[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Vergissmeinnicht booklet

[Debbie]

Dwayne,

Interesting.  My great-grandfather who was originally from the Rhineland and
who migrated to the Crimea has a similar booklet, but it appears that he
started the booklet with his wives and family.  It includes births, deaths,
and marriages.  The entries are written out in longhand, similar to the
entries in the old church books before the days of printed columnar books.

I thought this was just something my great-grandfather did as a school
exercise, but perhaps it is some sort of tradition.  On the cover of the
booklet is a sticker that states, "Auefsatzheft fuer Christian Scheid,
1876."  From the dictionary, (so this may not be entirely correct,) it
translates roughly to "Essay Writing Book for Christian Scheid, 1876."
Inside the front cover is written, "??egonnen den 4 September 1876 in
Sarata, Christian Scheid."  Christian attended the Werner School in Sarata,
Bessarabia and 1876 would have been the year he graduated.  Perhaps he was
just making use of an essay book that never got used at school to record
important information in.

There appears to be a few pages missing at the front, then the first entry
is the death of his first wife.  Then a number II Ehe. appears in the middle
of that same page and it records his marriage to his second wife, Katharina
Eckstein and continues on to record his wife's baptism information, then the
marriage to his second wife, their children's baptisms, the death of his
second wife.  Then in the middle of the same page is written III Efe, the
information on his wife's baptism, and the record of his marriage the
marriage to his third wife, and their children's baptisms.

Someone continued writing in the book after my great-grandfather died, as
his death in 1915 is recorded, as is his son's marriage in 1916, and the
birth of his first grandson, in 1917.

After the family history, there are some pages in what appears to also be in
Robert's handwriting, a page dedicated to each of the children listing money
(gold) and goods given to each child.  The first page is the information for
his eldest son by his third wife, Robert, and is dated 1915.  The second
page is for his daughter by his third wife, Emma and is dated 1919, the
third page is for my second son of his third wife, Arthur, and is not dated.
The fourth page is for his eldest son by his first wife, and is dated 1910
with two entries for 1911.  After checking the dates, it appears that each
of his children received some type of "inheritance" from their father at the
time of their marriage.  The exception is the daughter, who received her
"inheritance" in 1919 and didn't marry until 1925.  However, the daughter
would have turned 18 in 1919, so perhaps she was given her portion when she
turned 18.

What I found interesting on the list of inheritance items was what appears
to be money given for the sale of eggs, and other farm income.  Each child
was given "geld" or gold, and each was given land, which was listed in
"morgens" rather than acres.  The monetary values for each item was listed
next to it, and a grand total for each child at the bottom of the page.

After these entries, the booklet continues on with birth, deaths, and
marriages for the family after the date of Christian's death, and the
handwriting differs from entry to entry.  At some point, someone started to
use the book as an address book for their German relatives in Germany.

The last two pages are in the handwriting of the daughter, Emma and she
recorded the death dates of her parents, her husband's parents, and then the
deaths of the various brothers, sisters, and what would have been her nieces
and nephews.  The booklet is in the possession of the daughter, Emma's
family, who kindly allowed us to make a photocopy, although the book is now
very fragile.

Since the numbers in the book seem to refer to my great-grandfather's wives,
it would appear that he began this booklet with information only on himself,
but after reading about your grandfather's book, one must wonder how many
pages are missing  from my great-grandfather's book and if the entries
started with earlier family information...

Debbie Beick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ancestors" <ancestors at telusplanet.net>
To: "SGGEE Messages" <ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 7:32 PM
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Vergissmeinnicht booklet


> A relative mentioned a booklet that was in the possesion of his aunt. He
> thought that the origin was his grandfather's. In it there were birth
dates of
> ancestors going back several generations to 1810. Does any know if this is
a
> normal custom among Germans that lived in Russia? Have others seen this
type
> of booklet before? I would be interested in hearing similar stories.
>
> Dwayne
>
> http://www.geocities.com/ancestors/Volhynia
>
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