Image & document restoration is key to successfully reading many genealogical documents. The source documents we have available to us today are often simply scanned or photographic images of original handwritten documents. Many of the originals are themselves are in poor or suspect condition even before they are digitally captured. Given that is the case, we can’t be ‘flummoxed’ because we still have to find a way to read these documents in order to decipher clues about our family’s’ past. More
The last few weeks have been quite interesting in terms of new discoveries, etc. Per normal, I’ll simply enumerate them in an outline (I’m not feeling terribly prosaic right now).
I discovered that my entire Deyo line and genealogy was wrong. I had our lineage going through New Paltz and New Amsterdam. It turns out that the family actually came out of Quebec and earlier France. The more I look down my father’s line the more French it becomes!
In that same vein I discovered through the help of some wonderful people, my great-grandmother’s family- the Minors and Paiges. My work in their lineage seems to be making some fairly surprising and quick progress. Several of our readers have provided me wonderful insights and help. Thank you! If you want to follow my research on this line you should be able to find it on Ancestry.com.
On to my mother‘s side, I discovered yet another sibling for my grandfather (Opa) and also discovered I missed getting a great-uncle’s birth correct- an error I intend to fix.
I have received some wonderful assistance from fellow yahoo group members on gathering new photos for my Elbing and post-World War 2 Germany collections. Vielen dank!
Probably one of the best pieces of news I have to share is that ManyRoads was visited last month (Jan 2010) by nearly 4000 of you. I am honored.
I hope to keep my genealogy work underway and the ManyRoads postings regular. My plans constantly change, so who knows; but with any luck we should see information soon on the Quebec to US migrations, genealogy tool use and recommendations… plus whatever else pops up in my digging.
Based upon an incredible interest (110+ reads in under 24 hours is immense interest in one of my posts!), I thought folks might like to see other reviews.
As most of you, I use a LOT of tools and tricks to help me find the people and history around my family. I am happy to share my experiences and ‘insights’, such as they are, with you. However, I‘d like to take your interests into account as I build my posts- assuming you are willing to share your desires. So… More
For those of you who keep track of such things, here’s a quick list of our latest discoveries and happenings.
The German Red Cross wrote and provided a wealth of information on Frieda Senger’s internment in the Soviet Gulag system after WW2. This information has been more than 60 years in coming. Click to read more.
Because of the aforementioned documents, we have identified additional information about the particular Gulag. Click to read more.
We are making good headway on the John Deyo mystery. Actually this mystery has now turned into one about his father Joseph Deo/Deyo/Dion. Click to read more.
We placed a user poll on our site. Please let us know what you think!
This next week promises to be eventful in our genealogy space…
Note: I have solved this mystery and established the link. John’s parent’s were, in fact, Joseph Dion (Deo- Deyo) and Julia (Julie/ Julienne) Denis (Denys, Lafay, LaFaille, Dennis).
The most commanding piece of obvious genealogical evidence is immediately below (John’s death certificate).
As for the rest of the story, I am writing and plan to post a more complete history. My previous post on this subject is below:
I am searching to find the parents of one John Deyo. I can find an obvious (but incorrect!) link from him to a set of parents identified in the New Paltz area of New York as Christian Deyo… I think we now can say for certain that our Deyos are from Canada not New Paltz. My sister (Linda) is going to do some record research in Albany this week to see what she is able to unearth. (more to come… we hope!)
So here’s the dilemma I have, on the last census it seems John parents are Canadian (John & Julie Deo); earlier evidence seems to indicate John was born in the US (what we don’t know is who these people were before they came to the US).
After performing a detailed analysis of all the Deyo’s it is highly unlikely that I have yet found the parents of our John Deo/ Deyo. My analysis of the Joseph & John Deo’s in Altona circa 1870-1880 would seem to point to Joseph Deo being the father of John… however, we have no proof . My sister Linda is going to visit NYS records to see what may lie there. I have contacted Holy Angels Church in Altona and also Altona (NY) Town Clerk to see what they might offer. Oh and yes, I have contacted the genealogy group from Altona. My sister is going to also examine the adjoining town of Chazy for records… and look in Altona for any property records (because 1880 and 1870 Censuses both indicate the Deo’s were property owners- farmers). It is quite the mystery.
