Using Transkribus to decipher the death certificate of Gustav Grust 1839-1901

Since I have German ancestors I am very pleased that so many German birth, death, and marriage certificates are being digitised and made available.

However, well into the twentieth century German printed documents used the so-called ‘blackletter’ typeface, and this is difficult for an inexperienced modern reader of German to understand. The handwriting of the clerks who filled in official forms is often also quite hard to read.

[ I have written previously about the difficulty of reading German family history material. See: https://anneyoungau.wordpress.com/2018/04/07/g-is-for-gustav/ ]

Software has been developed to help readers with these documents. Transkribus, for example, is a platform using Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technology for automated recognition, transcription, and searching of historical documents. Website: https://readcoop.eu/transkribus/

Transkribus has handwriting recognition for in many languages, not just German. The developers are even experimenting with methods of reading ancient Chinese documents.

This 10 minute video gives an idea of how the software is being used to make archive records more accessible: Transkribus: AI-based recognition of historic handwriting

Karl Gustav Grust (1839 – 1901) was one of my third great uncles. I recently came across his 1901 death certificate, and I wanted to know what was recorded about his parents. I was struggling to understand the handwriting.

Karl Gustav Grust death 15 May 1901 (age 61) in Hamburg, from “Hamburg, Germany, Deaths, 1874-1950” Hamburg State Archives; Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Hamburg, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister, Sterberegister, 1876-1950; Bestand: 332-5; Signatur: 332-5_7944 retrieved through ancestry.com

I decided to try the Transkribus software. If you scroll down the webpage at https://readcoop.eu/transkribus/ you come across this
trial-run facility.

I downloaded the image of the death certificate and uploaded it to the page. I left the model option as “Transkribus German handwriting M1”

I immediately received the following text:

C.
No. 1151.
Bambung am 17. Mai 101.
Vor dem unterzeichneten Standesbeamten erschien heute, der Persönlichkeit
durch Geburts
shanen
der Lehrer Austar
Grust
Hamburg, Bussestrafe 25
der Privatier
Karl Gustav Grust,
61 Jahre 11 Monat lutherischer
Hamburg Bussestraße 23
Men Nuppin, verheirathet
mit Johanna Mean Cäroling gebe
renen Peper, genannt Rathje
Sohn er verstorbenen Eeleute,
Tuchmachers Gustar grust und
Wiemimine geborenen
Hl2G
Banbg, in seiner Wohnung,
fünfzehnten Nai
des Jahres tausend neunhundert l
sechs
N
woen e, und zwar indes Anzeigenden
Gegenwarte
Vorgelesen, genehmigt und unterschrieben
Gustav Grust
der Standesbeamte
Pramer.
ne aeerre
m

The transcription is not perfect but for me it is much better than being bamboozled by the handwriting. What I was particularly looking for was my great-uncle’s father’s occupation. The document confirmed this as ‘Tuchmacher’, cloth maker.

I had a quick try at correcting some of the transcription, which left out many of the proforma headings. I have shown the form details in bold font and corrected handwritten transcription in bold plus italic.

C.
No. 1151.
Hamburg am 17. Mai 101.
vor dem unterzeichneten Standesbeamten erschien heute, der Persönlichkeit
nach ??? Geburts
Shanen ??? ??? kannt, 
der Lehrer Gustav
Grust
wohnhaft in Hamburg, Bussestrase 25
und zeigte an, daß der Privatier
Karl Gustav Grust,
61 Jahre 11 Monat alt, lutherischer Religion,
wohnhaft in Hamburg Bussestraße 23
geboren zu Neu Ruppin, verheirathet
mit Johanna Maria Carolina gebe
renen Peper, genannt Rathje
Sohn der verstorbenen Eheleute,
Tuchmacher Gustav Grust und
Wilhelmine geborenen
Berg
zu Hamburg, in seiner Wohnung,
am fünfzehnten Mai
des Jahres tausend neunhundert ein
??? mittags um sechs Uhr
verstorben bei, woen e, und zwar indes Anzeigenden
Gegenwarte
Vorgelesen, genehmigt und unterschrieben
Gustav Grust
der Standesbeamte
[signature]

This roughly  translates using Google translate:

Hamburg on May 17, 101.
Before the undersigned registrar appeared today, the personality
after ??? birth
??? ??? know
the teacher Gustav
Grust
lives in Hamburg, Bussestrasse 25
and indicated that the privateer
Karl Gustav Grust
61 years 11 months old, Lutheran religion,
lives in Hamburg, Bussestrasse 23
born in Neu Ruppin, married
with Johanna Maria Carolina
Born Peper, called Rathje
son of deceased spouses,
Clothmaker Gustav Grust and
Wilhelmina born
Berg
to Hamburg, in his apartment,
on May fifteenth
of the year one thousand nine hundred one
??? at six o'clock in the afternoon
deceased at, woen e, while indicating
present
Read out, approved and signed
Gustav Grust
the registrar
[signature]

It took some work to make the additional corrections but it was much easier to work with the beginning transcription than to start from scratch. Transkribus is not perfect but thanks to it I now have the gist of the meaning and enough information to continue the family tree.

