Annual report for 2007

The year 2007 is an anniversary year. On April 1, 1867, great-great-grandfather Johann [Ulrich] Fichtelmann arrived in New York on the steamer Hermann with his daughter (great-grandmother) Marie [Barbara] Fichtelmann and his two grandchildren [Anna] Margth and Marie [Anna Christina]. Oh, and accompanied by [Johann] Georg Felbinger (great-grandfather). They are so listed in the ship's passenger manifest (square brackets added for clarification). They went to Brooklyn to live near Ulrich's son Johann Friedrich (well, father Ulrich actually moved in with his son), already in the U.S. since before the Civil War.

On the Prahl side of the family, there were major revelations, brought to light by learning of the previously unknown existence of Henry and William Blaicher, sons of great-grandparents Carl and Henrietta Blaicher. Both boys died in infancy, so they accomplished little in their short time. But their lives opened up whole new areas of research, as this report will relate.

So to the Fichtelmanns, to great-grandfather Johann Georg Felbinger, and to the Blaichers, this year's work is dedicated.

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Sitting down finally to write the annual report for 2007, I am already at the end of July 2008. Because so many other personal matters intervene in working on family history material, it seems that some more timely approach might be better. Why, even today I thought to change the focus of the annual reports from a calendar year (January to December) to a "work-focused" approach (August to July), as this has been the state of affairs for the last few years. But for the time being, I will continue the old calendar cycle. It gives me the opportunity to go back and review material, even to remember information and points for research I may have forgotten.

To report 2007, this review may be a formidable undertaking. I have been done so much work (or so little, as this report may reveal), that I used up substantial portions of 3 notebooks (I also write large). Unlike the last few years, I cannot easily separate the report into "Felbingers" and "Prahls", because much work on both families was done simultaneously, indeed had to be done simultaneously, as this report will show.

The first months of 2007 were overshadowed by a medical situation. In December I began to notice an ongoing case of "queasy stomach". In previous years I could attribute such dis-ease to the usual holiday over-indulgence between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This time it was different: low-level, but persistent. I made a mental note to practice moderation and "watch it". By mid-January this condition had become bad enough to make a visit to the doctor desirable. After examination and tests, the doctor determined the most likely cause was gall-stones and recommended removing the gall bladder altogether. Given my family history, this should not be surprising: grandmother Cenie Felbinger had her gall bladder out as did my father William: why should I be different? Of course, the doctor would tell me that genetics and family history play little role here: I can tell him other fables also.

In reading through my notes for January-June, I see where I spent more time on preparation and cleanup rather than on new work: appropriate activities while waiting to be sliced and diced. Between January and June I worked for the most of the time on Felbinger material, much of it brought home from the trip to Germany in October 2006.

Of course, there is always the on-going filing: curse of being a "piler" rather than a "filer". Much of January was spent in this mind-numbing activity.

In January I received from Kristi Felbinger pictures of Martin Felbinger (b. 1866) in his army uniform (blue, not field-gray) and of him and his wife in later life, as well as pictures of Kristi, Steven and the children. In February I sent in reply the photos of Johann Georg Sr.; the group portrait of John George Jr., Cenie and children; Dad's U.S. Army ID badge photo; the photo of Dad, Mom, Aunt May, and Grampa, sometime during World War II; and one of Alice and me, 2004.

Also in January I cleaned up and reformatted the Brenner Archive records so they would be consistent in presentation. This took rather more time than expected because somehow I had input some "secret" Microsoft formatting that took me hours to figure out how to remove it.

And in January I actually started writing the 2006 annual report. But I also note significant gaps in which no work was done because of the ongoing situation with my gall bladder. I saw the surgeon first in February and he also required specific tests to rule out other possibilities. In the meantime, I prepared my taxes and put my other affairs in order: a prudent move. This necessity put family history activities at a lower priority. I came to the conclusion that the index web page for all my material had become so long as to be particularly cumbersome, and if by some misfortune it were to disappear I could be in big trouble. So in February I reformatted the index page and broke out all the reports for the years 2001-2005, reformatting them individually. After that, I deleted all the old versions. This massive extinction of so much work by simply tapping the "Delete" key gave me the good feeling of having done the right thing.

I will mention here that in this period I was appointed to chair the Translation Committee of the German Genealogy Group. Of course, such appointment added a substantial amount of work to the load, but in recompense I have also seen particularly interesting material, stretching my own ability to deal with the language and the handwritings.

There are no entries in my workbook from February 25th to March 23rd. I am laid low waiting for the surgery.

The surgical event itself can be related briefly. The earliest time the surgery could be scheduled was March 20th: Mom's birthday. I convinced Alice to come and take care of me for the days immediately pre- and post-op. As a special treat, together we visited Mom in the nursing home the day before, and went to the hospital at the appointed time on the 20th. The surgery went well. It was the family business afterward that was wrenching. While I am in the recovery room, Alice arrives. "How are you?" says she. "I'm doing well; howz by you?" says I. "Wellll ..." says she. "OK, you've come this far; what's wrong?" Alice relates that quite unexpectedly her mother-in-law Heddie had died during the night previous, and she learned of this only by calling her husband Bob while I was in surgery. This came as a major surprise, as Heddie's physical condition had actually seemed to be improving through nursing home care. Of course, this event put Alice in a terrible position. But through extensive telephoning some initial matters were taken care of, and as she had already planned to leave within a few days of my surgery, she was quickly on her way home. Still, these are the kinds of family and life events that one just cannot make up, they just happen.

I must have felt rather more energetic (oh, to be able to eat again!), because my work notes indicate significant activity in the days after surgery: the entries are almost daily. Yet I also find notations indicating my recovery was not from strength to strength; there were also periods of exhaustion and accidia that slowed progress.

Still, the effort is impressive. March 23rd to the 26th: finished the 2006 annual report. Starting March 27th I began working on the material brought home from the October trip to Germany. March 27th to April 2nd I transcribed notes of the Ickelheim Pfarrbuch. April 3rd to April 10th I transcribed all the notes of the Ickelheim Armenkasse, to 1870. Then I spent the next 3 days trying to figure out how I might upload the document as an HTML document to the web page. I see I did do this, and actually had the intelligence to download the work back to my computer because I will have to do this again for the yeas 1871 to 1895. Starting April 14th I began work on the Kirchenbucharchiv material brought back from Regensburg. Such material included a retranscription of the marriage record for great-great-grandparents Martin and Marg. Barb. Felbinger (1834); the death record of Pastor Hohenner (d. 1829) because this is mentioned in the Pfarrbuch; death record of Johannes Sturm (d. 1799); some initial work on the note in the birth record of Margaretha Barbara Felbinger (b. 1761) about her parents, and the marriage record of Johann Michael Hörber and Margaretha Barbara Felbinger (m. 1764); death records for Johann Sturm's first wife Anna Barbara Schmidt (d. 1792) and those who died with her, and birth records for his children by her; the death record for 4GGF Johannes Schmidt (d. 1785) and Elisabetha Barbara Schmidt (d. 1793). From April 30th to May 11th, I worked on the Burgbernheim Felbingers, inputting their vital records and preparing my Document no. 12 "The Burgbernheim Felbingers: who are they?", including the usual frustrations of trying to prepare it in HTML format. May 13th to 15th I did some minor revisions of Documents nos. 7-9, even finding a long standing glitch that had made the type font of the records look unusually heavy: ah, the minor details. The rest of May and much of June were spent putting my Brenner Archive transcriptions into HTML format, and uploading them; needless to say getting them to work right with the underlying coding took substantial time.