Any help or insight is MOST appreciated!
Genealogically, here’s what I had (and now believe to be incorrect!):
Deyo John
1837 – 1924
Birth
Abt Dec 1837
Rosendale, Ulster, New York USA
The 1910 Census indicates he was born in Vermont. The 1900 Census provides the approximate birth date.
Gender
Male
Census
1870 Census
Altona, Clinton, New York USA
Census
1850
Rosendale, Ulster, New York USA
Census
1900
Wilton, Saratoga, New York USA
This census indicates John was born in New York, as were his parents and wife.
Census
1910
Altona, Clinton, New York USA
Died
1924
Altona, New York USA
date obtained from his headstone…Holy Angels Roman Catholic Cemetery Altona, Clinton County, New York
Father
Deyo Christian J, b. 11 Apr 1807, New Paltz, Ulster, New York USA , d. 11 Dec 1887, New Paltz, Ulster, New York USA
Mother
DuBois Blandina, b. 17 Jul 1812, New Paltz, Ulster, New York USA , d. 25 Jul 1885, New Paltz, Ulster, New York USA
Married
8 Sep 1831
New Paltz, Ulster, New York USA
Family
Burnah Mary Ann, b. Abt Apr 1853, d. 1940, Altona, New York USA
Married
Abt 1864
Children
>
1. Deyo George, b. 1868, Altona, Clinton, New York USA , d. 1945
Notes
John appears to have been either disowned or otherwise cast away from the Christian J. Deyo family. For most of his life, he moves from place to place and continually changes description of his birth location.
As of this writing I now have full-time access to all but two of the Zeyer ev. Kirche books. It is like having my mother’s family come home. Or more precisely, it is more like have them nearer to me. I am now able to go to the local LDS Family History Center (in Parker, Co) and read the texts, research my family, or reread the texts whenever I have the need or desire.
Over the next month or two, I should have the remainder of the Zeyer ev. Kirche records here on a permanent basis. I am not certain which microfilms will follow; but I am certain there will be quite a few.
Today was one of those days I enjoy; I spent much of the day doing family research in the local LDS Family History Center. Some of the highlights included:
We found another brother of my grandfather Richard Senger- Wilhelm, he lived only 14 days.
We identified the correct spelling of my g-g-g-g- grandmother Saenger’s maiden name: Stafast
We found a death and burial record for both my g-g- grandparents Michael Saenger and Ester Euphrosina Saenger geb. Landig
But the best part of the whole day was that my sister (Linda) had the opportunity to spend the day with me and visit some of old German family members. Probably the highlight of the day being sharing a look at our grandfather Richard Senger’s birth records.
We have just installed a new approach to navigating the ManyRoads website. Hopefully you will find it both easier and more productive than the previous approach.
To quickly explain the system, there are two main tabbed menu blocks on the right. Each tab opens a unique section. Some of the sections contain menus and pointers, others contain tags etc. To use the menus, simply click on the desired tab and selct the option of your choice. The menu system uses Java (Ajax) and has been tested with Firefox, Epiphaney and IE 7 & IE8. Although the menus are degraded in IE (as most IE sites tend to be) things should work just fine and look ‘pretty good’.
If you encounter any problems with our new menuing system, please use our contact page to let me know.
ManyRoads is pleased to anounce a new translation service for German/English and English/German. And… For those of you who have read my German, you know it can’t be a service provided by me!
Truthfully… if you seek professional and expert “English to German” or “German to English” translations (old German & Fractur/ Gothic script included), please use our Contact form for an for an estimate.
Unfortunately my LDS ev. Church books for Zeyer – Ellerwald (West Prussia) are reaching an end…I’d love to hear from you if you have any pointers as to where I might look for earlier data (pre-1774).
I am looking for information on the following family members:
I have come across a few extra-special web based resources for genealogy and history research. The resources include:
The Internet Archive-”The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.”
europeana-”a place for inspiration and ideas. Search through the cultural collections of Europe, connect to other user pathways and share your discoveries.”
dlibra- “dLibra is used by institutions such as academic and public libraries to make stored digital publications available on the Internet. These institutions by using PIONIER network and dLibra software create Polish platform of distributed digital libraries.”