Related posts:

• G is for Gustav
• Karl Gustav Grust 1802 – 1872

Wikitree: Karl Gustav Grust (1839 – 1901)

Karl Gustav Grust 1802 – 1872

A hundred and fifty years ago tomorrow, on 22 November 1872, my fourth great grandfather Karl Gustav Grust (1802–1872) died at the age of seventy at Neuruppin, a small Brandenburg town about 80 km northwest of Berlin.

He was a Tuchmacher (cloth maker); a skilled worker in the textile industry.

The collection of the museum at Neuruppin includes a Stammbuch der Tuchmacher-Meister zu Neu-Ruppin, Neuruppin, 1584-1887, a Register of master cloth makers in Neu-Ruppin, Neuruppin, with entries from 1584 to 1887.

The importance of the guilds declined when freedom of trade was introduced in Prussia in 1810, and there was a diminishing number of master cloth makers in the register from 1887. I have emailed the museum to ask if the register lists my fourth great grandfather Karl Grust.

Karl Gustav Grust married Charlotte Wilhelmine Berg in about 1829. They had at least four children during their marriage.

1. Auguste Charlotte Wilhelmine Grust 1830–
2. Emilie Louise Albertine Grust 1832–1832
3. Auguste Henriette Amalie Grust 1835–1893 (my 3rd great grandmother)
4. Karl Gustav Grust 1839–1901

His daughter Auguste Henriette Amalie Grust was born on 28 June 1835 in Neuruppin, Brandenburg, Germany. She married Karl Detlof Albert Peters on 10 March 1859.

Gustav Grust’s grandson, Gustav Waldemar Alexander Karl (Alfons) Peters was born on 11 December 1860 in Alt Ruppin, Brandenburg, 8 kilometers from Neuruppin. Gustav junior, known as Alfons, was the father of my great grandmother, Helene Auguste Minna (Peters) Manock (1889 – 1944).

Neuruppin:
1. Holy Trinity Church. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. Photograph by user A.Savin, WikiCommons
2. Old Gymnasium. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. Photograph by user T.marcusson, CC 3.0
3. Virchowstraße. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. Photograph by user Radler59, CC BY-SA 4.0
4. View over the Ruppiner See to the Holy Trinity monastery church on Niemöllerplatz. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. Photograph by user Radler59, CC BY-SA 4.0

The guardhouse at the entrance to the Friedrich Franz barracks in 1908

Neuruppin was a planned town first mentioned in 1238 and founded by the Counts of Lindow-Ruppin. It was fortified from the 13th century. In the Middle Ages Neuruppin was one of the larger north-east German towns. In 1688 Neuruppin became one of the first garrison towns in Brandenburg. (It remained a garrison town until the late 20th century; Soviet troops were stationed there until 1993.)

On the afternoon of Sunday, August 26, 1787, a fire broke out in a barn filled with grain and spread quickly. Only two narrow areas on the east and west edges of the city survived. 401 houses, 159 outbuildings, 228 stables and 38 barns, the parish church of St. Mary, the town hall, the Reformed Church and the Princely Palace were destroyed. Neuruppin was rebuilt between 1788 to 1803, following a new design with long wide streets and many squares.

Frederick the Great (1712–1786), lived in Neuruppin in his years as crown prince of Prussia.

In Gutav Grust’s lifetime Neuruppin is associated with a number of notable people including the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841), the novelist and poet Theodor Fontane (1819–1898), and the pharmacist and founder of Beiersdorf AG Paul Carl Beiersdorf (1836–1896). 

In 1875 the population of Neuruppin was 20,000.

Related post:

• G is for Gustav (concerning the grandson of Karl Gustav Grust)

Wikitree:

• Karl Gustav Grust (1802 – 1872)
• Auguste Henrietta Amalie (Grust) Peters (1835 – 1893)
• Gustav Waldemar Alexander Karl Peters (1860 – 1904)

Z is for Zizenhausen

In 1880, when my great great grandparents Agathe Maria Lang and Matthias Manock were married in Karlsruhe, Agathe provided this information for their marriage certificate:

She had been born in Zizenhausen on 29 December 1852. Her occupation was ‘maid’ (Dienstmädchen, domestic servant). Her mother was Anna Maria Lang, a washerwoman, who lived in Zizenhausen.

Agathe did not name her father.

In 1852, when Agathe Maria Lang had been baptised at Zizenhausen, only her mother, Anna Maria Lang, was named on the certificate.

Five other children of Anna Maria Lang were baptised in Zizenhausen with with no father named:

• Paulina baptised 14 January 1844, buried 28 July 1844
• Eleonora baptised 30 October 1845, buried 14 November 1845
• Crescentia baptised 18 November 1847, buried 5 January 1848
• Johannes baptised 6 December 1848
• Josef baptised 18 April 1850, buried 19 July 1850

I think it is likely that these children were Agathe’s siblings.

Johannes, son of Anna Maria Lang, married in 1875 and had four children, three of whom died young. I have not found a record of the death of Johannes, nor of his wife Anna and his daughter Frida (born 1876).

