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Archiver > PRUSSIA-ROOTS > 1999-03 > 0922807922


From: "Schwandt" <>
Subject: Re: [PRUSSIA-ROOTS-L] Schneidemuhl Area
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 09:32:02 -0600


Gary Lentz:
----------
Nice to hear from you. Yeah, I think that one of the phenomena that
operated was the inevitable vagueness of answering the question "where are
you from" to someone thousands of miles from home and decades removed. My
own people sometimes referenced Posen, or the Province of Posen, but
usually just said West Prussia. Then too, depending on the context, it
seems that a lot of Germans would identify themselves as such when there
wasn't a World War going on, and as German-speaking Poles or Russians or
Austrians when there was.

The super value in the Mayers-Ort gazetteer for me has been first of all to
see the ancestral village actually legitimately and officially documented.
After four generations of invisibility, we were starting to think it was a
myth... But beyond that, the gazetteer then discloses where the church,
civil, court, and sometimes other records were kept. And that then really
focuses the searches of LDS microfilm.

Schonlanke is one of those names with a really nice sound to it; does it
have a translatable meaning?
One of these days I must find out about the Emil- and the -thal for my
Emilienthal.

Best wishes to all.

John Schwandt:
Winnipeg Manitoba Canada

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