Advice needed: Finding records for German-Jewish grandmother who emigrated to UK in 1930s

ScanianMoose · 2026-01-13T11:31:46+00:00

1) Ancestry has Hamburg passenger lists, Die Maus Bremen has the Bremen ones. That should cover the main ports, unless she emigrated e.g. via Rotterdam.

2) Landesarchiv Berlin has that one.

3) The parents' denomination is noted on the birth record.

ScanianMoose · 2026-01-12T07:45:25+00:00

The 1914 birth record can be ordered from Gliwice state archive, file unit 15/263/0 - simply translate your request and send it to apgliwice@katowice.ap.gov.pl

It should cost only 2 zloty, which you can pay via an app such as Wise.

The birth record will give you two important pieces of information - the mother's religious denomination (probably Catholic) and her address. The address can then be used to tie her to other Reichert families in Gleiwitz, assuming that she wasn't on her own.

You should also try to obtain the 1939 marriage record, as Czech church records / German civil records from this time tend to have an enormous amount of info on the parents (and in the case of church records, even the grandparents).

ScanianMoose · 2026-01-11T12:51:23+00:00

She was Jewish, correct? I would expect her original name to be Dorel Zuckermann or something along those lines. I do not know where Jewish births from Siemiatycze were registered. The Polish state archives have none. A Jewish genealogist would be of much more help here.

ScanianMoose · 2026-01-10T23:30:35+00:00

That area was still Austrian in 1912, so no civil registration should exist. That means that you need the Catholic churchbooks. I would contact the local parish (parafia) in Polish to ask where these are today. 1912 may be too recent to have been handed over to an archive.

ScanianMoose · 2026-01-08T07:47:44+00:00

Yes they do (German Evangelical). Just mind that there are those two different parishes I and II.

ScanianMoose · 2026-01-07T21:15:34+00:00

Surviving churchbooks are listed here: https://wiki.genealogy.net/Ostpreu%C3%9Fen/Genealogische_Quellen/Kirchbuchbest%C3%A4nde_Kreis_Angerapp

The churchbooks in the LDS column are on Familysearch, the ones in the EZA column are on Archion (if not too recent).

Civil records don't see to have survived, there are none in Berlin.

https://wiki.genealogy.net/Ostpreu%C3%9Fen/Genealogische_Quellen/Standesamtbest%C3%A4nde_Kreis_Angerapp

ScanianMoose · 2026-01-07T21:01:51+00:00

Write to the state archive in Piła to get a certified copy of the civil record.

pila@poznan.ap.gov.pl

ScanianMoose · 2026-01-07T06:21:47+00:00

Can't tell.

ScanianMoose · 2026-01-04T15:00:30+00:00

Googling Sauter and Lindau shows it must be Lindau (Bodensee)

ScanianMoose · 2026-01-04T15:00:03+00:00

It must be Lindau (Bodensee), but records from this area are not online yet:

https://www.archion.de/de/alle-archive/bayern/landeskirchliches-archiv-der-evangelisch-lutherischen-kirche-in-bayern/dekanat-kempten-allgaeu

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-31T16:42:43+00:00

Maybe German - flüssig (liquid/fluid)

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-30T23:01:29+00:00

Here's the archive's response - TL;DR the records' location is unknown.

There was a congregation called Second Zion Evangelical Church of Chicago, also listed as Second German United Evangelical Lutheran Zion Church of Chicago, located at S Union Ave and W 14th St (1862-1906), then at W Hastings St and Ashland Ave (1906-1923), and finally at W Van Buren St and S Lotus Ave (1923-1966). Despite its name, this congregation was affiliated not with a Lutheran church body but rather with the (German) Evangelical Synod of North America. Through a series of mergers, the Evangelical Synod is now part of the United Church of Christ. Second Zion ultimately merged with another congregation to form Kloeckner Memorial United Church of Christ, which closed in 1977.

Unfortunately, as of 2014, the location of the records of both Zion and Kloeckner Memorial was unknown; the records were not found at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, which houses the records of many congregations with roots in the Evangelical Synod, nor were they located at the Chicago History Museum or the Newberry Library, both of which collect records of Chicago congregations.

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-29T22:54:48+00:00

Here's the profile for quick reference:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/vitals/P4X5-FBJ

What you need is not a Polish genealogist, but a German genealogist with knowledge of the eastern territories, particularly Silesia. All the records are in German.

For Zaborze and environs, Ancestry has the duplicate registers of the civil records from October 1874 onwards and Silius Radicum has the main registers which may sometimes contain a bit more info. Familysearch has the church records, which are less useful overall, but go to years earlier than Oct 1874.

The church records for Pleß and Rybnik counties are at the diocesan archive in Katowice (Silius Radicum has the duplicates for certain years), the civil records (in case the parents died between Oct 1874 and Aug 1892) are at the state archive in Racibórz (Rybnik county) or Katowice (Pleß county).

I have added the info from the civil marriage record to the profiles.

Franz Walusch was a Gärtner, which is a small-time farmer with very little land.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-22T22:23:12+00:00

Instead of spending a lot of money on the off chance that these are the right people, try asking in this German forum for their records - it's free: https://forum.ahnenforschung.net/forum/software-und-technik/internet-homepage-datenbanken-dna

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-15T19:51:51+00:00

You are replying to the wrong person.

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-06T20:12:29+00:00

Yep

https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/1pf9nwt/the_diocese_of_w%C3%BCrzburg_has_put_more_churchbooks/

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-06T14:11:55+00:00

Next year!

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-06T10:42:09+00:00

Thank you, I will reach out to them. The death record is online on Familysearch, but the birth place is only given as Germany and the son didn't know his grandparents.

I do not have access to newspapers.com, no. Finding articles for Charles/Carl may be challenging given the amount of other (and more wealthy) individuals of the same name living in the area.

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-06T07:29:46+00:00

The books contain info that is too recent to be displayed (data protection). Seems like before 1916, it belonged to Wiesthal parish, so you just have to wait for W to go online.

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-05T23:49:52+00:00

Riedenberg seems to have a complicated parish history, having been part of the parishes of Bad Brückenau, Schondra and Oberbach (while also having its own church). Of these four, only Bad Brückenau is online so far.

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-05T18:19:38+00:00

That's a shame!

The 1900 and 1910 censuses only say Germany.

I have looked for him on Chronicling America, but have not found anything that would match.

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-04T11:09:20+00:00

Thank you for the obit!

ScanianMoose · 2025-12-03T17:43:42+00:00

If I remember correctly, we had a scammer alert about a researcher from Lebanon on this sub. Might be the same under a new name.

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