I have not been able to find birth, marriage, or death records of Anna Maria Lang, at least those that I am confident refer to my great great grandmother. I have, however, found records of other women with the same name.

An Anna Maria Lang was born in January 1829 to Josef Lang and Maria Lang née Einhart. She married a Kaspar Schästle in 1859 in Konstanz. They had at least eight children. However, I believe that if this Anna was the mother of Agathe and Johannes then her married name would have been given on their marriage certificates.

Another Anna Maria Lang, born in 1814 to Thomas and Caecelia Kun, married Matthaeus Pfeifer at Zizenhausen in 1853. They had a daughter. As with Anna Maria Schästle I feel if this was the mother of Agathe her married name would have been mentioned on Agathe’s marriage certificate.

A third Anna Maria Lang, daughter of Georg Lang and Magdalena Lehri, was baptised at Konstanz on 17 September 1823. Nothing suggests this was the mother of Agathe.

I seem to have reached a dead end with this. But not to worry, these little puzzles are fun. I’ll persevere with it.

Zizenhausen is in the district of Stockach, a kilometre north of the town centre and about six kilometres north-west of Lake Constance. In 1852 the population of Zizenhausen was 1171: 621 female and 550 male. In 1974 Zizenhausen was incorporated into the City of Stockach.

View of the town of Zizenhausen with the castle. Watercolor on cardboard. Original, dated and inscribed by the artist, Gustav Freiherr von Bechtolsheim, 17.8.(18)83. Monogram “GB”. Image from Wikipedia

Related posts

• K is for Karlsruhe
• S is for Stockach

Wikitree and FamilySearch:

• Wikitree profile for Agathe Maria (Lang) Manock (1852 – 1926)
• FamilySearch profiles for
  • Anna Maria Lang
  • Johannes Lang born 1848

S is for Stockach

I don’t know very much about my German forebears—my mother’s side of the tree—but recently I’ve made some progress with names and dates, and now I’ve got a place, Stockach, a few kilometres from the northwestern arm of the Bodensee (Lake Constance).

On the basis of FamilySearch records and some images of parish registers at Stockach kindly photographed for me by one of my German cousins, I have been able to find out more about my family connections there.

My great great grandfather was a Stockach man named Matthias Martin, known as Matthias Manock.

Matthias married Agathe Lang in Karlsruhe in 1880. Their marriage certificate recorded that he was born on 2 November 1851 in Stockach, the son of Crescentia Martin, née Manock, widow of Johann Martin; Crescentia was deceased at the time of the marriage. Both Crescentia and Johann were Taglöhners, ‘day labourers’.

Matthias was baptised on 2 November 1851, son of Crescentia Martin born Manogg, widow of Johann Martin. No father was named on the baptismal record.

St Oswald’s Church: 1925 painting by Gustav Rockholtz of  St. Oswald mit Gasthaus Löwen, Stockach. The church is named after Oswald , King of Northumbria, who is venerated as a saint. The first building was consecrated in 1402 but destroyed by fire in 1704 during the war of the Spanish Succession. The church was rebuilt between 1707 and 1733 and had a tower with an onion dome. In 1932 the old church was demolished to make way for a new building. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

I have been able to work backwards to my sixth great grandparents. To keep this account chronological order I start with my sixth great grandparents, Adam Manogg and his wife Verena Huggin (they were from Boll, part of the municipality of Sauldorf, fourteen kilometres north of Stockach).

Adam Manogg and Verena Manogg née Huggin were married at Boll on 12 January 1743. They had at least ten children. Their fourth, Sylvester, was born in 1748 and baptised at Boll on 30 December 1748.

Sylvester Manogg married Theresia Stähl on 24 Nov 1773 at Raithaslach, twelve kilometres southwest of Boll and 6 kilometres northwest of Stockach. It seems Theresia died, for six months later on 24 May 1774, Sylvester Manogg married Genoveva Schrof in Raithaslach. Sylvester and Genoveva had at least seven children; their fourth was Fidel Manogg, who was baptised on 27 April 1780 at Raithaslach. Sylvester died in April 1801 and was buried 7 April at Raithaslach.

Fidel Manogg [sometimes spelt Monogg] married Marie Anna Beck on 23 September 1811 at Raithaslach. They had at least four children. Their oldest child, Kreszenz (Crescentia) Manogg, born in 1812, was baptised on 15 April at Stockach. (Saint Crescentia was a 4th-century companion of Saint Vitus, the patron saint of dancers). Crescentia married Johann Martin at Stockach on 26 October 1838. They had at least six children. Johann died in January 1850. I have not found Crescentia’s death record.

Stockach was an important postal station; its post office, one of the oldest in Germany, was first mentioned in 1505. Several major roads crossed at Stockach, including Ulm – Basel , Stuttgart – Zurich, and Vienna – Paris. In 1845 the local post office still had 60 horses, but as railways began to replace coach-roads Stockach declined in importance..

