[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Fw: Die Kartei Quassowski

Fri Nov 29 20:09:27 PST 2002

 Andy,

You seem to be getting a lot of leads, but no for sure hits so far.

Are you sure that the name of the place is Osterode? 

The following may be far from a correct idea to follow, but, if you go to
our web site to http://sggee.org/Maps.html
and click on the Jewish Shtetl Seeker link, click on "Town search", and
do a search for Sophenfield (or even the Sophienfelde that Jan Textor
found), again with Poland as the search country, and the Shtetl Seeker
will come up with a place called SOWINA BLOTNA that is 138.9 miles west
of Warsaw.  You are probably saying so what at this point, but keep in
mind that a lot of German villages no longer have German names, so it is
possible that this might also be Sophenfield, especially since the Shetl
Seeker usually makes a connection like this based on some evidence to
connect the names.  This place in not in what we would normally think of
as East Prussian but note the coordinates of this SOWINA BLOTNA anyway as
latitude 51 degrees 50 minutes and longitude 17 degrees 48 minutes.  
Sorry, I do not have any maps of this area to confirm my theory.  Jan
Textor may also be correct in his lead, but assuming that the coordinate
system is the same in his source as in the Shetl Seeker, the place he
indicates, and the one found by the Shtetl Seeker are about 83 miles
apart.

Next, back up in the Shtetl Seeker until you get to the search page
again, and scroll down until you see the "distance" search.  Enter in the
coordinates of SOWINA BLOTNA as noted above, and do a search with the
limitation that the first letter of the places found start with an "O",
as in Osterode, and the distance set at the maximum of 30 miles.  You
will see that Ostrow, a much larger city is 12.7 miles south of SOWINA
BLOTNA.  Again, this area is not what we would think of as East Prussia,
and is not Osterode, but again, are you sure that the larger town is
really spelled Osterode in your original document?

I also see that we have 21 Wilm names in our SGGEE database.  I do not
know if they are your kin, but that appear to be from an area near
Gostynin, about 50 miles northeast of Ostrow.   All of the names are for
people born before 1881, so I do not know if they relate to you or not. 

Sorry if this is a bum lead, but if the place name Osterode is not
correct, t is one that may be worth searching out, especially since the
Wilm name apears in the area.  But then Gostynin is also not that far
removed from the Osterode that you found in East Prussia, or the
Sophienfelde that Jan Textor found for you.

Gary Warner

Next, us

At 11:39 AM 11/29/2002, Andrew Wilm wrote:

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Andrew Wilm
  To: mailto:ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
  Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 3:20 PM
  Subject: Die Kartei Quassowski

  Hello All:
     I`ll get to the subject matter in a moment.First,I`d like to
  reiterate a
  previous inquiry I made to this group.
     My grandfather immigrated to Sask. with his parents and siblings
  in April
  of 1904.Family lore has it that they came over on a cattle boat to
  Halifax
  although I`ve consulted the relevant ship arrival micro films from
  the
  National Archives and couldn`t find any trace of them there for Feb.
  to June
  of 1904.I even went over the films about 3 times just to make sure
  but there
  is no trace of them at all.Unfortunately,I don`t know the name of the
  boat
  (ship?).I do,however,have a photo of my grandfather in his pre-WWI
  German army
  uniform,taken probably around the turn of the 20th. century,since he
  was born
  in 18881.The photo has on the bottom the words "Atelier Kurella -
  Osterode
  o/Pr".I assume this refers to East Prussia and I`ve located an
  Osterode on a
  German map from that period,some distance south-west of
  Konigsberg.Family
  history has it that the family originated in a place called
  Sophenfield
  (probably an Anglicised spelling of Sophienfeld or Sofenfeld or
  something like
  that).It must have been a particularly small village or settlement
  because
  I`ve not been able to find any hint or trace of it anywhere.So I`m
  wondering
  how likely it is that my ancestors came from much further afield than
  Osterode
  (all my relatives are of the opinion that we`re Germans from
  Russia,I`m not so
  sure).Was Osterode a major mustering location for the German army for
  all
  German settled areas in the east?How likely is it that my grandfather
  would
  have travelled probably hundreds of miles to enlist,given the
  transportation
  system at the time?
     Now to the subject matter.I`ve found my family name (Wilm) in a
  few data
  bases.A couple of them (ODF,GISW) are in the FHL system
  but,apparently,the
  only way to consult those is to go to Salt Lake City since they
  aren`t lent
  out,even to local FHL centers.That`s out of the question for me.But
  the title
  referenced above was apparently published in Hamburg in 1977 and is
  available
  somewhere.Does anyone know how or where I can consult this
  publication?I`m not
  at all certain that the Wilm line in this publication even has any
  relevance
  to my family but I`ve run into a rather substantial brick wall in my
  research
  and I`m sort of grasping at straws and hoping for a hit.Any
  hints,tips,tricks,etc. on where I might go from here will be greatly
  appreciated.
  Andy Wilm
  P.S. You can reply to me directly if you don`t wish to over-load the
  list.And
  I thank you in advance!
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