"James A. Doemer" wrote in message
Post by James A. DoemerI'm looking for information about the family of Johann Peter Doemer &
Aloysia Wuesthoff. From what I've been told, they had eight children, all
boys. The only one that I have knowledge of is Peter Anton Doemer, b. Abt.
1818 d. September 28, 1865. We don't know the dates of Johann and
Aloysia's birth or deaths. We do know that Peter came to the U.S. from
Förde, Kreis Olpe, Westfalen, which, I am told, is modern day Grevenbrueck,
Germany. - Peter married Anna Elisabeth Rueenaufer b. 1824 d. December 30, 1896 m. January 07, 1849> > Peter and Anna came to the U.S. from Antwerp on June 22nd, 1852. - That's all I know about Johann and his family, I hope you can help. Much appreciated!
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Mr. Doemer,
3 Tips for you which may help you on your way:
1) This Rootsweb help page might be very useful to you (click on the
link):
http://www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_country-ger.html#WESTFALEN-L
It gives an elaborate overview of existing MAILING LISTS for
genealogists
searching for German ancestors.
There are excellent groups concerning Germany as a whole and general
methods of family-searching, as well as special interest lists
concerning the pre-1945 area of Westfalen and the present-day State of
Nordrhein-Westfalen (Northern Rhineland - Westphalia) in the Federal
Republic of Germany ("Kreis", meaning "circle", is something like an
administrative district in German government; it can be compared to an
American "county").
Just subscribe to some of these lists (the latter 2 are promising to
be most fruitful), and make (for example) a first posting introducing
yourself and what you are searching for. Among the readers of the
e-mail list are -of course- many family searchers living in Germany or
even Westfalen itself: they are "close to the fire", they know the
sources and the research methods that are available. When you mention
the name you're looking for in the subject heading of your subsequent
e-mail to the mailing list, someone is bound to react!
2) Also, please visit http://www.genealogienetz.de/genealogy.html
for general tips on how to find German families, and various
name-search databases (!).
3) The best European genealogist's database, enabling you to contact
other family searchers by listing them by family name/region/period
researched and mentioning their e-mail adresses, is GeneaNet.org.
Now, you must realize one thing beforehand. Your spelling of the
names Wuesthoff and Doemer is correct, that is: for the whole world
outside of German-language areas. The real underlying German names,
as they are used in everyday life, are Dömer and Wüsthoff. However, in
foreign literature they are often misspelled as DOMER and WUSTHOFF,
because people don't know about the specific accents on top of A, O or
U on computer keyboards (you might want to try these when writing the
names down, in genealogical correspondence: ü = Alt-129 ; ö = Alt-148
; ä = Alt-132).
Then, the use of an extra E, after A, O or U, is a fine alternative,
giving the exact same pronunciation as the original name. You should,
therefore, when doing research for these names in correspondence or
databases, always mention or try all possible versions people might
have come up with: DOMER, DOEMER, DöMER ; WUSTHOFF, WUESTHOFF,
WüSTHOFF.
Now, let's run some checks in GeneaNet. Examples:
- WUSTHOFF
http://search2.geneanet.org/result.php3?name=wusthoff&info=&country=DEU®ion=&subregion=&source=&place=&start=&end=&type=&nbindi=&x=0&y=0
- DOMER
http://search2.geneanet.org/result.php3?name=domer&info=&country=DEU®ion=&subregion=&source=&place=&start=&end=&type=&nbindi=&x=15&y=6
- RUENAUFER
http://search.geneanet.org/result.php3?lang=en&name=ruenaufer&place=&country=&source=&x=0&y=0
Let's take the DOMER matches. You see, for example, in the "Town"
column
two cities mentioned, Kruberg and Rahrbach. What will interest you,
obviously, is if these cities are anywhere near Grevenbrück or Olpe.
Now, run them through a good, well-detailed, online mapping website
like www.ViaMichelin.com:
- RAHRBACH
http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr/dyn/controller/mapPerformPage?strAddress=&strLocation=Rahrbach&strCP=&strCountry=240&x=24&y=12
- KRUBERG
http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr/dyn/controller/mapPerformPage?strAddress=&strLocation=Kruberg&strCP=&strCountry=240&x=16&y=10
You will immediately see that Kruberg and Rahrbach are in the vicinity
of Olpe; and so is Grevenbrück (try it!). So, it will be very
interesting for you to click on the name mentioned in the "Contact"
column for that place, and be taken to his/her e-mail address, so you
can get in touch about your researched family!
And so on: this way, you can look for various names in GeneaNet.org;
see if there are any genealogists researching for that name; see what
placenames or regions form part of their research; check these on a
"map"; compare them to the region you yourself are interested in, and
if there's anyone in the list that matches your own, click on the name
listed under "Contact". This will lead you to a contact page,
mentioning the researcher's e-mail address. Lots of chances!!
------------ Should you have any difficulties in dealing with
German-language website pages that the above-mentioned links take you
to, or eventually notice that no-one reacts to your postings in
mailing-lists written in English, then
I'll be happy to do some translating!
Hope to have been of some help,
lots of success!,
greetings, Dimitri Vlas