I have discovered numerous extremely valuable documents on these sites, all of which are now located on ManyRoads, in addition to existing on their original home(s).
We are pleased to announce that ManyRoads now allows for the Printing of both our Posts and Pages. At the bottom of our site Pages, you will see a small Print Icon and label; the same icon and banner appear in our Post banner. Simply click on the Print icon to generate a printable document. Please let us know via our contact page if you have problems with this new function.
Additionally, you may noticed a new Social Bookmark function at the bottom of our Pages/Posts. Simply clicking on the “Social Bookmarks!” opens a table of popular Social Networking options. Select your favorite Social Networking tool icon (ie. Facebook) to link to any of our Pages/Posts. Again, please contact us with any problems or difficulties.
It is our sincere hope that these tools will assist in the usefulness and friendliness of the ManyRoads site.
We are going to test Twitter to see if it proves useful in communicating ManyRoads efforts, updates and news. To follow us, simply click on the little Twitter Bird (and fill out the appropriate items on Twitter).
We are also testing a Tweet/reTweet plugin across our site. Please reTweet or Tweet if the Post/Page has never been Tweeted before.
Please use our contact page to let us know if you find this communication vehicle useful.
I have what is for me a riddle. I know that before 1774 Zeyer had a Church, but it held no records. Does anyone know which, if any, Elbing Lutheran Church may have held the records for births, deaths and weddings? The main Lutheran Churches in Elbing seem to have been Heilige drei Koenige, Sankt Marien, Heiliger Leichnahm, Sakt Annen, and Sankt Paulus; does anyone know which might hold the correct LDS microfilm archive?
Any help is most appreciated!
Hallo Leute!
Habe eine (fuer mich, unerlosbar) Frage: ich weiss dass es erst ab 1774 ein unabhaengige evangelische Kirche in Zeyer gab. Wusste es jemand, welcher Elbinger Kirche verantwortlich fuer die Taufe-/Heirats-/Todesregister den Gebiet Zeyer/Zeyerniederkampen vor 1774 war? Ich finde so fuenf evangelische Kirchen: Heilige drei Koenige, Sankt Marien, Heiliger Leichnahm, Sakt Annen, und Sankt Paulus; weiss aber nicht welche LDS Mikrofilme wahrscheinlich die richtige sind.
This week has been fairly busy at ManyRoads some of the highlights include:
I have reformatted the layout of all of download libraries. Given the number and diversity of document types we have on ManyRoads, it was getting very hard to access and find things. Hopefully the new approach is better. Please use the contact form on our site to let me know if you run into problems with the new layout.
East/West Prussian Addressbooks have been given their own page.
Numerous ‘newly discovered’ Deutschen Vertriebene stories have been added to the site.
A Prussian/German Map Gallery has been added. Currently the maps are all from Prussia & Germany. They will be augmented with separate pages from Quebec, Iowa, and the NE United States.
A significant number of source materials involving Quebec and Iowa have been uploaded to our libraries as have documents from the former Danzig, and Elbing areas.
On the genealogy front, I have managed to identify another ancestor in the Saenger family. We are now nearing the advent of the 1600′s for that branch of our tree.
The ManyRoads site had been being leeched upon by numerous unwanted Chinese and Nigerian websites. In order to prevent these undesireables from consuming all of our bandwidth, I blocked all sites from the People’s Republic of China, Nigeria, Macau and VietNam. I apologize to any of the good folks in those countries who might be interested in German/Prussian and North American/ Quebecois genealogy. See here for more information on how to do this for your sites.
I continue to seek pre-World War 2 era photographs from the area immediately around Elbing in West/ East Prussia. Any pointers or help is greatly appreciated.
As folks may have noticed, this week has been pretty busy. To summarize my activities, they break into two major groups “some that you see” and “some that you don’t”. More
Lately I have added several new links to the Links directory and to our Online Library Reference Texts. Additionally I have been busy with the following:
updating the post-1800 Church record available materials from the Zeyer ev. Kirche
Ordered the final materials from the LDS Church for Zeyer ev. Kirche
joined numerous Yahoo Groups on genealogy
added a Guest Map – Visitor tracking function to this site
transfer servers for this site and registered it under a new URL
We apologize for the rough performance of the ManyRoads site during this time. Because of the increased use and traffic on our site we are transferring everything to a new server, rather than continuing to limp along on an old PC located in our basement. Aside from providing us with more space, we should have a considerably improved internet connection (our little home office DSL was just not up to the task).
