New York. Ellis Island. Immigrants walking across pier from bridge. National Photo Company Collection No. 3163E (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
Census and immigration records often show the short label “Posen” as the place of origin for German, Jewish and Polish immigrants. 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, Australia or elsewhere. The period between 1835-1884 corresponds to the period of greatest emigration.
The database is located at:
http://bindweed.man.poznan.pl/posen/search.php
The Thesaurus Professionum now contains about 23.000 entries for occupational titles found in Early Modern funeral sermons and similar texts in German libraries and archives.
Illustration: Amman, Jost, Sachs, Hans: Eygentliche Beschreibung aller Stände auff Erden, hoher und nidriger, geistlicher und weltlicher, aller Künsten, Handwercken und Händeln …
Durch d. weitberümpten Hans Sachsen gantz fleissig beschrieben u. in teutsche Reimen gefasset, Frankfurt am Mayn: Feyerabend 1568
thanks to http://www.digitalis.uni-koeln.de/
The transliteration of characters from non-Latin scripts differs from target language to target language and from purpose to purpose (literal/phonetic). The encoding of special characters that are used in these transliterations does as well.
The online-converter 2cyr.com now provides a tool for the automatic transliteration of languages written in Kyrillic to Latin script and vice versa. It is also possible to use an individually created transliteration for special needs.
For the lack of a common one-to-one encoding of characters within one transliteration system the machine-based conversion of bibliographic data is difficult. Nevertheless 2cyr.com is a useful instrument and with the help of a screen keyboard it is possible to make requests to Unicode-based library catalogues, bibliographical databases, search engines in general and paste the received information to the own reference management software.
individuelle Anpassung der Umschrift für jedes einzelne Zeichen
Eulogies, which were written and published on the occasion of birthdays, baptism, wedding, inauguration, anniversaries or death, form a unique biographic source. Printed funeral sermons for aristocrats, citizens and dignitaries were very popular in the Protestant cultural area between 1550 and 1750. They usually contain names, dates, places, relatives, life histories, and sometimes also information about the following generations.
The Research Centre for Personnel Writings at the Philipps University Marburg has made this source accessible for online-use by providing bibliographical data such as: names of the deceased, the widows and the preachers, place names, dates of funerals and the publication of the sermon, etc.
Picture: Title page of the funeral sermon for Samuel Sultze from Naumburg, Title Page Catalogue of Funural Sermons and other Personal Writings of the University Library Wroclaw/Breslau, Sign. 421542
Litlink: preview to version 3.0
As the quantity of software for managing bibliographical references and information increased during the past years the range of products makes it necessary to define criteria for choosing one or the other. These criteria are for example the variety of import and export file formats, citation styles, options to manage many different information in a complex software structure, usability, database connectivity, good net binding, and last but not least independence from the Internet.
Individual needs play a substantial role in the choice of a software. Therefore it is important to figure them out clearly and to test different programs. The free software “Litlink” has been developed especially for the requirements of historians. It combines facilities for managing bibliographical references relating them to articles, reviews, photographs etc with those ones that are necessary to administerate archival materials and references. Litlink is a multi-dimensional slip box that offers almost unlimited linkage possibilities.
Since December, 14th 2007, the memorial book “Gedenkbuch - Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945″ is accessible as an online-database at the website of the Federal Archives of Germany. The second print edition of the memorial book (2006) constitutes the main corpus of data. Beyond that the database contains information about Jews that held the Polish citizenship but lived and worked in Germany and were deported in 1938/39 to the Polish border.
The database is searchable by first name (Vorname), last name (Familienname), birthname (Geburtsname), place and date of birth (Geburtsort, Geburtsdatum), last residence (Wohnort), place and date of deportation (Deportationsort, Deportationsdatum).
Users are encouraged to add their information contacting the archive.
Historical adress books are a very important reference for the sciences of regional, social and economic history as well as for the genealogy. Increasingly libraries and archives make this source accessible for the online use. For example the adress books Poznań which one can research in the Digital Library of Wielkopolska. The time-frame runs from the Prussian provincial capital Poznań (Adress- und Geschäfts- Handbuch der Stadt Posen 1879) to the voivodship capital Poznań during the Second Polish Republic (Księga adresowa dla handlu-przemysłu stoł. M. Poznania 1936/37).
Furthermore one can use the volumes, that one can retrieve in the catalogues of the Berlin State Library or the Herder-Institut Marburg as well as the 1835 Posen City Directory (Polish-Roots).
The JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF) is a database of ancestral towns and surnames currently being researched by over 78.000 Jewish genealogists worldwide. It contains over 100,000 ancestral surnames and 18,000 town names, and is indexed and cross-referenced by both, which makes the Family Finder interesting also for regional studies on jewish history. Researchers should check the JGFF for genealogists with similar research interests, and contact them for an exchange of information. Value-added services for contributors include an ALERT-system and enhanced database search features.
In the next months we will introduce a sequence of digitalization projects of JewishGen or, respectively Jewish Records Indexing - Poland. We start with the Polish Business Directory from 1929 (including Gdansk) for trade, industry, handicraft and agriculture.
Browsing the singular PDF-files is rather uncomfortable as access is realized only by Voivodships of Poland. If possible it might be easier to order the printed version
to the reading-room of a library:
Księga Adresowa Polski (Wraz z w.m. Gdańskiem) dla Handlu, Przemysłu, Rzemiosł I Rolnictwa / Annuaire de la Pologne (y compris…Dantzig) pour le commerce,
l’industrie, les métiers et l’agriculture
Closely connected to their religious believes adherents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints consecrate themselves to genealogical research.
Data is provided online in two different databases to everybody who is interested in family history. familysearch.org allows to search directly for ancestors. Information about them are gathered from church and civil records, lists of the immigration authorities and different censuses in the US. Using the OPAC of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City you can find references to microfilms or microfiches of the original documents. They are sent by the Family History Library to your next Family History Research Center