In the period January to June, I spent some time working on the Prahls; any work I did was essentially preliminary. My concern to put together a history of the 45th NY Infantry is never far from my mind. To that end, I obtained in May a copy of T.W. Osborn's The Eleventh Corps artillery at Gettysburg (Osborn was chief of artillery for the corps), and Donald C. Pfanz "Negligence on the right: the Eleventh Corps at Chancellorsville, Chancellorsville, Virginia, May 2, 1863". The June German Genealogy Group meeting was particularly interesting: the speaker Leslie Albrecht Huber gave a presentation about how to make the jump across the Atlantic if one is stopped at the water's edge. Essential key: name of town. Nothing new there, but she did present additional web sites for our consideration. Looking at them the following night I found one of particular interest: GeoGen. I had seen reference to this website before in "Der Spiegel". The website is the result of a statistical study by a research team at the Universität Mannheim of all the available telephone books in present-day Germany. It works on the assumption that the Germans don't move around much ("apples never fall far from the tree"), though the advent of "Handys" (German for "cell phones") could make chop-suey of the theory. Now, if they don't move much, then it should be easy to find where various family names are concentrated in the country. OK, I'm game. First I input the Felbinger family name. "Felbinger" is all over Germany, but they are concentrated primarily in Kreis Fürth (to the west of Nuremberg) and … Kreis Neustadt an der Aisch/Bad Windsheim, home county of the Felbingers. Wow! Even today. OK, try "Meyer" and "Doppmann", and yes, they are located primarily in Lower Saxony in specific Kreis that would fit the parameters of research already done. OK, try the Prahl families. "Prahl": primarily around Hamburg and the surrounding Kreis, like Stormarn. "Merkel": in Landkreis Rastatt, just near Baden-Baden. "Stephan": fairly numerous near Weinheim, Baden, though their home territory is slightly more north and west. Time for the acid test, as I have no information about the Blaichers and the Baiers. The highest concentration of "Blaicher" is in Kreis Biberach, Württemberg, and high concentrations scattered throughout much of Baden-Württemberg: news to me. "Baier" I would automatically expect to be in Bavaria, but where exactly? The highest concentration is in Kreis Fulda, but the primary area is across northern Bavaria in Upper Franconia and the Upper Palatinate, also some in Baden-Württemberg. Well, these searches gave me more information than I had previous, so it narrows down the areas to search.

I continued my Prahl researches by looking at various websites for the Staats- und Landesarchive of Baden-Württemberg. There exists a website that allegedly lists those who emigrated from this Land, but the website also acknowledges that it contains only some 250,000 names against the estimated 4 million people who emigrated. Of the larger number, at least half left illegally by simply picking up, crossing the Rhine River and heading through France for the port of La Havre, where French authorities were more lenient in checking documents and passes. My research did indicate that any records dealing with Baden-Baden and Weinheim would most likely be in Karlsruhe. Also, I checked an inventory of Baden archival material: Franz, Hermann, Die Kirchenbücher in Baden. 3. Aufl. Karlsruhe, 1957. This inventory indicates that the church books in Baden-Baden and Weinheim when great-grandparents Merkel and Stephan were born are most likely for Catholic, not Lutheran congregations.

The weekend of June 22-23 I attended a German genealogy conference held at the New York Biographical and Genealogical Society on 58th ST here in Manhattan. As I had not received the conference literature by e-mail I did not realize Friday was to be essentially a "free day" in the NYB&G's library, so I was not particularly prepared. My work notes indicate I was not eager to look for any individual family member in particular, so good librarian that I am I put the time to good use by looking at the resources recommended in the conference's bibliography, and found other items of interest in the collection. One particularly interesting item was a series of bibliographies of NYC church records, which bibliographies were originally done as a WPA project in 1940. The volume on Manhattan Episcopal churches was most enlightening, as it has a 12 page section on the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Reading it confirmed a thought about the role played in prior years by the Cathedral's Laymen's Club, specifically providing much of the lay support and volunteers any church requires in order to function, writing guide books and getting souvenir post cards printed, and sponsoring gatherings and parties in support of the Cathedral. The bibliographical information about records allegedly available in the diocesan archives in 1940 was also interesting. Regarding the Civil War, I saw B&G's copy of Pfisterer's NY regimental records, which gave me a brainstorm to do a major PDF-project to include Pfisterer, Dornbusch, the NY Adjutant General's records about the 45th NY Infantry and create a small website, at least one for my own use. In addition to the lectures (those of Henry Z. Jones on the Palatine German immigrants of the 18th century and serendipity in family research, and the computer lectures were particularly interesting), I had two items of business to discuss with Richard Haberstroh, GGG member and fellow colleague on GGG's Translation Team. The first item was a couple illegible words in the NB note at the bottom of the baptismal record for Margaretha Barbara Felbinger (b. May 20, 1761 in Oberdachstetten), which note mentions her parents Leonhard Friedrich Felbinger and Kunigunda Eder in Obernzenn at the time of their marriage in January. Unfortunately, Richard had as little luck with the text as I. As Richard has done extensive work in Baden, the second item was a general discussion about Baden church records and how they seem to alternate between Catholic and Lutheran records. He inquired after great-great-grandfather Merkel: what was his given name? Ignaz, I replied. Said he, no Protestant would ever name a child Ignaz. In the moment it hit me that Ignaz was named for any number of Catholic saints. And this insight made me realize that Grampa had been telling me right along that the Merkels were Catholic and had turned Lutheran after the Civil War, simply because Ignaz had gone to Mass at some point, the priest demanded a dime for the seat, and Ignaz (either thrifty or poor) told the priest he'd see the Pope in hell before giving him a dime for the seat. (To skip ahead slightly, I recalled in July Lapham's dissertation Germans in New York City, 1860-1890, because I remember reading in it about the "dime incident": seems a popular tale. I did not find it after a thorough search. Yet, Lapham does state (leaf 62) that many German Catholics were not well served by the Irish hierarchy of the Archdiocese of New York, often misunderstood the need to contribute money because of their familiarity with state-supported churches in the old country and misunderstood the American separation of church/state as well as the attendant concept of voluntary association. So I believe well Grampa's story about his grandfather, but it was only now after so many years that I saw it within its larger context.)

