[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Schmidt, Walters and Tesmann

[g.ruppert at att.net]

Thanks to Jerry, Greg, Roger and Al for their responses and suggestions and lookups!

Jerry, you're absolutely correct about your assumption that August may have been traveling back and forth and furthermore that Lubraniec may be a red herring. I've considered those possibilities, but these are the clues I have to work with. 

As far as the usual sources, I've looked at death records, children baptisms (born here in the US), obituaries, cemetery records, death notices and censuses. At best, "Ruspolen" is the closest I get to a birthplace. A distant cousin, now deceased thought the town name (in German) began with Rosen ... The family was protestant. They were known to speak German but knew Russian and Polish as well. By the way, naturalization records in Baltimore City from that time frame (in federal courts) have been destroyed. Only the index survives and that does not provide a location of birth.

I have been successful in tracking all my other German ancestors and will persist in this case. The combination of common surnames and few clues is a tough one. 

THANKs 

Gary
1 January 2007
Baltimore 
http://home.att.net/~g.ruppert


> Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 01:24:11 +0000 
> From: g.ruppert at att.net (g.ruppert at att.net) 
> Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Schmidt, Walters and Tesmann Families 
> from Ruspolen 
> To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org 
> Message-ID: 
> 
> <010120070124.12533.459862BA000CED95000030F521587667559B9D0A9F9F9A9DD209 at att.net 
> > 
> 
> Content-Type: text/plain 
> 
> The Schmidt and Tesmann families from "Ruspolen" have been major dead-ends in my 
> search for years. I've exhausted all of the usual research options and am now 
> looking for the miraculous! 
> 
> August SCHMIDT born 12 Dec 1852 in "Ruspolen" immigrated before his wife and 
> family roughly 1885 +/- to Baltimore, MD. His wife, Caroline Pauline WALTERS 
> (variants Wolter/s) arrived in Baltimore on 6 Aug 1889 aboard Muenchen with 
> children Louise 6 y and Marie 3 m. Mother-in-law, Amelia WALTERS arrived in NYC 
> on 13 July 1892 aboard Dresden with her granddaughter 5 yo Martha Schmidt and 
> her two sons Carl and Adolph Walters (Welder on the manifest). 
> 
> A "cousin" named Matilda Tessmann arrived 26 May 1907 a 21-year female from 
> Lubraniec, Russia of German descent. Another entry for another Matilde Tessman, 
> aged 27 arriving on 7 August 1908 also states birthplace of Lubraniec. 
> 
> Does anyone have connections to any of these families, or to Lubraniec? Any 
> suggestions for further European research? 
> 
> It seems like there are lots of clues here, but I've been unsuccessful in making 
> any European connection. 
> 
> THANKs and HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007! 
> 
> Gary Ruppert 
> 31 December 2006 
> Baltimore 
> http://home.att.net/~g.ruppert 
> 
> ------------------------------ 
> 
> I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone that has to research the 
> Schmidt surname, especially with limited data such as yours. There 
> are 136 August Schmidts in our master pedigree database. What are 
> the "usual research options" that you have already used? Knowing 
> that, we might be able to suggest some less usual ones. For example, 
> have you found U.S. naturalization records? 
> 
> Some observations from your data and my browsing: 
> - The children are apparently born in 1883, 1886, and 1887. If 
> August arrived initially in 1885, he had to be travelling back and forth. 
> - Since it appears that August was already about 30 years old upon 
> marriage to Caroline, could this be his second wife? 
> - The Tessmanns in the SGGEE database appear to all live further east 
> than Lubraniec. Not a major clue but this is an indication that 
> there may NOT be a correlation between Lubraniec and the residence of 
> the Schmidts and Walters. 
> - Most of the extractions in our databases stop at about 1867 as that 
> is when the script changed from Roman to Cyrillic. It is therefore 
> unlikely you will find August's marriage(s) in our database as the 
> result of extraction. 
> 
> 
> Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta 
> FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca 
> 
>