29 March 2011

Don't Forget Message Boards-Tuesday's Tip

It had been awhile since I visited the message boards at Ancestry and I decided to post a query about a church in Brethren, Michigan and its' history.  I posted one query one day, and the next day I went back to post another one.  There was a new post titled, "Poznan Marriage Indexing Project".  What, Poznan on the Manistee County, Michigan page?  I had to check that out.  Here is the message:

Some Manistee County census records show "Posen" as the place of origin for Polish immigrants. Documents from that time rarely contained any information more specific than the vague term Posen. The Poznan Marriage Indexing Project helps descendants of those who left the Poznan area in the 19th century to identify the actual town or parish their ancestors left when departing for America. The database is located at: http://bindweed.man.poznan.pl/posen/search.php

My Fredrick family came from Posen, but I have never been able to find records on them in Germany, later an area of Poland.  I was excited.  I headed immediately to the website and started inputing names.  My great grandfather, J. August Fredrick, was married in Manistee, Michigan, but I knew he had a sister who was married in Germany.  I started inputing the sister's name and bingo! I had a hit.  Here is what I found:

Protestant community in Nakło [Nakel], entry # 24 in 1862 score: Bride: 100%
Johann Zobel (27) father: Carl Zobel
Henriette Fredrich (27) father: Christoph Fredrich

Previous research on Henriette proved she had married Johann 'John' Zobel.  I was so excited, I had a name of her father and a place!  Further research is needed on him, but a name, oh my gosh, a glorious name, all from one post on a message board that someone generously posted.

The Poznan Project is a searchable database with marriage records from 1820-1889.

2 comments:

  1. What wonderful news Brenda, bet you never expected to find that. Guess it shows research, thinking and good luck go together. I'm sharing in your excitement too.

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  2. Thanks Barbara, I had almost given up on finding where in Posen the family came from. Thanks for the support.

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