Geographical Genealogy: Germany

I have a few German lines that are quite short in my trees- only a few generations- because tracing ancestors back in Europe can be difficult.

I have been playing with a website, GeoGen, that offers surname searches in a geographical genealogical context.  You type in a surname of interest and the website generates a map showing areas of Germany where the surname is concentrated today.  This can help guide you on where to look for records, but is not proof that any of your ancestors lived in any particular place.

Let's take Clara Patschke.  She first appears in the 1870 United States Federal Census in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, age 29, born in Prussia.  Prussia does not exist anymore.  As Clara was leaving Prussia to come to the United States, it encompassed a large area of land along the North and Baltic Seas.  In the 1880 Federal Census, Clara provides a bit more detail about her origin:  Saxony.

1880 United States Federal Census
Newark, Essex County, New Jersey

Someone kindly sent me an 1877 baptismal record for a daughter of Clara, listing Clara's origin as Zeitz, Saxony.  There is a town called Zeitz in the Burgenlandkreis district of Saxony-Anhalt, which is next to Saxony, about 100 miles north of the modern border between Germany and Czech.

So we can plug in the surname Patschke at GeoGen to see where the geographic distribution of today's Patschkes.

GeoGen
Geographical distribution of surname Patschke

If we look at the area where Zeitz is located in Saxony-Anhalt, we see a concentration of Patschkes.  This is where we would hope to find a lot of people with the surname.

Next we can look for variants of the last name using the Name Graph feature.  Patschke was spelled differently on every record I have found so far.  Seeing additional alternate spellings can help me uncover more records.

GeoGen
Name Graph for Patschke

Amanuensis Monday: Doolittle, Johnson, and Bishop of Connecticut

Part two of transcribing notes found in the Bishop family file at the New York State Library in Albany.

John Doolittle born Sept 3, 1794.  Died July 22, 1873.

Ruth Melissa Doolittle born Jan 27, 1822- Wallingford.  Died Oct 8, 1900 N. Haven.

Married in Wallingford Dec 8, 1844 to Henry H Johnson.  Born May 9, 1825 Wallingford.  Died Aug 21, 1878 N. Branford.

Lyman Humiston Johnson born Oct 10, 1845 Wallingford.  Died Sept 26, 1912.

Henry Herman born Mar 22, 1847 Wallingford.  Died April 17, 1922.

Mary Matilda born May 3, 1849 Wallingford.  Died June 22, 1921.

Charles Hobart born Jan 22, 1851 Cheshire.  Died June 12, 1912.

Susan Adella born Nov 19, 1853 Hamden.  Died Feb 16, 1909.

L. H. J. married Mary Lucinda Bishop, born Mar 21, 1849.  Died July 12, 1913.

Nellie Augusta, Nov 16, 1869.

Harry Bishop, June 16, 1876.

Lyman Henry Jr, Aug 27, 1883.

Organize at the Scene

While researching on the recent trip to Albany, New York, I photographed lots of indexes of births, marriages, and deaths from the microfiche reader.  The top of each page listed the event type (birth, marriage, or death) and the year, but not the state.  If the desired information was near the bottom of the page, the heading was not visible.

New York State Death Index for the year 1926
on microfiche at the New York State Archives in Albany

New York State Death Index for the year 1911

A simple organizational trick eliminated confusion later.  I hand-wrote the year, type of event, and state on a piece of paper and included the information in each snapshot.  You do not want to have a great entry but no idea of its source.