Help with Location
A 1907 obituary states a woman was born in 1827 - it said she was born in Glemm, Prussia, Puma. The obituary says she and her family sailed from Hamburg on 10 April 1837, and arrived in New York on 26 June 1837. Can anyone help me with the location of Glemm to search for more records on the family? Thank you!
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Glemm doesn't bring up any results in Meyers Gazetteer, but if you use the "sounds like" feature, there are numerous results in various parts of Prussia for a town that might sound like Glemm - https://www.meyersgaz.org/search?search=glemm&type=sl You will probably have to go through each of these places to find your person - or do more research where they settles in the US to find other hints as to the place of origin.
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Thank you - no other information besides what is in the obituary, and "Prussia" in censuses. Do you think "Puma." could be an abbreviation of Pomerania?
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It's possible that Puma could be an abbreviation for Pomerania, but only one of the towns in the list from Meyers Gazetteer is in Pomerania.
I would try to broaden your search in the US to see if there are any other hints in records here. For example, if she went to a Protestant church with mostly German members, it's quite possible that her home town would be listed in the church records.
Was there a German-language newspaper in the area where she lived? Even if you can't read German, it's helpful to look at these issues, because often they contain more information than what is given in the English-language newspaper in the same place. Chronicling America is a good starting point.
Another possibility is the county history book for the place she lived. These books were very popular in the late 1800s, and were produced for counties across the US. At the back of the book, there were biographical sketches of people who lived in the county when the book was produced, and the home town was often listed there as well. Even if the woman (or her husband) isn't listed herself, there might be a listing for a child, and the home town might be mentioned there. County history books are available on FamilySearch, Internet Archive, and other online sources.
Were she or her parents naturalized? Look for naturalization papers (usually at the city or county level in the mid 1800s). These might give you a hint to the place of origin.
If the surname is unusual, you can try to narrow down the possible region of origin using a surname mapping tool such as GeoGen or the Name Distribution Map, which allows you to pick from 1890 or 1996 for comparison. These tools are less helpful for very common surnames.
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Since it says she traveled with her family, be sure to trace all the records available for the other family members and their children too. You never know when a child's marriage, birth or death record will mention the birth place of the child's parents. Also be sure to check all their US census records for birth place. I've noticed that in many years the census records will have Germany or Prussia as the place of birth but occasionally the specific German State is mentioned. From my experience it seems the 1870 census is often the most likely to give the specific German state.
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