The last week of June I began to plan a field trip to the NYC Municipal Archives. After talking with Alice, we came up with two lists of people who I should research while down at Chambers St. Off to the Municipal Archives on July 2nd and 3rd: very convenient with the holiday on the 4th.

Both days proved both successful and frustrating. The results of my searches are as follows:

1) The marriage certificate for Anna Margaretha Felbinger, first child of great-grandparents Felbinger. Married June 25, 1882 to Johann Zimmermann, son of Johann Zimmermann and Margaretha Neumann, in Russia (no further indication from where).

2) The marriage certificate of Anna Christina Felbinger, second child of great-grandparents Felbinger. Married November 12, 1885 to Claus Hinrich Kleen, son of Hinrich Kleen and Magdalena Müller. Interesting thing here is that Dad said the name was "Klee", not "Kleen". See there: this is the difficulty of relying on information remembered rather than on records. But …

3) The birth certificate of Johanna Felbinger, daughter great-grandparents Felbinger, born September 27, 1881. This settles a question that Alice had of her birth in 1881 or 1891. Almost missed this record because the name is spelled "Fellnringer", one of the more exotic manglings of the family name. Her full name is: Johanna Theotore Felbinger (no clue where the "Theotore" comes from). Oh, and great-grandfather "Fellnringer" is … 99 years old. It's clear the clerk overwrote the number, shooting for 49 years old (and should actually be 39 years old). But hey, 99 years is "official": the record says so. May I have as much stamina to produce children when I am 99 years young.

4) No luck in finding a certificate for the Anrig-Baier marriage that might indicate her birthplace, and thus the birthplace great-grandmother Blaicher (Baier) as well.

5) No luck in finding a death certificate for the elusive first child of great-grandparents Prahl. There are no entries in the Manhattan records for Prahl for the time frame 1880-1882. There are several listings for Merkels, but they proved to be for other people. So the elusive first child will remain elusive for the foreseeable future.

6) I had previously found mention in the Bronx death index for what appeared to be two Blaicher children dying within a short time of one another in 1905-1906. I picked up on them because I went through the index using the exact "Blaicher" spelling. As this form of the name is not common, I thought they might be related. I found the first child Henry Blaicher dying December 22, 1905 at age two months of gastro-enteritis/marasmus. And fell off my chair to see great-grandparents Carl and Henrietta Blaicher listed as the parents. And more: *their* birthplaces are listed on the certificate as "Württemberg" and "Bavaria" respectively. This did not come as a total surprise, as I had found on the GeoGen website that the greatest concentrations of "Blaicher" and "Baier" would be in these two places. Forgetting William the second child for the moment, I looked at the birth index for Henry's certificate and found it … and the listing for William as well, both born on the same day, October 28, 1905. Twins??? When did we ever have twins in the family? How can Grampa not mention twins? So I went for the birth certificates and found not only the twins, but on both certificates the names of the *towns* where Carl and Henrietta Blaicher came from. For Carl, Unterreichenbach, just south of Pforzheim (right where GeoGen said he would come from); and for Henrietta, "Helmbrecht" in Bavaria. (According to the atlas, there is a "Helmbrechts" in Oberfranken just south of Hof). I started to hyperventilate, I was so delirious. For me, a 37-year, but for Grampa and Mom a life-long mystery: solved, about 102 years after the fact. Checking the listings when I got home, the church archives in Nuremberg have the Helmbrechts records, and the Unterreichenbach records are in Stuttgart. (William, the other twin, lived only until September 21, 1906, dying of the same cause as his brother.)

7) Using Alice's list and an old version of the Zion German Evangelical church records, I decided to look through the old handwritten Brooklyn birth indexes for certificates of Meyer children. I found only one: for Dietrich Wilhelm Meyer, b. 1879. Listed on the certificate as "Dick Meyer", the certificate was submitted by the midwife. It occurred to me that midwives may or may not have been present at the other births, but if so, they did not report them. It also occurred to me that Dietrich's birth may have been an unusually difficult pregnancy and birth, hence the midwife. Interesting also that between Dietrich and William the next child there is 4 years' difference (1879/1883), which suggests a difficult birth, but at this remove there is no way to know.

8) Looking for Meyers from Alice's list, I checked out two Fred. W. Meyers (d. 1903 of persistent nephritis; b. 1909, of carbolic acid poisoning); neither are ours. I acknowledge here, however, that I was having particular trouble keeping all the Meyers, Doppmanns and Pfortners straight, so I did not make any particular headway.

This was a significant amount of searching. In addition, I checked out the Clerk's record office on the 4th floor of Surrogate's Court for the wills of great-uncle Charles Edward Prahl and great-grandfather Edward Alfred Prahl. No luck, but they may have died intestate because they died early in crisis circumstances, and I may not have manipulated the computer correctly because I was in a hurry. On Monday the 2nd I took a short walk further downtown to check out the address of 30 Maiden Lane, where great-great-grandfather Charles Prahl had his watch shop. The address itself would be at the intersection of Nassau Street, but it is not clear from the current configuration of buildings on which corner. Perhaps the Municipal Archives might have a picture from the 1940s.

July and August proved months for follow-up, clean-up and compilations as well as new searches. I undertook a Civil War bibliographic project, identifying in the Worldcat (OCLC) database as many books as I could find that might relate to German participation in the war, and to the 45th New York Infantry and other New York regiments with large German contingents. The search terms were: "United States History Civil War 1861 1865 Participation German" (this would cover "German American" as well); and, "United States History Civil War 1861 1865 New York State regimental". In addition, I undertook a preliminary search for "Chancellorsville, Battle of" and "Gettysburg, Battle of". The amount of material found for each specific heading came to several hundreds of items; Gettysburg alone is a small industry. I was able to go through the material with some ease, selecting material for potential use and realizing that not every New York regimental listing might relate to the Germans generally or the 45th New York specifically. This material I downloaded to my "End-Notes" computer program for future reference, and wrote up much of it for the "Bibliography" on the website. I included material present in my personal library as well; I am amazed how much material I have collected over the years. At some point I will have to make a concerted effort to determine with which regiments the 45th was brigaded (both New York and other states), so I can find if there are any references in their regimental histories as well. One other book should be noted: Schaub, Hans. Auswanderung aus Oberfranken nach den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika im 19. Jahrhundert: Inauguraldissertation, Universität Bamberg, 1989. A quick read of the summary indicates there were three significant waves of emigration from Upper Franconia, the third around 1882 which would be about right for the time that Henrietta Baier (Blaicher) came to the United States. Most of the emigrants were either farmers or involved in the clothing trades.

