[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Nass and Krebs families

[Rose Ingram]

Dana

Your assumptions are correct.  The Town is Gombin (German) Gabin (Polish).  But it is not in Prussia, the country clerk probably misunderstood it for Russia, which is what a lot of people referred to in this area.

Nonetheless, I have looked at the copy of the hand written indexes from Gabin church records.  I see Adolf Hass born in 1874 with birth registered as #245 (which may be a December birth).
I see Julius Hass born in 1876 birth registered as #101 (could be June).

These records are on LDS film #1201378 which you obtain through a Family History Center.

I hope this little bit helps you back track the Nass family in Poland.

Rose Ingram

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dana Fossum 
  To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org 
  Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2010 2:40 PM
  Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Nass and Krebs families

  Hello everyone,

  I have just joined SGGEE and want to say hello and express my thanks for
  this group. I am the granddaughter of Germans from Volhynia and have many
  questions I hope the members of this group can help me with for I am not
  sure of the facts of the oral history of my family that I grew up with. The
  object of my research is Nass and Krebs families, which are closely
  intertwined by the marriages of three siblings from each family to each
  other. My grandfather Julius Nass and his older brother Adolf were
  supposedly born near Warsaw in 1876 and 1875 although through some detective
  work I have reason to believe it was closer to Gombin (Gumbien?) in Prussia
  as the county clerk in Iowa who took their naturalization application
  recorded their birthplace as "Jomben". In around 1878 they moved to Volhynia
   where a third son was born in Segental. According to my father who passed
  away 20 years ago the Nasses and Krebs were member of the same (Evangelical
  Lutheran) "colony that took up a 99-year lease in the brushlands and had to
  built their own roads, churches, schools etc." My first question is whether
  this fits with the facts. If not, how were the settlements organized? Are
  there any books or articles describing the economy and activities of these
  settlements?

  Adolf served in six years in the military, including in Manchuria, where he
  met German-speaking American soldiers who told him he should come to Iowa.
  When he returned from the war, he did just that, emigrating to Whittemore,
  Iowa in 1906 to a German settlement there. He was 31 years old by then. With
  his brother gone, my grandfather Julius Nass "feared being recalled into the
  service. He had an honorable discharge but had not served long enough to get
  a pass to get out of Russia." Another relative has questioned whether my
  grandfather actually did military service as she claims only one son in each
  family had to serve. So my second question is is this true, did only one son
  have to serve? 

  Whatever happened, my grandparents were not free to leave so in the spring
  of 1907 they and a group of other people hired an agent from Zhitomir to
  smuggle them out of the country. According to family legend, they walked
  overland, hiding in haystacks along the way to avoid detection. Eventually,
  they reached Antwerp, where they boarded a ship bound for Canada and then
  traveled by train to Iowa, joining Adolf in June of that year. On the
  practical side, however, I wonder how such a group which included very small
  children and my very pregnant grandmother could have hauled a rather large
  steamer trunk with them filled with their feather ticks and provisions and
  still avoid detection. (A cousin still has the trunk and a tick.) Do any
  other members of the group have similar escape stories? What would have been
  the most likely route out of that part of Volhynia near Nowograd-Wolynsk? 

  I have found other members of these families who are listed in the EWZ files
  and hope to mine these files for further information. Are there any SGGEE
  members in the D.C. area who do this type of work and what do they typically
  charge?

  Thank you,

  Dana Naas Fossum