Stockach suffered in several wars. In 1499 it was besieged but not captured. In 1704, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Elector Maximilian II Emanuel of Bavaria set fire to it. In 1799 and 1800 the French and Austrian armies fought in the region, and disputed possession of Stockach. The Austrians won the Battle of Stockach on 25 March 1799. A year later, on 3 May 1800, the French regained the town. Many tens of thousands of men and horses were involved in these battles.

Death of the Austrian field marshal, Karl Aloys, Prince of Fürstenberg while leading Austrian infantry during the during the Battle of Stockach. Despite the loss of their field marshal, on 25 March 1799 the Austrians won the Battle of Stockach. The French army had 26,164 infantry, 7,010 cavalry, 1,649 artillery, and 62 guns; the Austrians had 53,870 infantry, 14,900 cavalry, 3,565 artillery, and 114 guns. 4,000 French and 5,800 Austrians were killed, wounded or captured. The battle, which lasted all day, was fought at the junction of the east west and north–south roads on the eastern side of the Black Forest.

Stockach suffered in later wars of the nineteenth century and during the two world wars of the twentieth century.

In 1770, travelling to Paris for her marriage to Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France, stayed overnight in Stockach. On 20 March 1770 the Stockach magistrate decreed that the road Marie Antoinette was to take must be repaired. It is said that stones from the nearby ruined castle were used for the purpose. As she passed through the town, the people of Stockach used borrowed guns from neighbouring towns to salute the future queen appropriately. Six oxen and 80 loaves of bread were set aside for Marie Antoinette’s large entourage. The town hall was renovated for the feast.

From 9 April Stockach houses were required to be newly whitewashed. Pfailure to do this—pfor not giving a pfig—attracted a pfine of pfive pfennigs. On 2 May the future queen arrived, with an entourage of 21 six-horse state coaches, followed by 36 fine carriages. There were 450 horses and an accompanying personal suite of some 250 people. The future wife of Louis XVI spent the night in the “White Cross”. After resting the night in Stockach, Marie Antoinette and her entourage continued to Paris; her journey there from Vienna took two and a half weeks.

My 5th great grandparents Sylvester Monogg, then 22 years old, and his future wife Genoveva Schrof probably witnessed the procession and were likely involved in the preparations.

Arrival of the procession driving the archduchess Marie-Antoinette to Versailles, on May 16th, 1770. Image from historyanswers.co.uk

When I told my mother that I had traced our forebears to Stockach near Lake Constance she told me that, yes, it had always been said that the Manock family was not from Karlsruhe but from the area of Lake Constance. There is still more research to be done, but I am pleased to have extended my knowledge of this branch of my tree.

Related posts

• K is for Karlsruhe

Wikitree:

• Matthias Manock (1851 – 1925)
• Kreszentia (Manogg) Martin (1812 – bef. 1880)
• Fidel (Monogg) Manogg (1780 – 1843)
• Sylvester (Manogg) Monogg (1748 – 1801)
• Adam Manogg (abt. 1720)

P is for Pankow

My mother Christa, born in Berlin in 1939, came to Australia in 1950 with her immigrant parents Hans and Charlotte. She remembers visiting cousins in Pankow and at an allotment garden in Kladow shortly before they left.

My father has recorded some of my mother’s memories from her childhood:

"A cousin of Charlotte, Hilde lived with her husband in Pankow, part of the Soviet Zone in East Berlin. Christa cannot now remember the family surname nor the husband's personal name, but she and Mutti [her mother] visited the apartment, and she played quite frequently with their daughter Marianne, her second cousin and close to her in age.

The family also had an allotment in Kladow, just across the Havel from Zehlendorf, but in the British rather than the American sector, and close to the Soviet Zone of Germany which surrounded Berlin. Christa has little detailed memory of travelling there, but does recall passing through a frontier post with armed Russian soldiers, so it is probable that they travelled by bus through Potsdam,which was in the Soviet Zone – she does recall that there followed a long walk to the allotment and that it was quite close to a lake. The property itself was about an acre in extent, with a small cottage and fruit trees: in a letter of on 2 September 1949 to Hans in Australia, Charlotte mentions that Hilde had arranged a children's party there on the previous Saturday, 28 August – presumably for Christa's tenth birthday – and had also given her forty pounds of pears. For their part, they had given Marianne Christa's satchel, and Christa was now taking a briefcase to school.

My mother on her first day of school in 1945 carrying the briefcase later given to her cousin Marianne

Christa and her family kept in touch with Hilde and Marianne, but a few years later, when the Berlin Wall was built dividing the city in 1961, they were asked not to write any more: Pankow was under the control of the East German communists, suspicious of anyone with contacts in the West."

I think my mother’s cousin Hilde was Hildegard Kabis born Gartz, born in 1907 to Gustav and Auguste Gartz born Stern formerly Peters. Auguste Gartz was the sister of my great grandmother, Helene Auguste Minna Manock born Stern formerly Peters.

Hildegard married Gustav Kabis in 1932. Her daughter Marianne was probably just a little younger than my mother, so born in the early 1940s.

Hildegard’s mother Auguste died on 16 September 1945. From her death certificate registered at Prenzlauer Berg civil registration office (viewed through ancestry.com), she was living at Flandern Straße 34 at the time of her death. This street was renamed as Sültstraße in 1952 and is in Pankow, district of Prenzlauer Berg.

