And Who Might You Be?

Are you planning on going to Germany in 2016? And are you looking for the graves to visit and for cousins to say hello? Things might turn out to be a bit difficult for both.

I wrote about the difficulties of finding your German ancestor’s grave on August 31, 2015 in my blogpost “Finding your Ancestor’s Grave (Or Not)” which you can find here http://bit.ly/1O2Lyi2. But finding relatives actually isn’t that easy either.

The main reason for the difficulty of finding German relatives simply is privacy. Not only are the privacy laws in German very strict and it is complicated, time consuming and sometimes simply impossible to find information on living people. But even when you manage to find them, you might not be able to get in touch with them or even be invited to their house. The reason for this is that Germans like to keep their privacy. They like to stick with their own family and friends and are rather reserved with getting in touch with people they do not know. And most of them simply aren’t looking for new found cousins, be it first, second or third.

Another reason is that in Germany genealogy is a more or less exotic thing to do. Remember, Germans usually stayed put and think they know where they come from. There simply doesn’t seem to be a need to know more and dig deeper. Therefore, most Germans aren’t even aware that they have relatives abroad. It happens quite often that I find relatives but they simply are unfriendly and hang up, making it very clear that they aren’t interested.

Often, there are no relatives in that area, their ancestors simply moved and their descendants are impossible to trace. The earlier emigration took place, the harder it is to find relatives.

But there still is hope and it is in fact possible to find relatives that know about the emigration and welcome you to Germany (which does not mean to their house). These are some examples where I found family members:

The emigrating ancestors had come from a small village close to the Dutch border with a very active Historical Society. They had information on everything a genealogist could ask for and knew directly which family member had emigrated and what became of the siblings. And as it was a Historical Society of a small village, many of its members were related. It only took one phone call and the research was more or less completed. And within 2 months about 200 family members from all over Germany met and welcomed their new found family member from America!

The emigrating ancestors came from a small village in Baden. I found out that there was a journalist living in the village, who also wrote about the old houses in this area. He agreed to meet my client and it turned out that they were distant cousins.

The family moved overseas in the 20^th century; therefore the memory of them simply was alive and the remaining cousins knew about them and wanted to meet (but not in their home). I was only able to find them, because I turned every (and I mean EVERY!) stone around.

Once, I found the name in an online family tree; a sibling had married into this family. The researcher had more information and put me in touch with the lady who had provided him with that part of information. It turned out that she not only was a distant cousin of my client, but also a genealogist and archivist who had actually wondered what had happened to the cousin who all of the sudden vanished.

So, you see, it is possible to find relatives, but you really need time, know your way around, be creative, and, most of all, you need luck! Without luck you will not be able to get there!

But even without meeting your relatives, you will meet a lot of kind and friendly people in Germany. And who knows, maybe it turns out that you are related?

Enjoy your trip! 

Back To The Days When It All Began

Today,  Protestants from all over the world celebrate Reformation Day. It was on October 31, in the year 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Schloßkirche in Wittenberg. At least this is how the story goes. 

 

But that’s not what I want to write about. I want to take this opportunity to introduce to you my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Adam Reichardt, also known as Adamus Ricardus, one of the first Lutheran pastors in Germany. He was born in the town of Sangerhausen, not far from Martin Luther’s hometown of Eisleben, in 1525. He was baptized catholic but as the reformation was introduced to Sangerhausen in 1539, he and his parents probably became protestants. He enrolled at the University of Vienna in Austria on the fourth of April 1550 and became a Schulmeister (teacher). But he received a call from his homeland to help establish the new Protestant Church and his life would dramatically change.

As the majority of the population in that part of Germany had adopted the Lutheran faith, there was a lot of administration work to be done. It wasn't enough to have believers, the existing (former catholic) parishes needed to be re-organized  and new ones needed to be established. While finding church buildings wasn't such a problem, there was a severe lack of pastors who were needed as soon as possible. Therefore church government made the decision to take in men without any theological education or even catholic priests who had converted. Like Adam Reichardt there were other teachers who wanted to become a pastor but there were applicants with other occupations as well, like sextons and craftsmen and even a servant had applied. All of them were ordinated, often only after having received some kind of theological “crash course”.  It would take years until there were enough pastors with a proper theological education for every parish. 

Adam Reichardt was ordinated in Wittenberg on Friday, November 16, 1552 by the Pastor Johann Pommer and was sent to Immenroda right away, where he stayed for one year. He then left for the parish of Niederröblingen/Helme.

In 1574, it was time to move again, this time he took over the parish of Osmünde, close to the city of Halle (definitely a career step!). 

The church of Osmünde, first mentioned in 1191 (but the village is probably 300 years older), had once been a well known Pilgrimage Church due to its statue of the Virgin Mary.  With the death of the last Catholic Pastor in 1538, it had become a protestant church. Reichardt's predecessor and first evangelical pastor of Osmünde had been Matthias Fischer (Piscator), a pastor who had studied theology and had been ordinated by Philipp Melanchton. These two pastors should change community life in this parish and form the new, evangelical church. The statue of the Virgin Mary was removed and the pilgrimages to this church were put to an end. Also, they made several changes in the church itself: the altar stone from catholic times was removed and became a step to the new altar and all parts of the old altar except of the figures of Johannes and Maria were removed.

 

Due to the increase of population and parish members, they needed more space and therefore decided to build a gallery, which was completed in 1581.

Adam Reichardt remained in Osmünde for the rest of his life, retired in 1600 and died two years later.

What would he have thought if he would have known that only 16 years after his death, there would be a war between Evangelical and Catholic States which would last for 30 years and would lead to devastation, famine, pestilence, dislocation and bring death to many, all in the name of God? Osmünde itself was sacked several times by different troops and in some years the villagers even left in fear of loosing their lives, hiding in the marsh land for months. The Church was damaged more than once, but survived and was restored after the war. And what survived as well, was the gallery with the carving that reads ARP 1581  (Adam Reichardt Pastor).

 

But I do not want to let you go without a song that was sung in the church of Osmünde at the time of my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, the Pastor Adam Reichardt:  Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, written by Martin Luther, who wrote the Ninety-Five Theses and nailed them on the door of the Schloßkirche in Wittenberg (or did otherwise), 497 years ago on this very day.