{"id":452,"date":"2012-10-03T19:17:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T00:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/when-in-doubt-map-it\/"},"modified":"2013-07-05T12:44:39","modified_gmt":"2013-07-05T17:44:39","slug":"when-in-doubt-map-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/when-in-doubt-map-it\/","title":{"rendered":"When In Doubt, Map It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing on from My Adventure With Meyers Gazetteer<\/a>, I was trying to take the information that I learned and develop some sort of research plan.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I didn\u2019t get very far as I ran into a stumbling block.<\/p>\n

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Have you ever noticed that some entries in the Family History Library Catalog<\/a> contain special notes?\u00a0 For example, in the listing for Zivilstandsregister, 1874-1878<\/a>, the note explains that these are civil registrations of births, deaths, and marriages for Damsdorf, Pommern, Preu\u00dfen.\u00a0 It further goes on to list the other towns that are included in these registers.\u00a0 Furthermore, it also indicates that Damsdorf is now Niezabyszewo (Byt\u00f3w), Koszalin, Poland.\u00a0 That\u2019s a lot of useful information.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

More importantly, this added information is helpful when there is no specific location entry for the place you are looking for.\u00a0 In my case, there is no location entry for Germany, Preu\u00dfen, Pommern, Bernsdorf, so finding records for this location is a little difficult.\u00a0 However, noting that Bernsdorf was listed in the notes section of the entry described above, I tried a \u201ckeyword\u201d search for Bernsdorf.\u00a0 There were 15 matches, one of which is the one above.\u00a0 But there were two other entries related to Pommern that needed to be explored and both were more civil registrations.<\/p>\n

The first one<\/a> was quickly ruled out; the other place names that were included indicated to me (by looking at the gazetteer) that this was a different Bernsdorf altogether.\u00a0 But the other entry<\/a>, well there were some place names that were familiar, particularly the civil registration district of Gersdorf.\u00a0 From my excursion into the Gazetteer, and taking the time to translate it, I recognized Gersdorf and the district government office for Bernsdorf.<\/p>\n

Now, I have no idea how this government works or what each \u201cbranch\u201d was responsible for.\u00a0 I also don\u2019t know if you can register, say births, in another location.\u00a0 But I know enough to question whether the Bernsdorf in this listing is the same Bernsdorf that I\u2019m working with.\u00a0 So to Google Maps I went!<\/p>\n