We have provided for a redirect of our old address http://manyroads.info to the new site and address http://many-roads.com. Please note that you should change any RSS Feed from this site to reflect our new address. Otherwise you will miss out on exciting posts like this one!
We are very pleased to announce our newest Guest tracking tools. You can see where ManyRoads website readers have come from. Simply click on the Guests menu options (either on the top of the page or on the right hand menu). You will be take to a page that contains a visitors map. Enjoy! Oh and please feel free to leave us a brief note should you go there…
Additionally on the right hand menu, you should see an item in the menu bar that indicates how many people are currently on the ManyRoads site. The “member” you see is almost certainly me (mark) the ManyRoads webmaster.
Because of the great shortage of information and histories associated with the expulsions of Germans from Eastern Europe after World War 2, I am placing a call to anyone willing to share their family story with others.
Please contact me (use our contact page) with any histories that you may have from family members or elsewhere that involve the expulsion, flight or ethnic cleansing of Germans following the second world war. I will place the information you send (assuming it is not politically motivated) on the internet for others to view and share.
It is my hope to contribute a bit of our past in order to help others understand the unacceptability of and horrors associated with ‘ethnic cleansing’.
20 October was a very productive day at the Family History Center. Aside from starting a bit late due to delayed keys, a lot of new information was discovered including:
all the dates of birth and christenings for Richard Senger’s siblings were unearthed
a previously unknown sibling for Richard was found, Theodor Senger
birth dates and spouses for:
Michael Senger (the younger)– Adelgunde Kiehl
Michael Saenger (the elder) – Esther Euphrosine Landig (marriage record confirmed)
Esther’s parents John Landig and Esche Euphrosina Hein were discovered
3 additional children of Michael Saenger & Esther Euphrosine were identified
parents for both Michael Sengers
On 21 October the genealogical records reflecting the above plus more were modified; additionally, updated War death records have been added for:
I have added a very powerful feature to the ManyRoads site called TreeMagic- Cypress. TM-Cypress is a javascript tool that allows a webmaster (me in this case) to provide site users with easy information access from a place in their site (ManyRoads) to selected websites, including this one. I know that sounds a bit confusing but it is very simple…
Simply highlight any term or phrase; and a pop-up will appear. In the pop-up you have the option of selecting one of our offered genealogical sites. Once you select an item from the pop-up a java window will open highlighting all related items from your selected site (basically it is a search result). You may scroll and or read from the pop-up to gain deeper insight into what you requested. Once you are done simply close the window and you will return to the place you left (on ManyRoads, in this case).
This WordPress plugin was developed by AmbientWebs/ eirenicon and is freely available. More sophisticated web tools like this are also available for a ‘fee’.
We are working at providing a functioning single username/ password link to our genealogical information. To-date, we still have integration difficulties.
We have moved our genealogy to a new home. Our plan is that we will be able to provide a ‘tad’ more public information and insight into our work. If this works out we should still be able to remain discrete while at the same time being more sharing!
If you think we ought to provide more general access to this site to you, please use our Contact Form to request a username and password.
Also please note that we have Password protected numerous pages on our main site. Should you believe that you qualify for access in these areas, we encourage you to send us a message requesting that password by using our Contact Form.
ManyRoads may contain material copyrighted by others. ManyRoads makes any such such material available in an effort to advance an understanding of information related to our family history and circumstances. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who may have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the original copyright owner.
As a Linux user, I have access to a tool called Tesseract for doing my OCR work. This tool is multi-lingual and easy to use (although not so simple that I can do it from rote). An excellent set of instructions are available at How-to Forge.
For even higher levels of accuracy you might try the Free OCR site.
As most of you, I use a LOT of tools and tricks to help me find the people and history around my family. I am happy to share my experiences and ‘insights’, such as they are, with you. However, I‘d like to take your interests into account as I build my posts- assuming you are willing to share your desires. So… 
For those of you who keep track of such things, here’s a quick list of our latest discoveries and happenings.
