[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Intro & SGGEE questions. - village information

[juliasgenes]

Teresa:
An alternative site to check for village locations, and the name changes they have gone through, is "The JewishGen Communities Database andJewishGen Gazetteer". It is a very cool site. It has several databases with different variables you can try. You can get information on what villages you might mean in various countries, changes the names have gone through over time, the GPS coordinates, and several contemporary maps choices from which to pick.
 The Gazetteer says that "The data is based on the U.S. Board on Geographic Names databases." while Communities says "This database contains each community's name in various languages,and political jurisdictions during different time periods." including villages from Europe,North Africa, and the Middle East.
For example, look for "Rosenberg". You'll discover that there are several possibilities and that one is now called Olesno, Poland since 1950. It used to be called Oberschleisen in 1930 and Schlesien in 1900. 

This service used to be called ShtetlSeeker in the past, if that rings a bell. And don't forget that not only the Jewish people lived in these villages. It's one of the really helpful sites on the Internet for village information.



http://www.jewishgen.org/Communities/

Changing the variables can make a big difference. I looked for your "Targewek bei Gretpuin" in the Communities database (Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex) and got Torhovytsia, Ukraine. In the Gazetteer (set for Eastern Europe & Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex), three results were found for Latvia and Croatia. I don't know if these results help or if the input was too misspelled to yield accurate information, but do keep the site in mind for future use. (I haven't read the entire discussion, so somebody has probably already helped you find the villages.)
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From: Teresa Loeffler <snowleopard84 at hotmail.com>
   
I should probably rephrase and say I haven't found any villages whose names match the spelling I have. . .