[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Distant cousins - a note of encouragement

[Jerry Frank]

In the last couple of days, I established contact with a newfound 7th 
cousin.  That constitutes 7 generations of cousins so with the siblings up 
one level, our common ancestor is 9 generations back!

How does one do that?

Well, I have been fortunate in tracing my maternal HEMMINGER line back from 
Manitoba to Volhynia to Russian Poland to Wuerttemberg c.1560 with 
assumptions to 1530.  Early in Volhynia, there was a marriage to a 
STEINWAND who also came from the same village in Russian Poland but who 
originated from a different village in Wuerttemberg.  Again I had success 
with that family, tracing them, via Lossburg, to a place called 
Neuenthausen where one of my ancestors was a GALLINGER woman.

A couple of days ago, out of the blue, I decided to do a Google search for 
"Gallinger +Germany".  The very first hit was for a genealogy site for a 
GALLINGER family at Cornwall, Ontario.  I doubted a connection but explored 
the site anyway and was surprised to find Neuenthausen listed in a 
historical time line at this site.  As it turns out, the brother of my 
GALLINGER ancestor migrated to New York state in the 1750s.  During the 
American Revolution, he fought with William Johnson (founder of Fort 
Johnson near Schenectady) on the side of the British.  With the defeat of 
the British, the entire family was forced to flee to Canada, becoming part 
of the migration known as the United Empire Loyalists.  They settled around 
Cornwall where I now have thousands of new cousins, many of course now 
spread throughout North America.

One of those cousins now lives in Regina and is an active member of the 
Saskatchewan Genealogical Society, co-sponsor with SGGEE of the FEEFHS 
convention in Regina in July.  I will have the opportunity to meet her there.

We all know that entering a simple surname into a search engine these days 
results in too many hits to make searching practical.  A search for 
"Gallinger", for example, returns over 6,800 hits - realtors, sports 
figures, etc. with no interest in communicating with people about their 
genealogy.  Searching for a surname like Frank is even more difficult 
because it will return every hit containing the word "frank" as well as one 
for everyone with that first name.  So how can you narrow your search.

You need to add words to your search to narrow it down.  A search for 
Gallinger +Germany returns only 432 hits.  Here are some suggestions for 
improving your success in finding someone interested in genealogy.

1.  Use different search engines.  You probably have your favourite (mine 
is Google) but other engines use different criteria in their search process 
and you could end up with different results, though certainly many will be 
repetitious.

2.  Vary your search terms.  Here are some examples, showing phrases in 
quotes, the acceptable form for Google.  Other search engines might use 
different formats for phrases so look them up before proceeding.  I am sure 
you can think up others to fit your unique situations.  Comments in 
brackets after the term are not part of the search.

Gallinger +Germany    (eliminates many of the personal, lists of people, 
professional and sports type hits)
"Gallinger +in Germany"    (forces it to look for a phrase that includes 
the article;  may be too narrow to return results)
Gallinger +Lutheran    (focuses on religion, often a part of a genealogical 
type page)
"Frank genealogy" +Poland    (narrows search to a country but will still 
hit everyone with Frank as a first name)
"Andreas Frank"    (takes the search to a unique name)
Volhynia +genealogy     (may get you to sites of general regional interest)
Wolhynien +Lutherisch    (takes you to sites of other languages with info 
about your region)

So, make your searches creative and you too may find contact with other family.






Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
jkfrank at shaw.ca