Several individual family members and specific families were worked on. I input the Hörber/Felbinger from the Brenner Archive into the Felbinger file (seems appropriate), but even this record is incomplete: it lists the marriage, and that Hörber died at 93 years, well into the 19th century. But it does not list the one child of theirs for whom I have found a death record. With the new archival information about related Prahl families in hand, I ran "Helmbrechts", "Unterreichenbach", "Baden-Baden" and "Weinheim" through the Mormon data bases to see if the church books for these towns have been filmed. Helmbrechts, no; but the other towns appear to be available, as well as substantial Danish census records for Oldesloe. Ordering the films will be another project to undertake. I continued working on the Zion church records, trying to clean up my transcriptions, getting a better grip on all the relationships involved and making sure that I really had extracted all of my ancestors from the records.

In preparation for her annual New York visit, Alice contributed to my efforts. She found in the Castle Garden website record of a Dietrich Doppmann and Lena Doppmann arriving in New York on the "Hansa", June 18, 1866, ages 23 and 50, most likely son and mother. Dietrich was easy to find in the Zion records (marrying in 1871), so it was Alice's opinion and mine that Lena is great-great-grandmother Doppmann, coming to America probably because her husband had already died back in Germany. There was much emailing back and forth as we prepared lists of Meyers, Doppmanns, Pfortners and Uckerts to be searched in the Municipal Archives. Because I have direct access to Ancestry.com through Columbia University's website, I undertook looking for these family members through the Federal census records. I also searched them in the New York City death indexes to determine specific dates of death. The amount of information gathered is staggering and too much to relate here; specific information is in my notebook for the period. But two stories are touching in their own way because of the serendipity. I finally found the citation for the death of "Uncle Fred" Meyer, who was well known to the Felbinger children because he kept bringing stray animals to his older sister Cenie, because their sister "Aunt Kate" (Meyer) Uckert most likely would not allow him to keep the strays in her home where he was living. From the account of our cousins, when Aunt Kate spoke, that was that and even Cenie could bow before her younger sister. I found the citation for Fred's record on August 18, 2007; he died August 19, 1925. One can just not make this stuff up; these people want to be found. The other revelation was a call from Alice. Through our searches we kept trying to find an elusive "Uncle Johnny" remembered by Aunt Gene and our cousins Lorraine Stewart and Georgine Farish, but could never pinpoint him. Alice came to the conclusion that "Uncle Johnny" was not a Meyer, but in reality John Uckert, the husband of great-aunt Kate. A possibility I never thought of, yet upon consideration he fit all our information about him perfectly. He always came to the side door of the Felbinger home, and why: because he was a milkman by trade, and in those days milkmen always came to the side door because the kitchens were in the back of the houses and the lady of the house would be there. And besides, they would not expect, even with family, to go traipsing through the living rooms.

Alice arrived the end of August; off to the Municipal Archives the last two days of the month. We had a staggering list of two dozen names of Pfortners, Meyers, Doppmanns and Uckerts to search in the death records alone. Alice and I divided the list between us. As she had prepared the original list of names by finding their citations in the New York City indexes, she got to search the majority of names because it would be a simple task to find the certificates on the microfilms. I undertook the more difficult task of doing a methodical search through the individual pre-1898 annual handwritten death indexes for great-great-grandmother Anna Magdalena Doppmann and Dora Meyer, daughter of great-grandparents John Henry and Catarina Meyer. It was a fair division: Alice got the thrill of finding many records; I got the tedious job of trying to pinpoint two records, a well-practiced professional skill. Yet my portion was not all tedium. While cranking the reels slowly through the readers, I came up with additional names that had not appeared on our original lists. Alice was often surprised that I could actually read the index records because the images are so bad (negatives rather than positives). This is another skill I have developed through long weary hours of looking at microfilm and deciphering old handwritings; English can be as poorly written as German. We were fortunate both days to get two microfilm readers together, to support and encourage one another. Through our searches we were able to answer several questions raised by other records:

1) Death certificates for John Pfortner (d. 3/19/01) and Gesina Meyer Pfortner (d. 1/26/30). Her certificate would indicate a birth-date on or about October 26, 1840. The interesting thing is that Christian Pfortner is listed as her father (most probably father-in-law). It is likely that at the time of her death, she had out-lived her nearest relations, no one knew for sure and even she may have been confused before death. Both are buried in Lutheran Cemetery.

2) Charles Doppmann, d. 7/12/1906 at 74 years, appears to be the oldest of the Doppmann children and also the first to have arrived in America, coming in 1851. Also, his wife Regina, d. 5.17/01 at 69 years. Both are buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

3) William C. Doppmann, d. 12/10/1907, is Wilhelm *Conrad* Doppmann, in distinction to his brother Carl Wilhelm. This also clears up some confusion in the Zion GELC baptismal records where the name of the father is "Wilhelm" Doppmann, but the specific record may be either Carl Wilhelm or Wilhelm Conrad, depending on the mother of the child.

4) On both Charles and William C. Doppmann's death certificates, their parents are listed as Dietrich Doppmann and Lena Muller. This would make the listing of Carl W. Doppmann as father on the death certificate of great-grandmother Catarina Meyer to be in error (perhaps Cenie Felbinger or Katherine Uckert as informant, and in error).

5) The Dietrich Dopmann Alice found in Manhattan was not one of ours, as well as the Dora Meyer, d. 1934.

6) Charles Meyer ("Uncle Charlie"), d. 5/21/27 at age 60. According to his certificate, he is buried in Valhalla Cemetery. This information caused Alice a moment of confusion: "Where is Valhalla?" she cried. "Why, that is where the Germanic gods and heroes dwell", said I, to much laughter of fellow researchers. OK, Smart Guy, where is it? I explained that Valhalla is up-state New York. Well, fine, but why there? Don't know really: a guess would be his wife was buried there first. Another item to pursue.

7) Death certificates for Katherine (Meyer) and John Uckert. Alice was particularly pleased to see a few typed certificates. Aunt Kate, d. 8/2/41: the certificate indicates her birth date as 10/22/1873 as stated in her confirmation record, but not *11/22/1873* as stated in her baptismal record. Seems confusion about dates was a particular Meyer trait. John Uckert, d. 1/14/43 of prostate cancer (a new and modern illness!). Both are buried in Greenwood Cemetery with several other Uckerts in the family plot.

8) Of the names I found in my searches:

a) Willie Doppmann, d. 3/16/1872 at age 3 months of teething and hydrocephalus.

