My friend and fellow Addict Darry, contacted me the other day about a post he saw in a group that I wasn't a member of yet; Germany Genealogy. Hard to believe I know haha! He told me he saw a post about the name 'Fuchs' in the group and thought of me. So, of course, I joined the group! I reached out and made connections regarding the 'Fuchs' surname. Putting feelers out, so to speak. While I was in the group, I also decided to post about my 'ILG' family. I explained that I haven't been able to trace my family in Germany yet and needed some guidance on where to look for records. I do have all kinds of records after Franz Jakob ILG came over to the United States in 1888, but nothing before then in Germany. I actually was in contact with a lady years ago named Rose who gave me information about the 'ILG' family in Germany. Quite a bit of information, but I had no proof to go along with it. No documentation, nothing. So I just put it off to the side.
I know they say what helps is knowing what village your ancestor came from. Fortunately, I have the family date book I got from my grandma that listed information about the 'ILG' family. It was originally written in German, but then translated into English. Yet, the closer I looked at the translation, there was some information that was left out. In German writing, it had Franz Jakob ILG being born in Seitingen, Tuttlingen, Königreich, Württemberg. In the translation, it only said Wurttemberg, Germany. Well, that's like saying I was born in Missouri, USA. It has to be narrowed down before we can start to find anything. So I made sure to scour the pages written in German to see what else they may have missed.
Not more than a few hours later, a member of the German Genealogy group got back with me and told me he found Franz Jakob's birth information. What?! are you kidding me?! It was that easy?? Well technically it wasn't quite that easy. He sent me a copy and the link to the website where he got it. I was overjoyed! Slight hitch though.... it's all written in German. Guess I better brush up on my German. It was also challenging navigating the site, which was also in German. Finally a tangible piece of evidence connecting Franz Jakob ILG to his parents listed in my date book.
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| Seitingin Birth & Baptism Register Franz Jakob ILG |
Oh I'm not done yet. Once I learned how to navigate the site (Thanks to Google Translate), I was able to page through the register to find more information. According to the information I got from Rose, Franz Jakob had brothers and sisters. Since there was no way to search an index for these names, I took the time to page through each individual page to find them. I started with Franz Jakob's entry and looked backwards, following the parents names, Jakob ILG and Magdalena Schreibar. Reading the old German writing was proving somewhat difficult, until I became more familiar with the writing. After searching backward, I searched forward. All in all I found he had ten brothers and sisters. OH my gosh TEN!! So many more ILGs than I thought existed. I wonder how many others have come to the United States. Oh my.... Ok stay focused.... First continue finding information about the ILGs from this resource.
This site also included registers for Marriage and Deaths. Now to find the marriage record of Jakob ILG and Magdalena Schreibar. I started near the birth of the (what I thought at the time) first child, and got lucky!! I found their marriage record!
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Marriage Register
Jakob ILG & Magdalena Scheibar
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Now the information contained in this register was a little harder to read. I took the time to translate (To the best of my limited ability) the headers of the columns to understand more.
- Namen des Bräutigams und der Braut – Names of the Bridegroom and bride
- Stand, Charatter, Profeffion, Aufenthalts Ort, religion - Stand, character, profession, residence, religion
- Eltern – Parents
- Ledig, geschieden oder verwitwet, in beiden letzteren Villen auch der Name des gefchiedenen oder geftorbenen Gatten - Single, divorced or widowed, in both latter villas also the name of the miscarried or deceased husband
- Geboren wann und wo – Born when and where
- datum der Königl, Erlaubnis zum Heirathen, wo diefe erfordert wird - date of king, permission to marry, where this is required
- Ort und zeit der Proklamation - Place and time of the proclamation
- Ort und zeit der Kopulation - Place and time of copulation (marriage)
- Geistlicher, der die trauung gehalten - Clergyman who kept the wedding ceremony
- Zeugen – Witnesses
- Dispensationen - dispensations
With this information, I was able to understand a little bit more. Yet the handwriting is still a different task to tackle. I am still working on translating ALL the details of this record. But with this basic information, I was able to recognize some words and names, which allowed me to look for more marriage records. On this marriage record, it lists Jakob and Magdalena's parents. So I am able now to look for their marriage records, and then in turn, then children's birth records and also death records (which is in another register on this site).
I am not even close to exhausting this resource yet. As I've looked through, I have recognized a lot of ILG names along with other surnames. I plan on looking through everything very closely to make as many connections as I can. All this came about just because a friend recognized my name in another facebook group. As I stated at the beginning of this entry, even though you may have hit a brick wall and can't find what you are looking for at this moment, be patient. You never know when or how you will crack the wall, or in this case, break that sucker down!!
Sources:
Family Date Book
Family Research for Rose Schiller compiled by Thomas Koch
Google Translate for translating the German Language
Special Thanks to the people in the Facebook groups: German Genealogy and my personal favorite Genealogy Addicts Anonymous (GAA)