and other naturalization papers, passenger manifests, church records, military records, local histories and biographies, published genealogies, obituaries and other records of siblings, and more. While each of these may have a low probability of yielding the information you seek, that probability is still there. Examples: Of the thousands of church records I've searched, only a small fraction contained the name of the home town of the person. But if it had been my ancestor's record with the information, I would have hit the jackpot. Similarly, both passenger lists and naturalization records varied from time to time and locality to locality in the information they contained. In one 4-5 year time span in one court I searched, the forms changed several times. Fortunately, my ancestor's form was one of the ones that contained complete information on date of arrival. You don't mention any time frame your ancestor immigrated. That would be helpful in determining what records to search in this country. If he arrived in the 1850s, the passenger manifest will list only country of origin. If he arrived in the Ellis Island era (post-1892), it should list home town. You can search for the date of his immigration in a number of places: Castle Garden website http://www.castlegarden.org/search.php<http://www.castlegarden.org/searchphp> Castle Garden operated from 1855 to 1890, although the index on this website contains data from both before and after that time period, and lists arrivals from ports other than New York. In spite of that, the index is still incomplete. It also has no Soundex searching, so you need to search with different spelling variations. Wildcard searches are allowed. Ellis Island website http://ellisisland.org/<http://ellisisland.org/> As with Castle Garden, Soundex searching isn't available, so search for spelling variations. Given that your gggrandfather had a rather common name, it may be difficult to determine if any hits you get from the above searches are indeed him. You'll have to check the indexes or the actual passenger list (available at Ellis Island and Ancestry websites) to determine if any of his family members are also on the ship. Ancestry.com http://ancestry.com/<http://ancestry.com/> This paid website contains still more indexes to passenger lists from a variety of ports, as well as images of the actual lists. You can access this site free at many public libraries and at many local Family History Centers. You should also search the census to determine which ones he appears in. That will narrow down his arrival time. The complete census is available at Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest. Many libraries subscribe to HeritageQuest, which allows patrons to search from their home computers (unlike library subscriptions to Ancestry.com). A list of libraries that offer in-home remote access to HeritageQuest is here: http://www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline<http://www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline> The 1880 census is indexed and free at FamilySearch.org: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp<http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp> Although the determination of an ancestor's origins is usually through using American sources, you can also check out the indexes to Trier area Familienbücher online: http://www.genealogienetz.de/vereine/wgff/trier/<http://www.genealogienetz.de/vereine/wgff/trier/> To search all indexes at once, use Google Advanced Search and put the above URL in the "Domain" field. You might also find him in the Ortsfamilienbuch Südlicher Hochwald: http://www.online-ofb.de/hochwald/<http://www.online-ofb.de/hochwald/> And you can also check these user-contributed online databases: http://meta.genealogy.net/index.jsp<http://meta.genealogy.net/index.jsp> http://www.geneanet.org/<http://www.geneanet.org/> Here are some online guides to finding ancestors' origins: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/RG/guide/tracing_immigrant_originsasp<http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/RG/guide/tracing_immigrant_origins.asp> http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=4<http://wwwancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=4> http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=7<http://wwwancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=7> If you're just starting out in genealogy, there are some very good online guides: http://www.rootsweb.com/~rwguide/index.html<http://www.rootsweb.com/~rwguide/index.html> http://www.arkansasresearch.com/guide.html<http://www.arkansasresearch.com/guide.html> http://www.kansasheritage.org/research/dbd/index.html<http://www.kansasheritage.org/research/dbd/index.html> http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/roots-l/genealog/genealog.fhsearch<http://ftprootsweb.com/pub/roots-l/genealog/genealog.fhsearch> Lastly, let's not forget the public library. The best book I know of for beginning genealogists is: Morgan, George G., _How to do everything with your genealogy._ New York: McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004. Good luck! Kathy ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to TRIER-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com<mailto:TRIER-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com> with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I wouldn't put too much faith in the obituary. For years I was looking for my great-grandfather's birthplace of Vealand in Baden as stated in his obituary, only to find it was Wyhlen, pronounced similarly except for the "d" at the end. I wish you luck in finding yours. Florence ----- Original Message ----- From: "HARRY MARJORIE DELLWO" <margedellwo@msn.com> To: <trier-roots@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 9:09 PM Subject: Re: [TRIER-ROOTS] Finding ancestral hometowns [was Perl and Borg] Also, my gr grandfather's obituary contained his birth place. Usually you can find good obituary's from small town newspapers. ----- Original Message ----- From: kql<mailto:lenerz@worldnet.att.net> To: