The Genealogical Proof Standard

 

The Genealogical Proof Standard is the process that genealogists follow to determine if they’ve done everything necessary for a credible work.  There are five essential steps to this process. 

1.  Reasonably exhaustive research is completed. 

2. Each fact has an accurate source citation.  

3. The evidence is reliable, correlated, and interpreted carefully. 

4.  Any contradiction in evidence is resolved. 

5. The conclusion is sound and written clearly.  

This process helps the genealogist determine what they need to learn and how to approach problems in their research to come to a correct conclusion.

Reading the Old Handwriting

 

I want to share a methodology for reading a document. This is helpful when transcribing documents in a foreign language.  A step by step procedure like this helps even those who are familiar with transcribing records. 

 1.  Identify all the names in the document. This will be the easiest thing to do.  I like to look for proper nouns that are capitalized, and names often look much the same in different languages.  

2.  Identify dates, beginning with the month followed by the day and year. (I didn’t realize that sometimes the day and year are written out and sometimes they aren’t.) This can be used as an answer key for how the letters were written in other words in the document.

3.  Identify action verbs and relationship words such as married, born, and died.

4. Identify places.  This is the most difficult because of all the variation. Use gazetteers, online maps, and Wikipedia articles to help with this.

 

 An article was published in the Die Wilt Post, 1938, about the village of Anton.  

Refer to the AHSGR Journal, Vol. 6, No. 4, Winter 1983, for a more detailed 

account of the village.

Anton was located along the Volga River.  One of the industries of the area 

was a sugar beet factory.  In 1875, the sugarbeet factory closed and the 

people had to resettle to other areas for work.  A group of Antoners went as 

far away as Baku, in the Caucusus, to find work.

I have been the Village Coordinator for Anton for many years and also have 

a passion for the movement to The Caucasus.  The Stark family resided

in Anton and are related to the Hert family. 

I encourage fellow researchers to share any Caucasus information.  Thanks

for the support.

Dee Hert

VC:  Anton and other villages

History Repeats Itself

Yesterday I was on Facebook looking at the Volga German page.  One of the members had posted an interesting story about his grandfather, who was a victim of the 1918 Pandemic. As I looked at the comments I realized how many of us with that ancestry had similar experiences in our family history.  Some of the followers told about losing both grandparents.

This is a picture of my grandmother, Katharina Elisabeth Klamm Burghardt, born in Warenburg, Russia. The family was living in the Denver area at the time of her death in October of 1918. Her death was a result of the pandemic. It was during the second wave, between September and November of that year.  It proved to be highly fatal in the United States, with  195,000 deaths in October alone. My father was only two years old, and she left behind her husband and ten children.  As I've followed my family's story through the years, it is apparent how much that changed the world for them and their descendants.  That's just one family out of the millions of deaths.

The pandemic we are now experiencing has made me desire collecting the stories of my family.  I'd be happy to post any stories you'd like to share as well.  If you'd like to submit, please, send them to me.

Russian Empire Genealogy Research — Camille Andrus

How do I write an effective research query?

Genealogy is really just detective work. Clues lead to more information. When asking a research question, please include as much of the following information as possible:

• Full name of the ancestor (FamilySearch ID number [example: L7J4-V81])
• birth date, even if approximate, and place [as much as is known]
• residence(s) in the US or other country of immigration
• any details you have on parents, spouse, children, and where they lived
• known emigration and naturalization details
• religion
• anything else that might be helpful, like a known name change
• which records you have already searched and the results

How Are You Spending Your Time?

Life has changed so much over the past two months.  Of course we have plenty to do, but it seems to me there is ample time without the spring sports and school extra curricular activities.  Churches and other venues closed... so, what are you doing to be productive?  I have done SO MUCH research!  I am pouring over my Pleve Charts, Censuses, Church Records, family documents, keeping in touch with distant family.  I'm appreciating the time I never seem to find in other circumstances.  I decided to share my latest project, and I'm pretty proud of it. This is a huge chart that I purchased at Roots Tech.  It shows seven generations of our family, starting with our children.  Let's make the most of this strange situation we find ourselves experiencing. 

