This was previously published in RootsWeb Review: 30
March 2005, Vol. 8, No. 13.....
Trudi WEAVER began to feel a bit like Sherlock Holmes
as she delved deeper into the various resources she
found on the Internet, especially at RootsWeb. She was
also learning that the family "stories" Mrs. METZGER
reported having been told as a child were not all
standing up when examined in the cold light of factual
evidence.
Last week Trudi learned that Mrs. METZGER's ancestors
could not have arrived at Ellis Island as she had
thought if they came into New York harbor in the 1870s
because Ellis Island didn't open until January 1,
1892. It was much more likely that the families
arrived at a place called Castle Garden. And, it was a
common misconception that Germanic (and other)
surnames were permanently changed by immigration
officials upon arrival in America. In reality, the
names were added to ship lists at the port of
embarcation, usually by people familiar with the names
and the language. Trudi learned quite a bit about
names at:
http://uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/history/articles/NAMES.htm
She discovered that many Germanic names were
associated with the occupation of the original family
member to use the name. A surname dictionary revealed
that METZGER meant "butcher" and ZIEGLER meant "brick
or tile maker." She also determined that her own
surname of WEAVER was associated with a trade and
originally might have been WEBER. Another lesson Trudi
learned was that the stories were not unique to Mrs.
METZGER's family. These were rather common "tales" of
how Germanic surnames were deliberately changed or
about there being a history of German nobility based
upon a surname beginning with "von." Von can mean
nobility in a German surname, but it may merely mean
that an ancestor originally came from one place and
moved to another where he was then subsequently
referred to as being from or "von" his previous
residence.
Trudi was also having a great time in her volunteer
position at the local library and she quickly found
that it had an impressive genealogy section, which
included passenger ship indexes and other fascinating
resources. Obviously not everything was available on
the Internet, so she explored her library for more
information. Trudi asked Mrs. METZGER to bring her
photos and family letters to the next "story hour" now
that Trudi had some idea of what to look for in the
way of clues to assist her research. A few of the
photos were taken by professional photographers and
the addresses of the businesses were listed on the
backs of the pictures as were the dates. The letters
gave her information she could use in posting queries
to locate living family members in Germany.
She followed links on the RootsWeb homepage and
learned about message boards
http://boards.rootsweb.com/
where she could post queries. She found that there
were surname and geographic boards where she could
attempt to find Mrs. METZGER's cousins. She also found
topic lists and boards involving immigration and
emigration at
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=topics.
immigration and ship passenger lists of those ariving
at U.S. ports
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?tx=board&r=rw&p=topics.immigrat...
Exploring RootsWeb's mailing lists, Trudi discovered
German locality lists for the places mentioned in Mrs.
METZGER's letters and on her photos.
http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/intl/DEU/
In order to post a query on the lists Trudi knew she
had to first subscribe to the free lists, but she also
ascertained that she could access browseable and
searchable mailing list archives for these locality
lists from the index pages above even without
subscribing to the lists.
Perhaps someone had already posted information about
Mrs. METZGER's families. She was in luck! She was
pretty sure she had located family members posting to
the message boards and lists--the names and dates
matched. With Mrs. METZGER's permission, Trudi scanned
a few of the family photos and posted them directly to
the relevant boards as attachments, something she was
able to do on the message boards but not on the lists.
Trudi e-mailed a few board and list posters and
anticipated their replies. She eagerly waited to see
if anyone would recognize the faces in the photos.
Following a possible lead she found in the mailing
list archives to a GEDCOM (GEnealogical Data
COMmunication) file, she explored that tree possted on
WorldConnect:
http://wc.rootsweb.com/
She e-mailed the submitter of the tree because the
families listed seemed to tie in with the von der
LINDT and ZIEGLER families. There had apparently been
several intermarriages between the two families. Trudi
decided that this genealogy thing was really fun.
While she waited for replies and responses to her
queries for Mrs. METZGER, she decided to learn more
about her own family history.
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