trier-roots@rootsweb.com<mailto:trier-roots@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 8:38 PM Subject: Re: [TRIER-ROOTS] Finding ancestral hometowns [was Perl and Borg] Michael Young wrote: > I need some help please. The only information I have about my great > great gandather is that he was born in Trier on November 25, 1825. At > some point he immigrates to the US , settles eventually in Chicago, > Illinois, and dies April 7, 1900. Any suggestions as to how to proceed, or > where to begin? Michael, There are a lot of places one can look for an ancestor's home town. You've already checked one: his obituary. Others include: Declaration of Intent and other naturalization papers, passenger manifests, church records, military records, local histories and biographies, published genealogies, obituaries and other records of siblings, and more. While each of these may have a low probability of yielding the information you seek, that probability is still there. Examples: Of the thousands of church records I've searched, only a small fraction contained the name of the home town of the person. But if it had been my ancestor's record with the information, I would have hit the jackpot. Similarly, both passenger lists and naturalization records varied from time to time and locality to locality in the information they contained. In one 4-5 year time span in one court I searched, the forms changed several times. Fortunately, my ancestor's form was one of the ones that contained complete information on date of arrival. You don't mention any time frame your ancestor immigrated. That would be helpful in determining what records to search in this country. If he arrived in the 1850s, the passenger manifest will list only country of origin. If he arrived in the Ellis Island era (post-1892), it should list home town. You can search for the date of his immigration in a number of places: Castle Garden website http://www.castlegarden.org/search.php<http://www.castlegarden.org/searchphp> Castle Garden operated from 1855 to 1890, although the index on this website contains data from both before and after that time period, and lists arrivals from ports other than New York. In spite of that, the index is still incomplete. It also has no Soundex searching, so you need to search with different spelling variations. Wildcard searches are allowed. Ellis Island website http://ellisisland.org/<http://ellisisland.org/> As with Castle Garden, Soundex searching isn't available, so search for spelling variations. Given that your gggrandfather had a rather common name, it may be difficult to determine if any hits you get from the above searches are indeed him. You'll have to check the indexes or the actual passenger list (available at Ellis Island and Ancestry websites) to determine if any of his family members are also on the ship. Ancestry.com http://ancestry.com/<http://ancestry.com/> This paid website contains still more indexes to passenger lists from a variety of ports, as well as images of the actual lists. You can access this site free at many public libraries and at many local Family History Centers. You should also search the census to determine which ones he appears in. That will narrow down his arrival time. The complete census is available at Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest. Many libraries subscribe to HeritageQuest, which allows patrons to search from their home computers (unlike library subscriptions to Ancestry.com). A list of libraries that offer in-home remote access to HeritageQuest is here: http://www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline<http://www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline> The 1880 census is indexed and free at FamilySearch.org: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp<http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp> Although the determination of an ancestor's origins is usually through using American sources, you can also check out the indexes to Trier area Familienbücher online: http://www.genealogienetz.de/vereine/wgff/trier/<http://www.genealogienetz.de/vereine/wgff/trier/> To search all indexes at once, use Google Advanced Search and put the above URL in the "Domain" field. You might also find him in the Ortsfamilienbuch Südlicher Hochwald: http://www.online-ofb.de/hochwald/<http://www.online-ofb.de/hochwald/> And you can also check these user-contributed online databases: http://meta.genealogy.net/index.jsp<http://meta.genealogy.net/index.jsp> http://www.geneanet.org/<http://www.geneanet.org/> Here are some online guides to finding ancestors' origins: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/RG/guide/tracing_immigrant_originsasp<http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/RG/guide/tracing_immigrant_origins.asp> http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=4<http://wwwancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=4> http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=7<http://wwwancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=7> If you're just starting out in genealogy, there are some very good online guides: http://www.rootsweb.com/~rwguide/index.html<http://www.rootsweb.com/~rwguide/index.html> http://www.arkansasresearch.com/guide.html<http://www.arkansasresearch.com/guide.html> http://www.kansasheritage.org/research/dbd/index.html<http://www.kansasheritage.org/research/dbd/index.html> http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/roots-l/genealog/genealog.fhsearch<http://ftprootsweb.com/pub/roots-l/genealog/genealog.fhsearch> Lastly, let's not forget the public library. The best book I know of for beginning genealogists is: Morgan, George G., _How to do everything with your genealogy._ New York: McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004. Good luck! Kathy ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to TRIER-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com<mailto:TRIER-ROOTS-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 TRIER-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message