Week 4 – 2020: Close to Home
As I mentioned last week, our European ancestors likely stayed in one place most of their lives. I recently did a deep-dive into my Wernersberg ancestors and found that from at least 1718 until today there are people living there with the name of Glaeschen or similar (my Glacy ancestor was a Glaeschen. See Week 3 from 2019 for explanation).
When researching this branch of the family tree, I have to be mindful of the various ways my family’s name was spelled and transcribed. Here are a few of the variants:
Glaesschen
Glaesge
Glaeschen
Gläßgen
Gläsgen
Glasgen
Glaesgein
Glaesgin
Okay, so you get the point. Even if you have an easy name (like Baty) you have to be aware of a few things:
1. your ancestors were likely illiterate;
2. The person writing their name in the record could have heard it a different way or had their own way of spelling it; and,
3. The person transcribing the record for whatever database you are researching may have misspelled it or misread it.
For Baty, I have found records for Baty ancestors with these spellings: Batey, Beattie, Batie, Batty, and Batz. These is where wild cards become your friends. While not all websites support searches using wild cards, those that do are super helpful. So, for a search for Glaeschen ancestors I use: Gl*s*e*. Yes, this will get me some results that are not helpful, but nine times out of ten most of the results will be spot-on.
You’re maybe asking “What do you do with all those results, Cecelia?” Well, here’s one cool thing I did using FamilySearch.org. I searched all baptisms and marriages for Gl*s*e* in Wernersberg. From that, I easily exported my results to Excel.[1] Taking these results, I merged the Excel data into one spreadsheet and was able to group nearly everyone into a family group, focusing on 1718 to 1837.[2] The result was twenty-four family groups with Glaeschen or similar. My third great-grandparents Johannes Glaesgen (note the different spelling) and Anna Barbara Masser were married on 27 June 1796 and had five children. Through this research, I discovered that my second great-grandfather had a twin sister (Mary Ann).
Estimating that my third great-grandfather was probably born between 1755 and 1775, spreadsheet shows that there are six possible choices for my fourth great-grandparents. “Six” you ask, how can there be so many in such a small village?[3] Well, beginning in the Middle Ages, German boys were almost always baptized with the name Joannes, Johannes or Johann.[4] However, they were also given a second name, known as the “Rufnme,” which would be used in throughout the male’s life.[5 ]It appears that my ancestor may not have been given a “rufname” when he was baptized, so the list of five narrows to just two, unless he is older or younger than my search perimeter. The only way I will be able to sort this out is to actually see the marriage record for my third great-grandparents which should name their parents. Sadly, the records held by Family Search exist still on microfilm. Anyone taking a trip to Salt Lake City soon?
[1] See the top right of your results for an “export” button.
[2] I did this only for Glaeschen grooms as I was tracking only the male line. I intend to do this for the female lines as well.
[3] About 1,100 current residents. “Community Statistics,” 31 December 2019, Werner Berg, Southern Wine Route(https://ewois.de/Statistik/user/htmlgen.php?stichtag=31.12.2019&ags=33701083&type=OG&linkags=0733701083 : accessed 28 January 2020).
[4] The girls were always named Maria, Anna, or Anna Maria.
[5] James M. Beidler, “Understanding German Language and Surnames,” Family Tree Magazine(https://www.familytreemagazine.com/premium/understanding-german-language-and-surnames/# : accessed 28 January 2020).
View of Wernersberg by Ali Aksi, 2019 (http://www.earth.google.com : accessed 28 January 2019).
Wernersberg (http://www.earth.google.com : accessed 28 January 2019).