Today I focused on one of the shortest sections of my family tree--my father's father's side. As Jewish Germans, it is one of those places that has always been a dead-end for me. My grandfather never liked talking much about his early life, and so I only had what had already been written down by he and his siblings.
After I began to post information at Oh, Spusch, my father sent me a copy of a letter my grandfather sent to someone who had contacted our family about more information on the Hillinger surname. It gave me a few more tidbits, but I still have no clue where his father was born, and I'm not even certain the name he was born under. The family story has been detailed at Oh, Spusch here, here and here.
Because of all the family moves (somewhere in the Prussian states to England, back to Germany for my great-grandfather, then France, then the US), the name confusion because of the change from Senft to Hillinger in the late ninteen-teens, and the fact that likely many of the records I need were destroyed during World War II because the family is Jewish, sometimes I wonder if we'll ever find anything.
I've glanced through JewishGen, but with the minimal information I know, it seems almost impossible for me to find anything there. I did make a copy of what little I had and posted it there. All I can hope now is that someone else will be able to make a connection to my tree and contact me.
For Follow Friday this week, I've started following these three Genealogy blogs: Genealogy's Star, Anglo-Celtic Connections, and the Armchair Genealogist.
No comments:
Post a Comment