Appears to be a child of Carl Wilhelm Doppmann;

b) Marie C.E. Doppmann, d. 3/13/1875 at age 2 years of laryngitis and diphtheria;

c) Regina Doppmann, d. 3/21/1875 at age 12 years of diphtheria;

d) Frederick W. Doppmann, d. 11/29/1883 at age 49 years of age. Already known

through the Zion GELC records;

e) Diedrich (i.e. Dietrich) Meyer, d. 6/26/1883 at age 4 years. Dietrich was the

only Meyer child to have a civil birth certificate. And his early death

explains why he was not generally known to Aunt Gene and our father William;

f) Dora Meyer, d. 2/20/1912 at age 64 years. On the initial look she would not

seem to be one of ours: father's name Richard Doppmann, mother's name

Bertha Miller (Müller). Yet she died in the home of John and Kate Uckert,

so Alice and I both think we are dealing with a cousin. Listed as a widow,

but it is not entirely clear whether she was the widow of the Adolf Meyer

of Wulmsdorf who married Dorothea Doppmann in the 1870's.

More research will need to be done for her.

Here ended the first day's research. We returned the following day, Friday the 31st, hoping to accomplish as much, as the Archives are open only a half day Fridays. And what a day it proved to be!

1) Retrieved the marriage certificate of John and Kate Uckert (m. 3/28/1895).

2) Retrieved the death certificate for Frederick Meyer ("Uncle Fred"): d. 8/19/1925 at age 50. The surprise on this certificate is that he is listed as married. The surprise was because in the 1920 Federal census Uncle Fred was still living with his sister Kate. There is therefore a short time frame in which to look for a marriage certificate.

3) The day's really big surprise came mid-morning. Since the day before I had proceeded slowly through the Brooklyn manuscript annual death indexes to find Dora Meyer, daughter of great-grandparents Meyer, and great-great-grandmother Lena Doppmann. Starting with 1871 I had advanced to 1888, but had only found the entries listed above. By now time was running out because of the half-day. When I got to 1892, I said out loud: "Got her!" because I found a citation for "Doppmann, Lena, 87 years 10/5/1892 #16665". The citation alone would indicate great-great-grandmother was actually 60 years old when she came in 1866, not 50 (born 1806, not 1816). Alice got the film, and coming to the certificate said "What's this?" I looked and found not a death certificate, but a coroner's certificate, meaning that she had died under unusual or uncontrolled circumstances. Cause of death: exhaustion due to fracture of the femur (which leg not indicated). A stunning revelation: the certificate provides documentary evidence of Aunt Gene's story told to me 27 years ago. Aunt Gene said Betty Pfortner told her that great-grandfather John Henry Meyer had disowned his brothers because they would not help care for their mother. Thinking about the story through the years I had come to the conclusion that there was a basic truth in the story, but that Aunt Gene had gotten the details wrong. Why would a man disown his brothers for failing to care for their mother if mother and brothers are 4000 miles away in Germany, and he can do nothing about it anyway? As we had discovered all the Doppmanns and Alice found Lena coming to America, might the story be about the Doppmanns? The coroner's record makes the story more plausible: great-grandfather John Henry did not disown his brothers, but rather his brothers-in-law, because (as Alice and I suspect), Lena's care may have fallen to great-grandmother Catarina who already had 9 children of her own, or one of her sisters-in-law. And how much care was Lena receiving? An initial search of addresses did not indicate she was living with any family member, but may have been living on her own. We will have to run a full search of the addresses to determine how close to her any of them were living. It is quite possible that Lena fell, was not found for a while, and when found she was already too far gone. Much of the above is pure speculation, but in any event the coroner's adds documentary veracity to Aunt Gene's story, and points to why we and our immediate ancestors were generally unaware of the Doppmanns.

4) As a postscript to number 3 above, I found only one record for a Dora Meyer, d. 1888, the certificate number #1757 (#1759?) almost impossible to read, so it might require an extensive search through the death certificates themselves to determine whether it is daughter Dora.

5) I found additional death records for Meyers (see above under the first day's activity), but only a look at the certificates themselves will indicate whether they are related.

6) Alice mentioned we should look for the marriage certificate of William A. Meyer to "Aunt Dot", but by now we had fairly well run out of time. As a gesture to the Prahls, we looked at a Manhattan survey map from 1934. We discovered that Public School 54 where grandmother Christina (Blaicher) Prahl attended was still in existence that year on the north-east corner of West 104th ST and Amsterdam Ave. There is a playground there now. The original school building was torn down at some time, and a new building built on Columbus Ave between West 107/108th ST.

Altogether two very busy days, and very successful.

Alice devoted the first days of September to scanning Felbinger and Prahl family pictures into my computer files so she might download them to a computer stick and take them home with her. In between scannings we also played with ship records on the Castle Garden website and Ancestry.com to see if we might come up with any additional information about family members. We were intrigued to find two: the first for Friedrich and Bertha Doppmann, arriving with baby Anna, Bremen to New York on the "Mosel", October 4, 1875 … as American citizens. We have been unable to find their initial immigration, yet here was the first documentary evidence that family members had at some point returned to Germany for a visit and come back to the United States. After Alice returned home I found the second record for Carl and Regina Dopmann [sic] returning April 2, 1858 on the "Helene", also as American citizens. While Alice was scanning Prahl pictures, we found pictures of "Uncle Henry" and "Aunt Alex" in Massachusetts. It is clear that Henry is a brother of great-grandmother Henrietta (Baier) Blaicher, so we ran a few Federal census searches for him. The pictures are dated in the album as 1939, so we first looked in 1930. No success, but did find the listing for Henry and "Alexandra" (from Finland) in 1920, up in Worchester, Massachusetts, with 3 children. And while she was here, Alice and I both took time to visit Mom in the nursing home. Despite her dementia, Mom was particularly impressed with Alice's digital camera, particularly the part of having her picture taken and being able to see the results immediately. Dementia Mom may have, but she is still aware at some level of her surroundings and what is happening. So we now have some additional photos of Mom as well.

The rest of my September was spent putting the final touches on my transcriptions of the Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church records, and uploading them to the website (finally!). With projects where I am uncertain how much information is present, am confused about what I am doing and must go through the records several times, I often feel that no matter how much care I apply, the project finishes me rather than I finish the project. Still, it is an impressive piece of work. While running ship records, I also ran "Pfortner" and "Doppmann" through the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Index for potential service (Meyer would be just too formidable because of its commonality). Union armed forces, of course; little point in running them for the Confederates. Nothing of interest for the Doppmanns, but several hits for Pfortner: Carl Pfortner in the 3rd New York Infantry (Albany region), and Michael Pfortner in the 46th New York Infantry (another German regiment recruited in New York City). A quick look at the muster rolls for the 46th New York in the reports of the New York State Adjutant General (see "Bibliography" on the web page) reveals: "Pförtner, Michael, 31 years old, enlisted New York City as private, Co. E, August 27, 1861; deserted June 13, 1863 at Cincinnati, Ohio". Michael may possibly be related to John Pfortner, but there is no way of telling this. In addition, I began sending several of the scanned pictures to my Cooper cousins in Vermont, for which they were most appreciative.

The beginning of October was taken up with two projects. The first was to take a look at the Mormon films for Unterreichenbach, Württemberg which had arrived. On a first run through the films I found no reference to great-grandfather Carl Constantin Blaicher, so I put them aside for later.

