ROOTS & BRANCHES

Diligent readers of this article no doubt are aware that your “Roots & Branches” columnist gets of inquiries.

And while many of them deal with my German genealogy specialty—particularly people trying to locate the village of origin for an immigrant ancestor—it can be truthfully said that there are nuances to each and every question I receive.

Take a recent one from John M. Baumgardner. “My ancestor Johann Georg Erhart Baumgartner arrived in Philadelphia on the Hampshire on Sept. 7, 1748,” he wrote. “I am searching for his geographical origin in 1722. I plan to travel to Germany next May. I do have an International subscription to Ancestry and would appreciate your suggestions for my next steps.”

The great news is that Baumgardner seems to have found the arrival date, which is helpful for use as a teeter-totter point—by and large, he knows only records before that date in Germany will be relevant, since relatively plenty few made return trips.

I noted that while he might get lucky and his ancestor’s baptism (and therefor his parish and village of origin) in a search of databases of German records on Ancestry—and also try the FamilySearch databases—more than likely he needs to be looking at assembling every bit of data you can find from American records that might include his origins.

It is helpful in this regard that he has what appears to be the immigrant’s full baptismal name and that once he does find a match in German records, it’s less likely to merely be someone with the same name, unlike ubiquitous single-named men named “Johannes.”

The best bets in this time period are church records of baptism, marriage and burial. He should also scour for references to family Bibles as well as writeups in the county biographical histories published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (these latter often have much erroneous data … but if it lists a specific origin, it can then checked it out in German parish records.

I also recommended checking records not only of the immigrant but also all of his children since sometimes their records indicate the father’s nativity.

Also, relevant are the works of the late Annette Burgert (there’s an index she did in 2000 that’s in many libraries) as well as Werner Hacker (which has the exit information on many emigrants; there’s an English-language version from Closson Press).

And, finally, if he can’t find anything directly about the immigrant … try looking for the origins of the so-called FAN Club (friends, associates and neighbors), including shipmates on the Hampshire. It’s almost always the case in these 18^th-century voyages that several people from the same village were aboard.