Tag Archives: Family: Wietzke

Week 29 Prompt: Challenging This week’s 52 Ancestors theme is”Challenging.” First thought—brick walls! Ten years ago (almost to the date!), I wrote about all of my German brick walls at that time. They were all tied to an immigrant ancestor, and were mainly self-imposed due to a lack of knowledge in researching German ancestors. A lot has changed in the last ten years. My understanding of German research has soared, my ability to decipher the German language has grown, and the availability of online records has multiplied. I can take […]

Week 3 Prompt: Unusual Name This week’s 52 Ancestors theme is unusual names. I thought I’d focus on one of my German surnames for this theme. A few years ago, I attended the 2016 Jamboree live stream of Fritz Juengling’s lecture “German Names: Their Origins, Meanings and Distribution.” It was extremely fascinating and I got all sorts of ideas. Some of my German surnames are obvious: Müller = occupational surname for a miller Schwartz = descriptive surname, probably someone with black hair But other surnames are not so obvious. One […]

Heinrich WACH is my third great-grandfather. He was married to my third great-grandmother, Emilie WIETZKE, and I suspect he died between 1876 (last known child born) and 1884 (Emilie’s child with second husband born). The family is from Pommern, Preußen, and I suspect that both Heinrich and Emilie were born there. Heinrich may have had a sister, Johanna, who married Eduard WICK, but I have not yet confirmed this suspicion.

Long story short.  I have a civil death record for a child of Heinrich Wach and Emilie Weitzke.  I have translated the record, except for one line.  Normally in this section it would name the spouse of the deceased, but since this was a child, the word verheirathet [married] is crossed out and then it starts with Sohn [son], followed by words I can’t read, followed by the father’s name.  Also note that the mother was the one who registered the death. I’d like to know what the words are […]

Back in February, I spent quite a bit of time at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.  I hadn’t planned on working on my Miller/Wach/Wietzke clan, but after discussing German research with some friends over dinner, I shifted gears.  Later that night, I headed over to the reference desk to talk to an expert and after about 15 minutes and a pile of books, he had figured out where my second great-grandmother, Hulda Wach, came from. Mind you, I had some clues.  I had a town name from […]

Hulda Wach was born in January of either 1868 or 1869 in Bernsdorf, Pommern, Preußen, daughter of Heinrich Wach and Emilie Wietzke.  She appears to be the oldest of the four known children of Heinrich and Emilie: Alvina, born about 1873; Carl August, born in October 1874; and Heinrich Emil, born in August 1876.  Because Hulda’s mother remarried sometime between 1876 and 1884, it is possible that her father died during the same period.  Emilie married “Fred” Schultz and they had one know child, Mildred, born about 1884.

I’ve written about my Emil MILLER brick wall before (Brick Wall – Emil MILLER/MULLER and German Brick Walls).  There are so many possibilities, as there are several variant spellings (Miller, Muller, Mueller, Moeller, Millar, etc.) and there happen to be many of them living in Chicago during the same time period.

The topic for the 22nd edition of Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy is roadblocks and breakthrough encountered during your genealogy research.