The second October project was another field trip to Nuremberg in Germany to continue my transcriptions of the Ickelheim Armenkasse records and the parish Pfarrbuch, as well as search the church books for family members. The trip was made easier because in August the archives of the Evangelical Church in Bavaria had moved the church book records from Regensburg back to Nuremberg, so I was obliged to make arrangements only for that city. The trip was also more poignant, because in addition to continuing my researches into the Felbinger and related families I now had the records of great-grandmother Baier (Blaicher) on the Prahl side to look for as well, for Helmbrechts is one of the parishes for which the archives have the records. For the Felbingers, my particular concern was to explore the Sturm side of the family (related to me only by marriage): to find Johann Sturm's birth record in Weihenzell, the permission for his first marriage to Anna Christina Schmidt (sister of great-great-great-grandmother Anna Sybilla Schmidt Sturm Felbinger), and his children by the first marriage. In addition, to find children of the Hörber-Felbinger marriage in Obersulzbach and the death records for both of them. Oh, and if any time left over: run through communicant lists for their church attendance.

Off to Germany on Saturday the 13th, the usual flight to Frankfurt and train ride to Nuremberg: 15 hours apartment door-to-hotel room door. Started in the LAELKB (Landesarchiv der Evang.-Luth. Kirche in Bayern; State Archives of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Bavaria) on the Veilhofstrasse on Monday the 15th. For the first week in the archives I had ordered 3 documents to be ready for me: 1) the matrimonial material of Westheim, file no. 63, to see if I could find the permission certificate for Johann Sturm's first marriage; 2) the Ickelheim Armenkasse records, so I could continue my extractions; and 3) the Pfarr-Beschreibung, Parish-Description 1834/1843 for Ickelheim, file no. 54. I found no copy of any permission for the first marriage of Johann Sturm in the Westheim matrimonial material, so there is only the note in the parish marriage records that he is related to his first wife, Anna Christina Schmidt, in some way. Turned to continue my work on the Armenkasse records. First, I reviewed all the transcriptions and extractions, correcting errors I had found while transcribing previous work, and of course found a few more. Rather than concentrate on this, however, I forged ahead to continue the extractions for the years 1871-1895. I had good success here, finding more Felbinger, Sturm and Kett entries. And sometimes I found more than I actually expected to find, especially for the Ketts, so I stopped for a while in order to work on the Pfarr-Beschreibung. Here I had better progress, because it is narrative text and the handwritings are familiar to me.

On the afternoon of Wednesday the 17th, I took off to go visit the Gesellschaft für Familienforshung in Franken (GFF) in the Nürnberger Staats-Archiv. As I had two weeks here in Nuremberg rather than the usual one, I decided to look first for printed material to which I had found citations. Among several items, I looked at the following. The Abschrift der Kirchenbücher des Pfarramtes Windsfeld (jetzt Dittenheim) 1650-1850 (GFF-Bibliothek Sign. 2614/ 3 Bde.) is for a parish now subsumed in Dittenheim. Reading through for Felbingers I found none, but it became clear that the pastor in Dittenheim is difficult to get in touch with, and is not making too many friends in the GFF. In the Blätter für fränkische Familienkunde, Bd. 13 (1988-1990), p. 61, there is an article about the Brenner Archive and its return to Ansbach. It's clear that reading the records in the Queens Family History Center is actually easier than traveling to Ansbach. Dehm, Karl, "Familienverzeichnis aus Heidenheim von 1684" in Blätter für fränkische Familienkunde, 4. Jahrg., 1929, April/Mai, Heft no. 2, p. 59-63: this article proved the most illuminating. The article is a list of contributors to a parish fund for the purchase of an organ. There are no Felbingers on the list. But at the end of the article there is reference to an earlier article. This article is: Dehm, Karl. "Familiennamen aus dem Hahenkamm zur Zeit des 30.jährigen Krieges" in Blätter für fränkische Familienkunde, Bd. 1, (1926-1928), p. 22-23, 61-67. The article lists family names in the region during the Thirty Years' War and whether the margravian farms were "occupied" or "unoccupied". In the Degersheim church register there is an inscription that relates: on August 14, 1634 the village was put to the torch by elements of the imperial Catholic army, all possessions plundered, the population maltreated and the surrounding fields devastated. Anyone who could flee did so, those who remained died either of disease or starvation. After two years (1636) only two families had returned and by the end of the war (1648) only ten families found their way home. Among these are Felbingers. Page 62: Balthas Felbinger was among those still to be found in Degersheim in 1650. Hans Felbinger was not: "Hans Felbinger hat ein Hof gehabt, jetzo aber öd und alles hinweg". According to the Wendell information, Balthas (Balthasar) Felbinger would be a great-grandfather of Johann Paul Felbinger, which should make him 7th-great-grandfather to Alice and me; Hans would be most likely our 8th great-grandfather. Though I have never seen any documentary evidence for ancestors before 5th great-grandfather Leonhard Felbinger, this article would help confirm the anecdotal information presented by Ludwig Wendell as to why there is no death date for Hans: he perished either in the original pillage of Degersheim or shortly thereafter, and there was no one to record the event. To learn of other family members, I purchased two books from the society. The first, George Rusan, Österreichische Exulanten in Franken und Schwaben: makes sense to read a general history of the exulanten as we have a few of these in the family. The second, Heinz Kühlwein, Mir gefällt es in Amerika besser wie drauβen : der Landkreis Neustadt an der Aisch-Bad Windsheim und die Auswanderung nach den Verinigten Staaten von Amerika in 19. Jahrh. Just the area where the Felbingers and Fichtelmanns came from. And in the back of the book (p. 198): Johann August Fichtelmann, Ulrich Johann Fichtelmann (2 GGF), Maria Barbara Fichtelmann (GGM), but not Johann Georg Felbinger and the two children, nor Mary Lou Benjamin's Fred. Need to write the author about this.

Back the following days in the LAELKB to finish off the first section of the Pfarr-Beschreibung, to order a CD of two pages (one leaf) in a different hand in that section for transcription at home, and to finish the extractions from the Armenkasse records to 1895. I also took a quick look at the Helmbrechts Findbuch to see if there are additional files which might yield information about the Baiers and their related families. In comparison to Ickelheim, Helmbrechts is definitely a large town/small city, so their archives are more extensive. I copied citations for several files that may be interesting, but I will have to decide later whether it is worth the time to pursue them

Off to frolic in Munich on the weekend, and returned to Nuremberg on Sunday for the second week by going down with a cold (flu?), certainly ill because the weather had turned decidedly colder on the Wednesday the 17th and temperatures plummeted, leaving me rather chilly (insufficient warm over-clothing) and finally sick. Ten hours' sleep the night of Monday-Tuesday went a long way to restoring me physically; the purchase of an additional sweater and sweatshirt did little for my wallet, but helped me finally warm up.

