[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Mallons and Kerns in Gross Leistenau: translation of German handwriting in baptism registers

[Anne Keen]

I have a request to make: Having viewed the last of my LDS films yesterday evening, I think I may have found some more ancestors on the Mallon side of my family.I have photographed the screen of the film reader, and while I have no trouble translating the headings of the columns, or those names written clearly, I do have enormous trouble reading the handwriting of the clerks. Would anyone be prepared to have a try for me? There is one baptism record.I am particularly interested in the names of the witnesses.

My great-grandmother was Gottliebe Mallon. She married August Hermann Strohschein, and one of their daughters, Johanna Gertrude Strohschein, married one Edmund Milling in Bottrop, Westfalen, in 1923. One of their daughters, Waltraud, was my lovely old mum. She never said much about her family, and after she died we found a box of documents and photos which we'd never seen. From these began my search for the girl my mum had been, and her family.

The baptisms of Gottliebe and August's children, in the films supplied by the LDS of the Gross Leistenau area, have yielded more information in the form of witnesses ( possibly godparents?) to those children.
I have found two families - Gottliebe's, and the family of a Friedrich Mallon. Each appeared to stand witness to the baptisms of each others'  children, so my assumption - although I don't know - is that they were related to each other.

I could not find any other baptisms of Mallon or Strohschein children, other than those belonging to these two families, in the records examined.This led me to think even more strongly that the two families were related.

I have tried to match the 'new' names against the SGGEE databases but with no luck I'm afraid. There were some 55 Mallons on the Parish Index, but they were all in Wyszogrod, which doesn't appear to be the right geographical area.

If the following names are familiar to anyone, I'd be very grateful if you could let me know:

Friedrich Mallon, of Dorf Schwetz, worker.
His wife, Julianna, geb. Kern.

Their children:

Gertrude Ermine Mallon, Christened 24 Feb 1907,  baptism entry number 11

Olga Charlotte Mallon, Christened 1908, baptism entry number 44

Friedrich Wilhelm Mallon, born 10 June 1910, Christened 19 June 1910, baptism entry number 65.His birth was registered with the Civil authorities at Dorf Schwetz, 1910, entry number 25.

The children's baptisms are all recorded at Gross Leistenau.

I think that the father, Friedrich Mallon, may well be a brother of Gottliebe Mallon.

On the Milling side of the family, I have asked the State Archives at Lodz for a copy of Edmund Milling's birth certificate. I have emailed and also written by regular mail, in my appalling German, but have had no response whatsoever. Is it really so usual for such delays? I emailed in March this year, and also wrote in June, and here we are in November!

Regards to all


Anne