[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Neche, ND and Gretna, MB

[Delores Stevens]

The lady that assisted me with the church records was indeed Carol 
Castleman.

My relatives that went to Neche, ND area and attended the Lutheran Church in 
Gretna were gr gr grandparents Heinrich and Karoline Donat, Rudolph and 
Pauline (Donat) Schaler,  Ferdinand and Katherina (Uhl/Ouhl) Donat, gr 
grandparents Adolph and Emilie (Donat) Drager as well as gr grandparents 
Andrew (Andreas) and Amelie (Dreger) Wutzke.

The Drager's arrived in 1895, the Donats in 1898 and the Wutzke's in 1900. 
Schalers arrived in 1892.

I have the baptismal certificates for my grandparents Gustav Wutzke born 
1901 in Neche and Auguste Drager born 1903 in Neche.  This is the only proof 
that I have that they were born in the US, beyond my grandmother always 
stating this fact.  There is no record of their births with Vital Stats and 
Carol was not able to find them in the records that she had copied. 
Although she did find others of my relatives.  Vital Stats indicated that it 
was not a requirement to record births during this time frame.

Felix Kuehn has done a wonderful job, but there was 2 errors that I found, 
one of the church records indicated that one of my gr uncles was deceased, 
but it was in fact his brother.  This information I knew first hand as I 
grew up knowing all of these gr uncles.  Felix had recorded my grandmother 
as a male and not a female, birth date was correct.

I had not been able to find my gr grandparents Andrew Wutzke in the census 
for 1905.  As well the Platt map for that area has a number of the settlers 
names provided only by initials, so am unsure where a few of my relatives 
farmed.  However have found Heinrich Donat spelled Doughnut and Rudolph 
Schaler and know that my gr grands the Dragers were just down the road. 
Information provided from older family members.

Also still have relatives in the area, but am always interested in ND and 
Gretna, Man, as last year was my first ever trip to the area.  It was very 
moving for me.

Delores