Google Street View of Sültstraße 34

I do not know where the Kabis family lived.

From my mother’s description of her journey there, the allotment seems to be close to a teaching garden on the banks of the Havel in Kladow. The garden featured in a 2018 news article in Der Tagesspiegel. The journey to Essbarer Garten Kladow includes a ten-minute walk along the a path beside the Havel. Perhaps the garden my mother remembers was in this area.

Pankow became part of East Berlin; Kladow remained in West Berlin. It may be that Hilde and her family were no longer able to visit their garden after the Berlin Wall went up.

Map showing Pankow and Kladow and my mother’s home in Zehlendorf at Eschershauser Weg 27

Related posts

• Z is for Zehlendorf
• Sweetened condensed care
• G is for Gustav

Wikitree:

• Auguste Helene Juliane (Stern) Gartz (1884 – 1945)
• Hildegard Gertrud (Gartz) Kabis (1907 – ?)

K is for Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe about 1900. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

I hadn’t been making much progress on my maternal family tree so I decided to look at the records again, starting with the marriage certificate of my maternal great great grandparents (click this link to view image of certificate).

Matthias Manock and Agathe Maria Lang were married on 12 April 1880 at Karlsruhe, then in the Grand Duchy of Baden, now a city in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

The 1880 marriage record is very informative, but the handwriting is difficult to read. I found someone on WikiTree to help. Thank you Jarrett Boenisch.

The groom was Mathias Martin genannt [called] Manock, twenty-eight years old. He was born in Stockach, near Lake Constance, on 2 November 1851, the son of the Crescentia Martin, deceased, born Manock, widow of Johann Martin. Matthias was born more than nine months after the death of Crescentia Martin’s husband Johann on 21 January 1850. Matthias’s baptismal record does not name his father.

The bride was Agathe Maria Lang, twenty-seven, born on 19 December 1852 at Zizenhausen, in the district of Stockach, not far from the northern end of Lake Constance (Bodensee). She was the daughter of Anna Maria Lang.

At the time of their marriage both bride and groom lived in Karlsruhe, between Strasbourg and Frankfurt on the Rhine 200 kilometers north of Stockach. I do not know why Matthias and Agathe married so far from their place of birth.

Mathias and Maria had three children, all born in Karlsruhe:

• Maria Clementine Käthchen born 16 April 1881
• Emil Wilhelm born 30 August 1883 (my great grandfather)
• Stefan Mathias born 24 February 1891

Maria, Stefan, Matthias, Emil, Maria Manock

Matthias is listed in the 1893 “Adressbuch für die Haupt-und Residenz-Stadt Karlsruhe” as ‘schneider’, literally ‘cutter’, which may be translated as ‘tailor’.

During World War 2 much of the centre of Karlsruhe was bombed to ruins. Amalienstraße 55, where the Manocks lived, was flattened. Number 55 is now a petrol station.

Amalienstraße 55 Karlsruhe from Google Street view February 2022

The children of Matthias and Maria moved from Karlsruhe:

• Maria married Carl Roster and died in 1973 in Waibstadt, 65 kilometers north-east of Karlsruhe
• Emil moved to Berlin and died in 1966
• Stefan moved to Freiburg im Briesgau and died in 1961

Matthias and Maria died in Berlin in 1925 and 1926. The informant on their death certificates was Emil’s wife Helene.

Related posts

• Sepia Saturday: Emil and Helene Manock at the piano

Wikitree

• Matthias Manock (1851 – 1925)
• Agathe Maria (Lang) Manock (1852 – 1926)
• Emil Wilhelm Manock (1883 – 1966)

I is for Ilmenau

The third wife of my fourth great grandfather Rowland Mainwaring was a part-Austrian woman named Laura Maria Julia Walburga Chevillard (b.~1811). Her house in Bournemouth was called ‘Ilmenau‘, after a small town near Weimar, where Laura had spent much of her childhood.

Laura Maria Julia Walburga Chevillard was born about 1811 in Prague. She was the daughter of an Austrian woman (about whom I know almost nothing) and Florian Chevillard, an officer in the army of Napoleon.

When Flora’s father Florian Chevillard, an officer in the army of Napoleon, died in Spain about in 1812, Laura was adopted by Caroline Jagemann (1777 – 1848), a notable German tragedienne and singer.

Caroline Jagemann was the mistress of Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, who raised her to the nobility as Freifrau (Baroness) von Heygendorff. He bequeathed her one of his properties, the ‘Heygendorf‘ manor. Caroline had three children by Karl August. Laura Chevillard was brought up with one of these, Marianne (1812 – 1836).

Caroline von Heygendorff born Jagemann portrayed in the role of Portia in the Merchant of Venice. 1828 portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

The house in Weimar at Herderplatz 16 where Caroline Jagemann lived from 1806 to 1848 and where Laura Chevillard grew up.
Photograph by Krzysztof Golik – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

One of the first teachers of Laura and Marianne was a Weimar French fashion entrepreneur named Marie Iffernet. When Laura was 14 she and Marianne attended a Strasbourg boarding school from 1826 to 1828.

