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Fridenberg of USA but Freudenberg in Germany: How do I search Germany?
As I am new, I am unsure if this is the forum to post this query, but I'm going to try. My ggg grandfather, Frederick Freudenberg b.c.1826 came to the USA c. May 2, 1857 from the best I can tell...from the residence of Pulvermuehle in Germany. I have searched maps of Germany and cannot find this location. Can anyone help me with this? This Frederick was a farmer. If I've got the right person and the right ship, the port of embarkation was Bremen. This is the person who matches his age. Another is close. A Frederich Freudenbrag six years older left from Antwerp and arrived in 1854 to New York (but this one does not match his age as closely). The wife Frederick married in Missouri, Natalie Keim, came to the USA in 1855 with her parents and siblings from Suhl, Germany. They left Germany from Bremen also. I think these families may have known each other in Germany, as the marriage took place June 3, 1857 in Missouri, one month after his arrival in New York. On the marriage license he is listed as Freudenberger which makes sense from a German perspective at the time, I have been told. As his name was Freudenberg he would say he is a Freudenberger. The name became Fridenberg in the USA (as far as I know we are not Jewish, and there are no Germans by that name). Another aside I'd like to mention is that family legend has it that two brothers traveled together from New York to the west. They traveled down the St. Lawrence River to Buffalo, NY, and parted ways somewhere in Ohio or Indiana. Strangely I met a man through research who had the same story and lived only 45 miles from me at the time. His name became Freidenberg, but he had a copy of a military record of this brother in Germany and the name was also Freudenberg. I've tried to get a copy of the record several years after talking to this man, but this man is old and his son does not know where it is. Any help in where to go from here regarding research is appreciated. Many thanks.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Catherine Davis on
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Linda,
I found 5 entries on Mapquest for Pulvermuehle, Germany (note: ue is the same as the oomlauted u in German), but it was very difficult to tell from the map if the Pulvermuhles were villages, streets, monuments, etc. I checked my German dictionary, splitting the word into its two parts, pulver and muhle, and learned that pulver means powder or gunpowder and muhle means mill. So, it is likely that Pulvermuhle was not a town but rather that your ggg grandfather's family either were gunpowder manufacturers or managed the powder magazine of a town, living, in either case, at the same place they worked. I think you will need other documents to determine which state and which town he came from.
I've never tried to find German military records so don't know how likely you are to find them, but suspect you would need to do that at the state level, since Germany did not exist as a unified country until 1850. I did find the following website that gives an overview of the availability of German military records. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/genealogy/german-faq/part3/section-1.html
Good luck in your search. -
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Permalink Reply by Linda Graves on
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That is a very good suggestion, if I knew how to do it. I tried Mapquest but couldn't get out of the USA. I then tried other sites in Germany, and found several Pulvermuhles. I have no idea which one is the right one. I tried to figure out which was closest to Suhl, but also found there were three Suhls plus a Suhlville or something similar. Finally I found a road map and put the two towns (settlements? roads?) together. I tried to find the shortest route, but also tried to expand the map so that one of these two settlements would appear, but if it could appear if I continued to try, I would have been up all night, so I quit. The town or settlement of Freudenberg was not far from where I searched. I've also heard there may be three settlements with the name of Freudenberg (or similar) in Germany. One place I searched mentioned a powdermill near River Bohme. It was on the banks of Bomlitz River. This mill produced a smokeless powder. There is a footbridge over the Bohme. This location sounded like it was in Wasserstadt-Berlin-Oberhavel. I also found a Pulvermuhle in the hills of Saurland between 183 m (Pulverhuhle) and 502 m east of Sonnenshield (???). Does this location, or either or these locations mean anything to you? I certainly would appreciate someone popping up who happens to know where these locations are. Thank you soooo much for your response. I tried the military links you posted during the time period that Freudenbergs may have been in Germany, but couldn't get there. That is soooo frustrating!! Evidently they do not work any longer. You mention I need to find military records at the state level. I'm embarrassed to say, but do not know the states in Germany. I know there are different regions, maybe like parrishes. Please educate me. Is there a map of Germany that shows these states clearly? And how in the world did you find mapquest in Germany? I could not get off the USA mapquest site. I think the lower Saxony site seemed the most promising, but have no way of really knowing (the sites seem to be closer to Bremen where Frederick Freudenberg's ship disembarked. MANY, MANY thanks for your reply. I will print and study it. Hopefully something will click. It will not unless we help each other, and I am truely appreciative of your kindly helping hand. Please let me know if you find more info. As Fredrick left Germany in 1854, his brother's military record would surely be not far from this time. There was a Johan who came to America about three years prior to Fredrick. He was about six years older that Fredrick, but came from Prussia. Aren't the locations I'm looking for located in Germany. I do know that Prussia had somewhat of a scattered claim to Germany, but do not know which areas were Prussian and which were German.
Again, many thanks for your time. Maybe we can stumble onto something. Let me know if I didn't understand all the email. And can you get to the sites you posted? It's possible that my computer internet provider won't let me access it. Linda -
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Thank you for the history of Suhl. I printed it out. I also checked the map, but could not get my berings on exactly where it is located....will keep studying...have a friend very familiar with Germany's geography....will check with him also. Thought it interesting that very near Suhl was a Suhl-Freidberg. The name is close. I appreciate any and all information you provide!!
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Hi Linda,
Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I didn't get an email message telling me that you had posted again, and I confess that I haven't looked at this discussion topic in a while.
To use mapquest outside the US, I google "mapquest." When the mapquest screen appears, I make sure that I'm using the tab labeled "maps". On the top line, just to the left of center (just above the "find a business" search spot) is a drop down category labeled "international." That is followed by a hyperlink to "US and Canada," then an arrow. Click on the arrow and hit "all countries."
I can't make the military links work directly, but can make the World War I and II stuff work by splitting the links into the main URL and then entering the trailers in the search box on the site--for example go to www.bundesarchiv.de. Hit the translate button at the top right. Then put standorte in the search box. I couldn't get to the pre-1914 records at all. Of course this is what you really want. Sorry.
For an overview of German states, both the current states, and the older history, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_of_Germany.
A note about Prussia and its use in US records, especially the census. Prussia was definitely a state once upon a time , a very large one, covering a good deal of present day Germany, so is not a real helpful category by itself. To make it worse, because it covered so much of Germany, Americans tended it use it synonymously with "Germany" so its use in American records, particularly the census, is very ambiguous. It may indeed mean a person may was really from the state of Prussia, but he might also have been from somewhere else in Germany and the clerk who recorded the information used "Prussia" as a catch-all category. For info specifically on Prussia, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia.
Catherine -
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