April Chapter Meeting

Changing times required adaptation, but it was a successful meeting of our Utah Intermountain Chapter of AHSGR.  Annette Adams gave a wonderful presentation to help us use the resources at Family Search. Even those who have used the different features benefited from the overview and reminder.  We are so lucky to have these great resources to use from home.  Thanks to Annette Adams, Cory Heizenrader, and our chapter leaders and their skills which made this possible. Not to mention, it was fun to see your faces and hear your voices.  What an awesome group of people!

Annenfeld, Elisathabethpol, Sud-Kaukauis

As the Village Coordinator for Annenfeld I am asking for your assistance with this Caucasus village and others; please share your finds, your family movement, immigration, any data.  My goal is to gather and share this challenging research project.

 

I set up a database and am entering information as it is received. 

I recently aquired a few records which were originally housed at the Stuttgart, Germany Archives.

I have located a few new sources of information which deal with the history of this village; often with the mention of movement from the Volga. Annenfeld was a farmstead founded by Volga German colonists before 1889.  Looking for a list of these resettles and more specific information.

Annenfeld is located in the Gandsha district, in the South Caucasus of Russia. Latitude and Longitude is 40.8294, 46.0167; founded in the year 1818.

Annenfeld was a mother colony of Protestant faith. 

The current Russian names are Shamkir, Samkir, Azerbaijan.

Wikipedia: Samkir is a city in and the capital of Shamkir District in western Azerbaijan, located in the northern foothills of the Lesser Caucasus, on the coast of the Chagirchay River on Tbilisi-Yevlakh highway, about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from Dollar railway station.

In 1817-1818, a colony of Germans resettled from Wurttemberg, was established on the site of Shamkir under the name Annenfeld. In 1915 Assyrians from Turkey and Iran were resettled at this site.

Look-ups:  If you are curious if your family was among these Germans who resettled from the Volga or Wurttemberg I am willing to look for your names. Perhaps those family members whom you are unable to track are part of this history.

Thanks for the support.

Dee Hert

VC: 30 Caucasus Villages

Roots Tech

With all of the craziness in the world, here is a bright spot.  I attended Roots Tech for the first time this year.  My cousin from Colorado attended with me.  While there for only one day, it was a great experience. The Intermountain Chapter of AHSGR had an awesome booth with lovely give aways. We were able to slip over to the Family History Library and attend a class there, also do a little research,.  I loved the Find a Relative perk.  Not surprisingly, I only connected with three people on my Germans from Russia line.  One of them I could never locate, but in this picture I'm with my cousin and another relative of mine whom you might recognize from the Intermountain Chapter.  It was so fun!

Katharinenfeld; Southern Caucasus Village

Katharinenfeld was established in 1818 by Swabian German settlers and was known as; Luxemburgand Boinisi. The village was located in the District of Tbilisi in the present country of Georgia as a Mother colony. The Volga German Institute stated the Volga villagers of Fisher relocated to the Caucasus. It is likely that many other villagers from the Volga also took advantage of the newly available land. 

Two great maps for Katharinenfeld are; map 13 from AHSGR and the “Germans from Russia Settlement Locations, hosted by Sandy Schilling Payne (https://wwww.germansfromrussiasettlementlocations.org).

Latitude/Longitude is listed as 41.4502, 44.5489

My favorite Caucasus gazetteer is, “Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus” by Arthur Tsutsiev.

The vast area of the Caucasus was controlled by numerous tribes and countries, conflict was common as each struggled to maintain control of this resource rich area.  The first stage of Russian colonization of the Caucasus was a period of military absorption of local groups.  Russia instilled their form of government upon the newly acquired lands.   Later German peasants were encouraged to establish villages in the North and South Caucasus areas.

Life for these newly arrived farmers varied from location to location, some fared better than others.

August 27, 1826 hundreds of Kurds, Turks, Persians and Tatars raided Katharinenfeld and murdered a large portion of the population. Surviving villagers rebuilt Katharinenfeld.  Winegrowing was a very successful endeavor and resulted in prosperity.

In 1941 villagers were forcibly deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia. The Wilhelm Biedlingmaier family was able to survive and wrote about their experiences. I recently gained access to, “Das Ahnenbuch Von Katharinenfeld in Georgien, Kaukasus Chronic  Der Familien”  Contact me if you need a look-up.  I was thrilled to see the family name of Stark.

The search continues for any information on this and other villages.  Please share what you have learned. Contact me anytime.

Dee Hert, Village Coordinator

deeehert@gmail.com