In 1830 Laura was living in Mannheim with her adopted mother Baroness von Heygendorff and the three children of the Baroness. 

Joseph Maximilian Kolb: Mannheim, market square with town hall and St. Sebastian’s Church. Steel engraving, coloured.

Laura met Rowland Mainwaring at Mannheim. A retired naval captain and widower, Mainwaring had travelled to Germany for the education of his younger children. He became acquainted with Laura at a Christmas party hosted by one of her adopted mother’s relatives.

Rowland and Laura were married on 11 November 1836 at Frankfurt by the Rev. Mr. Lindsay at the Hotel de Russie, the residence of the British Ambassador. Laura was Rowland Mainwaring’s third wife. Rowland was 54 and Laura about 25. They had eight children:

•    Karl Heinrich August Mainwaring 1837–1906
•    Randolph Mainwaring 1839–1902
•    Eugene George Henri Mainwaring 1841–1911
•    Laura Chevillard Mainwaring 1843–1843
•    Frederic Mainwaring 1844–1922
•    Guy Mainwaring 1847–1909
•    Horatio Mainwaring 1848–1913
•    Algernon Mainwaring 1852–1926

In 1837 Rowland Mainwaring applied for Laura’s denization. Denization gave foreigners certain rights normally enjoyed only by the King’s (or Queen’s) subjects, including the right to hold land. Mainwaring wished to settle 500 pounds per annum upon his wife on his decease; this would not have been possible had she not received Letters of Denization.

At the time of the censuses of 1841, 1851, and 1861, Laura was living at Whitmore Hall with a dozen servants, her husband and some of her younger children.

Rowland died in 1862.

Laura with her youngest son Algernon probably about 1862

In the 1871 census Laura was living at 68 Castle Street, Reading, Berkshire, with one female servant, Katherina Freyberger, age 24, born in Bavaria, who was described as a lady’s maid. Katharina was still with Laura 10 years later in 1881. By then Laura, aged 70, was an annuitant, living in Weimar Lodge, Craven Road, Reading. There were two servants in the household: Catherine Freyburger, aged 34, now described as maid and domestic servant, and Sarah Mansell, age 27, born Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, the cook.

Laura’s home at 22 Craven Road Reading was named ‘Weimar Lodge’. Laura had spent much of her childhood at Weimar, the home of her adopted mother’s lover and where her mother was director of the theatre. The site of Weimar Lodge is now part of Reading Hospital.

Laura died on 17 March 1891 in Bournemouth.

Her will, that of Louisa [a transcription error for ‘Laura’? ] Maria Walburga Julia Mainwaring was proved at the Principal Registry on 28 April by her son the Reverend Algernon Mainwaring of Ilmenau, Bournemouth. She was described as formerly of Whitmore Hall, Staffordshire, but late of Ilmenau, Knyveton Road, Bournemouth in the county of Southampton.

At the time of the 1891 census, shortly after Laura’s death, Laura’s son Algernon, 38, an Anglican priest, was head of the household, residing at Knyveton Road, Bournemouth. Living with him was his brother Randolph, a widower aged 51, described as a journalist. The household had three servants, two of them Bavarians.

Ilmenau is a town in Thuringia, 60 kilometres south of Weimar. From 1800, it was the favourite resort of the German poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832).

Ilmenau and Umgebungen
Taken from nature and drawn on wood by Herm. Heubner in Leipzig.
Image from page 474 of journal Die Gartenlaube, 1873. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

It is interesting to note that Goethe was the godfather of Caroline Jagemann’s oldest son Carl. Goethe’s portrait was painted several times by Ferdinand Jagemann, the brother of Caroline Jagemann, Laura’s adopted mother. Goethe was a close associate of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, Caroline Jagemann’s lover.

Map of places associated with the life of Laura

Further reading

• The lost manuscripts of a blue jacket. By Rowland Mainwaring. 1850. page 227 retrieved through Google Books
• Selbstinszenierungen im klassischen Weimar by Caroline Jagemann. Volume 1. page 622 retrieved through Google Books and footnote 278 page 832 retrieved through Google Books

Related posts

• Trove Tuesday: Obituary for Admiral Mainwaring
• Some posts about some of Laura’s children:
  • X is for destruction of a piratical fleet near Xiānggǎng (Hong Kong)
  • Z is for zealous in New Zealand
  • D is for Dartmouth: Guy Mainwaring and the beagle pack
  • Trove Tuesday: Cricket and the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit in 1867

Wikitree: Laura Maria Julia Walburga (Chevillard) Mainwaring (abt. 1812 – 1891)

Newly-released German records: Fritz Hermann Boltz, 1879-1954

Ancestry.com has added to its collection Berlin civil-registration death records from 1874 to 1955. My great grandfather Fritz Boltz died in 1954; I searched for his record, hoping that the official document would tell me something more than I already knew.

My great grandparents Fritz and Anna Boltz about 1952; two years before his death

In 1874 the Prussian Government passed a law governing the collection of information about civil status, including the registration of deaths. This was the “Gesetz über die Beurkundung des Personenstandes und die Form der Eheschließung”.

