[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Nass and Krebs families

[Rose Ingram]

My apologies, I mistakenly typed Hass instead of NASS.

Rose
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Rose Ingram 
  To: Dana Fossum ; ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org 
  Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 3:52 PM
  Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Nass and Krebs families


  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

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