Some questions about research
For the last forty years I’ve been trying to find the birth record for my great-great-grandfather (Friedrich Wilhelm Bartsch, born: 14 May 1818). I have not succeeded.
When I found his marriage record it indicated that he was “of this place” (Bnin) but in searching records for that location I wasn’t able to find any reference to him. I looked for him using every variation of the surname I could find. There was simply no males of these surnames in that town within twenty years of his birth date. I leads me to conclude that the reference “of this place” in the marriage record only means he was living there at the time of marriage but not necessarily born there.
The marriage record gave me is fathers first name (Heinrich), that he was deceased at the time of the wedding, was last from “Bromberg”, that he was a noncommissioned officer, that my G-G-grandfather was an “only son”. The information made it apparent that Heinrich was in the Prussian Army which to me indicates that his son could have been born virtually anywhere.
I’ve spent the last two years searching through Prussian military documents. I managed to find a noncommissioned officer with the Bartsch surname that was serving at the time of my G-G-grandfather’s birth but it did not list a first name so I can’t be sure its him. Nor have I been able to find any military birth records containing my G-G-grandfather name.
My questions are:
1. How do I find a noncommissioned officer of the Prussian army named Heinrich Bartsch in that era?
2. Where did Prussian military personnel at that time get married? Military ceremony? Civil ceremony? Church?
3. When the wife of a noncommissioned officer gives birth where does it occur? On the military base? At her husbands home? Her husbands parents home? Her parents home?
4. When the marriage record listed my G-G-grandfather as an “only son” should that be taken literally as the “only child” or could there be female siblings?
My sincere thanks for any help you can provide.