The second week was devoted to the church book archives. The new reading room is located at Lorenzplatz 10a on the south side of the Lorenzkirche, through a passage and in the building on the south side. Upon arrival I immediately asked for the Helmbrechts records to look up great-grandmother Maria Henrietta Baier (Blaicher). Yes, she was exactly where she is supposed to be in the records, born May 1, 1863 (as an aside, Ignaz Merkel was spending this day in the Wilderness near Chancellorsville, VA, allegedly wounded and unaware of the impending attack by Stonewall Jackson). It was a bit disconcerting to find that her family name in the record is spelled "Bayer", not "Baier". Further research indicates "Bayer" and "Baier" were used interchangeably for her family. She was baptized on the 16th, named for her godmother Maria Heinrietta Gebhard (yes, the German spelling is "Heinrietta"). Parents: Johann Georg Bayer, Katharina Margaretha Ordnung (simple spelling, now that I see the original record, but Onkel Arthur Blaicher hatte keine Ordnung gehabt, er hatte den Familiennamen so schlecht auf dem Todesmatrikel schreiben lassen). Great-grandmother Henrietta is also the 9th child, not expected. I transcribed her entry and duly searched first for her older siblings, then her younger. I was assisted by the fact that each entry indicated the page and number of the previous and later entries: a great help. In order, the children are:

1) Georg Heinrich Bayer, b. April 17, 1848

2) Margaretha Johanna Bayer, b. October 31, 1850

3) Elisabetha Baier, b. May 29th, 1853

4) Johann Georg Baÿer, b. September 2, 1855, d. January 9, 1856

5) Johann Heinrich Baier, b. December 26, 1856, d. January 9, 1857

6) Rosina Margaretha Baÿer, b. December 25, 1857, d. January 12, 1858

7) Johann Nicola Christian Bayer, b. December 10, 1858

8) Johann Heinrich Christian Bayer, b. February 2, 1861

9) Maria Heinrietta Bayer, b. May 1, 1863

10) Anna Margaretha Christiana Baier, b. April 30, 1865

11) Christiana Margaretha Luisa Bayer, b. July 6, 1867

From other records, I know the last four children (Johann Heinrich Christian; Maria Heinrietta; Anna Margaretha Christiana; Christiana Margaretha Luisa) immigrated to the United States. Johann Heinrich Christian was "Uncle Henry" to Mom and Aunt Chris, and it was his farm in Worchester, Massachusetts they visited in 1939. Maria Heinrietta is great-grandmother Blaicher. Anna Margaretha Christiana married Joseph Anrig, who owned the confectioner's store at 983 Amsterdam Ave., Manhattan, New York City. And I have the singular distinction of having met Christiana Margaretha Luisa, the youngest child, sometime in 1948/49. I remember the visit dimly, but there is a photograph of the day.

The birth record of the oldest child Georg Heinrich is interesting because of this information in his entry: " Taufzeuge: Georg Heinrich Baier, Webergeselle, jüngster Sohn des Johann Baier, Metzger in *Amerika* " (emphasis added). And did great-great-great-grandfather Johann Baier leave for America before 1848? Indeed, is it great-great-great-grandfather, or another Baier of the same name, as the following entry might indicate? If it is, he would be the earliest family to do so. The other interesting birth record indicates that Christiana Margaretha Luisa, the youngest child, was born in Münchberg, a short distance away from Helmbrechts, so obviously the Baiers were on the move.

The next day I found the marriage record for great-great-grandparents Baier (extract):

Johann Georg Baier, b. 18 December 1826, master weaver, Helmbrechts; parents: Johann Baier, Metzger +; Marg. Barbara Heerdegen married September 18, 1849 Katharina Margaretha Ordnung, b. March 30, 1826, Helmbrechts; parents: Johann Ordnung, Zimmergeselle; Katharina geb. Greim.

From this record and his birth record, the first child Georg Heinrich was born out of wedlock, father's occupation listed as "Webergeselle". In the marriage record, Johann Georg Baier is listed as "Webermeister". See there: first master, then marriage. And from these records I would gather that great-great-great-grandfather Baier (if indeed he is the man named in both entries) died between the birth of his grandson and the marriage of his son. Certainly another avenue for research.

I decided to forge backward and look for the actual birth records of great-great-grandparents Baier. Found them easily (extracts):

Katharina Margaretha Ordnung, b. March 30, 1826; father, Johann Ordnung, resident and citizen of Helmbrechts; mother, Katharina Margaretha, b. Greim, divorced from Merkel (well, first divorce in the family I have found!).

Johann Georg Baier, b. December 18, 1826; father, Johann Baier, master butcher in Helmbrechts; mother, Margaretha Barbara, b. Heerdegen from Martinsreuth.

And I found the Ordnung marriage easily enough (extract):

Johann Ordnung, 2nd son of Jakob Ordnung, farmer in Gäuthersdorf married May 11, 1824

Katharina Margaretha Merkl [sic], born Greim, divorced wife of Johann Daniel Merkel

Now search I did, but found no marriage record for great-great-great-grandparents Johann Baier and Margaretha Barbara Heerdegen. All I found were the birth records for Johann Georg Baier and an older brother Johann Christian Baier, b. March 6, 1824, d. September 27, 1826. There were some Johann Baiers in Ottengrün that might fit the bill, but this will require more intense research at a later time.

On Wednesday, October 24th, I noted in my workbook that this was one of those frustrating days that makes me eager to chuck the whole business and take up another hobby. I did take a look at the Münchberg records to see if there were any children later than Christiana Margaretha Luisa Baier. Of course, the first fiche for this period is missing from the Münchberg files, but a check of the index would make be believe there were no other Baier born there. Also looked further in Helmbrechts for Baiers after Christiana, but all these Baiers appear to be the children of other parents. I also noted in my workbook some confusion about Henry Baier and his age, not quite remembering whether the 1920 Federal census said he was 38 years old, or had lived in the U.S. for 38 years; would need to check this when I got home. That the four youngest Baier children immigrated to America is clear, but that they left at separate times rather than coming together is also a distinct possibility: another theory to test when I got home. After this I finally got to work on the Felbinger side of the family. Cleaned up the Westheim records. Looked for Johann Sturm's birth record in Sontheim/Westheim and am real clear that he was *not* born there. According to the record for his first marriage in 1781 to Anna Christina Schmidt, he was the son of "Georg Sturm, deceased communal herder in Gerbersdorf [sic] by Weihen-zell". There is no Gerbersdorf near Weihenzell, but there is a Gebersdorf and much indication in the Brenner Archive records that there are Sturms there. On a first look, I did not find a record of Sturm's birth there, and Georg Sturm may have settled there at a later time. But I should say here that the handwriting of the Weihenzell records is so wretched as to make the Oberdachstetten records actually look *good*. In the afternoon, it was off to the GFF folks again. I got a photocopy of the Dehm article from the week before, and checked a few references for Felbingers who may be exulanten. The references are vague, but certainly they were involved with them. Obtained new copies of the Felbinger pages and Wendell's notes. Also had the GFFers run the Baiers, Ordnungs and Heerdegens. I also found that they had input all of the Felbinger material I had brought them in 2006, as a computer file "DM2003", but I find I did not write down the title in my notebook: next year.

