Place Names
I have a 3rd great-grandfather who I am having issues with place names. One of my distant cousins who is now is deceased, and is a descendant of the family has a wife who is a certified, professional genealogist, and has done research on the family. Everything she has done is very well documented on Find-A-Grave. On Find-A-Grave she has that he was born in the tiny village of Klein Drehle, Hanover, Germany, and he was christened at the Lutheran Church in the nearby town of Gehrde. When I went in to put a place name for his birth I chose Klein Drehle, Gehrde, Osnabruck, Niedersachsen, Germany, and for the place name of his christening, I chose Gehrde, Bersenbruck, Hanover, Prussia, Germany.
I am really needing some help with these place names. The PID of the person is KZYZ-9K4. If these are wrong, please let me know what the correct place names are so that I can make the necessary corrections.
Thanks in advance.
Answers
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This German stuff is very confusing to me.
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It looks like in FamilySearch place names you can find multiple options for the locations/timeframe you are interested in. Perhaps looking at the map will help you decide (selecting the ones that match):
Klein Drehle, Gehrde, Bersenbrück, Hanover, Prussia, Germany
Populated Place, 1866 - 1945 whereas your 3g grandfather is listed as born 1829?
There are other date span options for you to chose from.
I hope this helps.
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I looked at maps earlier, and I am still confused.
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The FS gazetteer, called Places, is incomplete. Relevant here is that there were numerous boundary changes between Prussia the kingdom and Germany over the course of decades before Prussia became part of Germany and for many villages only a ... Prussia, Germany standard has been defined so far. In this case, there are several appropriate options:
- Leave the place name as written and select the standard "No standard selected". That causes a problem flag on the profile, which is actually not a problem.
- Use the later standard Klein Drehle, Gehrde, Bersenbrück, Hanover, Prussia, Germany (1866-1945). Eventually someone will get around to applying the correct standard.
- Use the larger jurisdiction Hanover, Prussia and park the rest of the place name in a Reason statement or, better, a Note.
In all cases, you can also go through the process to request the pre-1866 standard be added to the gazetteer. For that, use the green Standard Place link in the event edit field. The little instruction icon next to the link gives a very brief outline of the process.
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My above comment concerns the putative birthplace. Now, the christening place.
The christening record for this man is in a specific Lutheran church parish, not a town. There is an appropriate standard place defined for the parish. One reason to use the correct standard is that in many parts of Germany there were two parishes of the same name, often but not always overlapping geographically: one Lutheran or other evangelical, one Catholic. Usually their records were and still are separate. The parish boundaries may not have been recorded on any map. What matters is the denomination and name of the parish.
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Typing "Klein Drehle" or "Gehrde" into FS's places tool (https://www.familysearch.org/research/places/?pagenum=1&pagesize=20) shows that the database is rather muddled in this area, with many, many near-duplicate entries. The good news is that the map pins are all within a mile of each other: all of the entries are referring to the same places. This means that in a sense, you can't go wrong: whichever jumble of jurisdictions you choose, you'll have the right villages.
Meyer's Gazetteer suggests that a consistent set of jurisdictions would be Klein Drehle, Bersenbrück, Osnabrück, Hannover, Preussen; and Gehrde, Bersenbrück, Osnabrück, Hannover, Preussen.
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Julia, why do you skip over the parish?
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Oh my gosh!
I thought earlier when myself and the Family History Consultant were working on this earlier at our local Family History Center “how confusing,” and “how jumbled!”
Those are the two place names I chose.
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I skipped over the parish because I was doing an administrative location, not an ecclesiastical one. That's one of the reasons the whole thing is so messy: most of the entries in the database combine church and state, and that way lies madness. :-)
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I saw a Lutheran Parish earlier!
True. That is the standard place name I applied to the profile, and I also explained why in the reason statement.
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Sorry about that.
I am not perfect. No one on earth is perfect!
We will definitely get it right in heaven.
Thanks!
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most of the entries in the database combine church and state, and that way lies madness. :-)
Yes! And it puzzles me why there is so much of that conflation in the gazetteer.
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I don't know for sure but you have contribution of non-local experts (like me) just trying to make the best of place names that are run across in research. If there are locality experts that can cleanup the place names then I agree - let the place names/timeframes be clarified. ...a way to separate/indicate ecclesiastical versus 'state' divisions etc (I think there is but maybe some mix ups are occurring)...
I had one place name where the wiki said an alternate name was used in a timeframe - but when I submitted that alternate to be 'timeframed' in Familysearch - I got the reply '...timeframe for alternate is not needed...' ??
So there needs to be some streamlining of process I think - nothing I can do but give feedback (and apparently mine is not needed)...
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Not a problem!
I made an appointment to have a virtual help session with a German Genealogy expert for Monday.
I will see what she has to say.
Thanks for your help!
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While we are on the subject of Hermann Heinrich Kuhlmann, what do you know about his wife’s parents, Johann Kreis and Barbara. They are a mystery to me. I found Susanna’s information on Ancestry when she was baptized as an adult at a Lutheran Church in Garrett, Somerset County, Pennsylvania. For some reason I don’t think she was born in Pennsylvania. I think the family is from Germany.
If you are up to a challenge, go for it. At this point since I know nothing about this family I will agree to anything.
Please message me what you find, or just plug in dates and places.
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Thanks in advance!
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I put something under discussion on Johann Kreis’ page stating it was a BIG brick wall.
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The following information on place names can have you help FamilySearch with place names.
When you are on the home page of FamilySearch you will see this Volunteer Opportunity to help fix place names:
once you click on that it takes you to this url https://www.familysearch.org/tree/improve-place-names/ you can select a country or location, for example in your question you could select Germany and then click on Review 10 places then you can follow the directions and help us with the detail in adding the correct place names.
Here is another article that may help edit the places related to your relative from Klein Drehle, Hanover, Germany
https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/editing-dates-and-places-on-indexed-records-familysearch-update
Hopefully this will help. And we do appreciate you time in helping FamilySearch have more correct place names.
Thank you for contacting FamilySearch. It has been a pleasure helping you. Best wishes as you continue finding records for your family.
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Thanks for the information!
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