Section 56 in the Fifth section, Notarization of deaths, requires that “Every death must be reported to the registrar of the district in which the death occurred no later than the next day of the week.” Section 57 says it must be reported by the head of the family or if that person not available “the person in whose apartment or dwelling the death occurred”. Section 58 provides for official investigation into the death. Section 59 prescribes the information to be provided to register the death:

• First name and family name, status or trade and place of residence of the notifying party;
• Place, day and hour of death;
• First name and family name, religion, age, status or trade, place of residence and place of birth of the deceased;
• First name and family name of his spouse, or a note that the deceased was single;
• First name and surname, status or trade and place of residence of the deceased’s parents.

If the information is unknown, this must be noted against the relevant entry.

Section 60 states that no funeral may occur until the death has been
registered.

The legislation was amended in 1920 and again in 1937 but apparently without changing the requirements for death registrations.

My great grandfather’s death was registered in Dahlem, Berlin on 7 April 1954, the day after he died.

Name Fritz Hermann Boltz Gender männlich (Male) Age 74 Birth Date 13/Juli/1879 (13 Jul 1879) Death Date 06/04/1954 (6 Apr 1954) Civil Registration Office Zehlendorf von Berlin Death Place Berlin Berlin Deutschland (Germany) Spouse Hedwig Anna Berta Boltz Certificate Number 730
Landesarchiv Berlin; Berlin, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Laufendenummer: 1940 Berlin, Germany, Selected Deaths, 1874-1920 retrieved from ancestry.com

His occupation was ‘Schulhausmeister im Ruhestande’: Retired school caretaker.

It was noted he was ‘evangelisch’, evangelical, that is, Protestant.

He was living in Steglitz, Stubenrauchplatz 1. I knew he had retired and was no longer living at the school in Florastraße where he worked as caretaker, but I did not know where my great grandparents were living at the time.

Initially I could not find this Platz on a map; it was renamed to Jochemplatz in 1962. Their flat was on the corner of Jochemplatz and Florastraße, only 60 metres from where they had lived at Florastraße 13 when Fritz Boltz was school caretaker. The school is still in existence. There is a small park in the triangle bounded by Jochemplatz.

from Google maps showing my great grandparents’ addresses at Florastraße 13 and Stubenrauchplatz 1 which has now been renamed Jochemplatz.

The 1952 photo above seems to be from their balcony overlooking Florastraße.

from Google street view: image captured July 2008. The balcony of my great grandparents can be seen I think towards the right looking onto the trees on the top floor.

My great grandfather died at 2:30 on 6 April 1954 at Nikolassee, Kurstraße 11. This is the address for Evangelisches Krankenhaus Hubertus, now a small general hospital of 200 beds. https://www.krankenhaus.de/evangelisches-krankenhaus-hubertus/

Map generated by Google maps showing Stubenrauchstraße 1 now Jochemplatz 1, my great grandparents’ former residence at Florastraße 13, the hospital at Nikolassee, Kurstraße 11, and the residence of the informant of the death: Willi Lindemann, residing in Berlin-Steglitz, Grunewaldstraße 4. The hospital was about 9 kilometers away from my great grandparents’ home; Grunewaldstraße 4 was less than 1 kilometer from where they lived.

Fritz Hermann Boltz, ‘Der Verstorbene’, the deceased, was born on 13 July 1878 at ‘Götz, Kreis Zauch-Belzig (Standesamt Götz Nr. 12)’, that is, at Götz in the district of Zauch-Belzig (Registry office Götz Number 12).

He was married to Hedwig Anna Berta Boltz, born Bertz.

Fritz Hermann Boltz married Hedwig Anna Berta Bertz on 26 April 1909 in Brandenburg, Germany.

The death was entered from a verbal report from a businessman, Willi Lindemann, residing in Berlin-Steglitz, Grunewaldstraße 4. The reporter is known [presumably to the deceased]. He stated that he had been informed of the death from his own knowledge.

‘Todesursache Krebs der Vorsteherdrüse, Knochenmetastasierung’: Cause of death: cancer of the prostate gland, bone metastasis.

The death certificate does not mention children. Fritz and Anna had only one child, my grandfather Hans. He had emigrated to Australia in 1949.

My mother does not recall Willi Lindemann but remembers that her paternal grandparents had several close friends, Willi Lindemann presumably one of these. His address, in Grunewaldstraße, was close to theirs in Florastraße.

Fritz’s widow, my great grandmother Anna, continued to live in Berlin until 1959, when she emigrated to Australia. She lived in Canberra with her son Hans until her death on 29 April 1961.

The new collection of death records from Berlin has several of my relatives, and I hope to be able to learn more about my family history from them.  Already, besides the death of Fritz Boltz, I have found Anna’s mother Henriette who died in 1942 and learned her father’s name.