On Thursday the 25th, I went first to the Church Archives to pick up my CD and read through the Helmbrechts Findbuch again. I also asked the archivists to look at the 1761 birth record of Margaretha Barbara Felbinger and see if they could read the one indecipherable word. As usual, Frau Müller came through: "frayβℓ." = "fraysslich": "hateful", "scornful", "worthy of contempt". That Margaretha Barbara had been conceived before the marriage was always clear, the "fraysslich" puts the frosting on it: they were not in an acceptable state of grace. Both Frau Müller and another archive patron informed me that the pastors in the Ansbach region at this time were particularly hard on people for not maintaining premarital chastity; hence the entry in the birth register. After a couple hours I went to the church book archives on the Lorenzplatz. I went through the Helmbrechts marriage and death records to find entries for great-great-grandparents Baier to see if they were widowed and had remarried, but found nothing. Turning again to the Felbingers, I searched the Westheim death records for 4 GGM Schmidt: as her husband Johann Schmidt died in Sontheim in January 1785 and the records says he had lived there the previous 12 years, I went back to 1772 and went forward to 1800 looking for any other Schmidts, and found none. From the records my sense is that she was already dead by the time the Schmidts started living in Sontheim. I went through the Oberdachstetten birth records once again to attempt to fill in the blanks for so many of them; in this I was successful in making further progress, but I am not entirely done. I did not attempt to transcribe the 1764 Hörber/Felbinger marriage record, nor the 1765 birth of the first child. By the time I had finished these tasks, I realized I was at 5 p.m. ("long" Thursdays for the church book archives), and packed up the overseas work for this year.

After coming home, I checked the Henry Baier record in the 1920 census, to find I had incorrectly read it the first time: born about 1862, he is *58* years old in the census, it is wife Alex who is 38. Henry also immigrated about 1883. So it all fits: he, great-grandmother Henrietta and the two younger girls Anna Margaretha Christiana and Christiana Margaretha Luisa came over in the early 1880s. Now to try and find them in the ship records.

The first week of November was low-key in activity. Alice sent me an email indicating that great-grandparents Felbinger and the Zimmermanns had buried Alma Felbinger and John M. Zimmermann at the same time: a child of their own and their first grandchild in the same grave. The monthly GGG meeting had a presentation by Laura Murphy DeGrazia of the New York Biographical and Genealogical Society on evidence analysis for genealogists for those cases where the evidence for a particular person is indirect or tangential: good talk. There was immediate practical application. On Election Day the 6th, I went to the Queens FHC to try and get a better grip on the Unterreichenbach Württemberg records. I was intrigued by the sheer magnitude of them: 18 volumes, the last 6 appear to be indexes to all the other volumes and contain extensive family listings going over several generations. There are several clues: one to a Blaich family and another to a Constantin family, but no *Blaicher* family. I kept having the feeling I was in the right place geographically but was not seeing the entry. So I went back to the baptismal registers and began an intense name-by-name search. I remembered something DeGrazia had said in her lecture: if you don't find what you are looking for in the exact spot you expect to find it, try moving to either side of it. So: according to Grampa, great-grandfather Blaicher was born in February 1861, couldn't remember the specific day. And of course I could think that Grampa's "I am in my 'Xth' year" might apply here, or that he just got it wrong. So I started with 1860 looking for Carl Constantin Blaicher, went through the whole year and found nothing. Went all the way through 1861 and found nothing. Started into 1862 and in February that year, I found the entry "Karl Konstantin spur." Lit up like a Christmas tree and checked the family name: indeed, it is *Blaicher*. In a flash, all kinds of situations passed through my mind: I had just found the dark secret of the Blaichers; great-grandfather Blaicher had been born out of wedlock; his mother is listed and his father is "unbekannt". The entry has all kinds of marginal notations around it, so it is hard to read. As time was running out, I had a CD made, the images of the entire page and of the two pages individually. I also figured out why I was not picking up this entry in the indexes: in the baptismal registers the *legitimate* births are recorded and the family register page also noted; the illegitimate births are simply recorded, no indexing. I speculate that great-grandfather Blaicher may have had a hard childhood and left for America at the earliest opportunity. Certainly the father being "unbekannt" eliminates one whole branch of the family tree, yet I speculate about naming the child "Constantin" where there is a Constantin family in the town itself. Pity that the one person who would be really interested in all this (Mom) is the one person I can no longer tell.

German script class on November 7th by GGG in Hicksville. As this was my brainchild and I am chair of the Translation/Transcription Committee, I thought it necessary to attend, even though I was not teaching the class.

As the annual Trustees' and Plot Holders' meetings for the Woodland Cemetery were held Saturday May 10th, I decided to go to Staten Island early and take pictures of the Smith's Infirmary where great-great-grandfather Charles Prahl died in 1904, as the Infirmary is on the way to the Cemetery. It stands high on a hill at the intersection of Castleton and Stanley Avenues, an imposing structure looking much like a castle with all the turrets. It is also dilapidated and boarded up, not the kind of place I would enter alone because if something adverse happened, no one would know where to look for me. On the way home after the meetings, I passed it again via Victory Blvd. and considered I would have to return to take additional pictures.

November 13th I checked the New York passenger lists for great-grandfather Blaicher. And lo, there he is at the top of the list: Carl Blaicher, b. about 1862, age 18, arriving on February 19, 1880 (happy birthday the 17th) in New York on the "Weser", out of Bremen and Southhampton. One of the easiest ship-record finds ever.

Between this last entry in my workbook and December 7th, several personal matters took my attention away from work. Principally, Mom went into the hospital in the middle of November with pneumonia, and recovered well enough only in the days after Thanksgiving. Even after her return to the nursing home, she was still very much in recovery, giving both staff and me some anxious times. Even at that, I managed to accomplish a few things. I returned to Staten Island and took additional pictures of Smith's Infirmary from the Victory Blvd. side. Photo film I had shot since 2006 and which included several pictures relating to family history I finally took to the developers for processing. I received an email from Manfred Göss in Germany with a Sturm birth record showing Johann Sturm sen. (b. 1796), son of Johann Sturm born in Ickelheim, had fathered an extra-marital child in Windsheim in 1818.

There are no further work entries in my book for 2007. After looking through all I have written here, it is clear I accomplished a lot. It is also clear that the work remains unfinished, and more work needs to be done.

-- Begun July 19th; finished and proofed August 23, 2008