[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Germans in Poland

[PnSWork at aol.com]

Hi Bill,
 
> Your two recent posts to the list have been very interesting and  helpful.
> If I may, I also have these questions...

> Do you know  if the recruiter in Wurtemburg was a Prussian official or
> person paid by the Prussians?
 
Unfortunately, I don't know anything further about the Prussian  recruiting
office.  There are some people in Germany who might know.  I'll  see if I
can ask and hope they respond.

> How was the transportation  actually handled? Did they get the money
> to buy wagons and go by wagon caravan like settlers in the  American
> west?
 
>From the descriptions in the Oeschelbronn records, it seems that most
settlers had their own wagons already.  Most of them were farmers,  so
they had ready access to various means of transportation.  A  local
researcher in Oeschelbronn believes that they traveled in a group.
 
Another group of approximately 40 people traveled from Spoeck to
Boguszyn in 1798, and the documents for their arrival describe them  as
"Burgstahler and company", so they were clearly together the entire  way.
The others aren't so clear.

> Are the Max Miller book listings  indexed on the seven or more CD
> volumes of the Wurtemburg indexes?  I have used with some  success
> the Otto Heike book but did not realize it went through multiple  editions.
 
I believe the Max Miller book uses the records in Berlin as the  principle
source for settlers who arrived in Posen and West Prussia, whereas  the
seven volumes of the Wuerttemberg indexes use the official emigration
records from the Wuerttemberg archives (covering all emigrations from
Wuerttemberg, regardless of where they were going).  It is interesting  to
note that some people may have left Wuerttemberg without filing the
appropriate documents with the local officials, but then registered with  the
Prussian officials in Berlin after arriving.
 
The Otto Heike book has been through several editions, supported
primarily by the Archiv der Deutschen aus Mittelpolen und Wolhynien
in Mönchengladbach, Germany.  They had the books on sale when I
visited there in 2001, and it seems that every time they run out of  the
book, they commission another print run.  The later editions do not  vary
much from the earlier ones.

> I have been looking for the  Wurtemburg or Saxony sources for my
> Andreas Hoffmann and Spitzer ancestors. My Reisers go back  to
> Feuerbach and Biedermanns to Brittheim, Wurtemburg so I  suspect
> the others are somewhere around.
 
Brittheim also appears in my records, but only for a short period  between
1750 and 1780.  My Sengler / Singler ancestor moved to Brittheim  (from
Rosenfeld) around 1750.  He then left in 1782 to eventually wind up in  West
Prussia.

Good luck!  Take care,
 
    -Paul



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