Sources

• Information about the Berlin, Germany Deaths 1874 – 1955 records can be found at https://www.ancestry.com.au/search/collections/2958/
• “Gesetz über die Beurkundung des Personenstandes und die Form der Eheschließung”: The amended 1875 legislation can be found at https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Gesetz_%C3%BCber_die_Beurkundung_des_Personenstandes_und_die_Eheschlie%C3%9Fung The Google Chrome browser translates it quite adequately.
• German Wikipedia
  • Civil Status Act (Germany): History
  • List of streets and squares in Berlin-Steglitz: Former and renamed streets and entry for Jochemplatz

Related posts

• V is for Vizefeldwebel
• G is for great grandmother from Germany
• Sweetened condensed care

Hans Boltz’s school photograph

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt photo, taken in the 1920s, shows a group of children.

My maternal grandfather, Hans Fritz Boltz, was born 1910. Among the photos we inherited from him was a school photograph, probably taken about 1920 when he was 9 or 10 years old.

Hans Boltz is sitting in the 4th row 2nd from the right

When Hans applied for a position as a cartographer with the Australian Government in 1948 he declared that he first attended the preparatory school of the classical school from the age of six, in 1919 changing to the Realschule in Steglitz, a district of Berlin. A Realschule was of middle rank and provided students with a general extended education. It ranked above Hauptschule, which provided a basic general education, and lower than Gymnasium which prepared students for university.

from the National Archives of Australia: MT105/8, 1/6/4531 Page 3 of 143 [file of Hans Fritz Boltz , General Correspondence and Administrative files of the Department of Post-War Reconstruction]

Among our family photographs is a small cardboard wallet of postcards with images of the Realschule Steglitz.

Collection of postcards of the Realschule Steglitz among the family photographs

The school is now called the Gymnasium Steglitz. It was founded in 1886. The architect Walter Gropius (1883 – 1969) was a pupil.

Hans is younger in this photograph than when he is with his classmates above

 

Further reading

• School website https://www.gymnasiumsteglitz.de/cms/schule/uebersicht/125-jahr-feierlichkeiten/
• German wikipedia article https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_Steglitz

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• Trove Tuesday: Flying the Kangaroo route in 1949
• C is for career in Canberra

Sweetened condensed care

One of the stories from her childhood in Berlin that my mother told me when I was a girl was about her first taste of sweetened condensed milk. She had never had anything like it.

The milk was part of a ‘CARE Paket’ received by her paternal grandparents, Fritz and Anna Boltz, in 1947 or 1948, when she was about eight years old. She vividly remembers opening the parcels in their apartment. There were at least two packages, both gratefully received, in them sweetened condensed milk and sweetcorn in tins, and cocoa, and corned beef, which she found less interesting. My mother does not recall any of her friends’ families getting such parcels. She remembers the name ‘CARE Paket’.

CARE is a relief agency founded in 1945. The acronym was first from “Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe” then, from 1993, “Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere”. The CARE Package was the original unit of aid distributed by this humanitarian organization.

CARE -Paket 1948: from the collection of the German Federal Archive (Deutsches Bundesarchiv) retrieved through Wikimedia Commons Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S1207-502 / CC-BY-SA 3.0

 

The first CARE packages were so-called ‘ten-in-one rations’ of the US Army during WWII, originally meant to provide ten soldiers with one meal. Each package contained:

• 9.8 pounds of meat and offal,
• 6.5 pounds of cornflakes, oatmeal and biscuits,
• 3.6 pounds of fruit and pudding,
• 2.3 pounds of vegetables,
• 3.9 pounds of sugar,
• 1.1 pounds of cocoa, coffee and other beverage powder,
• 0.8 pounds of condensed milk,
• 0.5 pounds of butter,
• 0.4 pounds of cheese,
• a pack of cigarettes, some gum

Most CARE parcels were sent to their European relatives by Americans. It seems a family would have paid $10 to send such a package (about $US143 in today’s value or $AU210). Except that they would have been from her father’s side of the family, my mother does not know anything about her American cousins.

Nearly ten million packages reached West Germany from 1946 to 1960; three million went to West Berlin, many at at the time of the Berlin Airlift, from June 1948 to May 1949, when the city was blockaded by the Soviets.

Berliners watching a C-54 land at Berlin Tempelhof Airport, 1948. From Wikimedia Commons United States Air Force Historical Research Agency via Cees Steijger (1991), “A History of USAFE”, Voyageur, ISBN: 1853100757; USAF photo 070119-F-0000R-101

My mother lived in Zehlendorf, in the American sector of Berlin. She remembers watching the planes land during the airlift. More than 1500 flights a day landed at Templehof in the month of August 1948 alone, delivering 4,500 tons of cargo.

My mother in about 1947

My mother in 1947

Sources

• “CARE’s History.” Care International, www.care-international.org/who-we-are-1/cares-history.
• A Youtube video of the memories of another CARE package recipient: https://youtu.be/e4jduR842RA
• Schaum, Marlis. “CARE Packages Prevented Starvation in Post-War Germany: DW: 14.08.2011.” DW.COM, Deutsche Welle, 14 Aug. 2011, www.dw.com/en/care-packages-prevented-starvation-in-post-war-germany/a-15313828.

 

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• Z is for Zehlendorf
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