Joseph Schiefer - Ancestry.com members please help

24th cousin four times removed.. I'll take a peek at it.

I can view the page ok but i can't determine much my german is too poor Fred Bergman might be able to help more

Thanks Michael, i've taken advantage of their 14 day free trial (i thought i had already used it?) but similiar to you my German is very poor.
I will upload the relevant pages to Geni and hopefully someone in the German Portal can help translate, i think i've found the appropriate listing but so far it's not giving much new info... aka Nothing :)

I can get ancestry's library edition free at my local library but not sure if it's free where you are. I suspect it might be but i can't really be sure.

oh and check this out http://www.geni.com/path/Michael+P+McCann+is+related+to+Alex+Moes?f...

Michael, my German is very rusty and bad, even more than my English. For German language and genealogy the best on Geni you can consult Tobias Rachor, German curator (and a very good one!)

Fred your English is just fine.
I uploaded the pages to geni and started a discussion in the German portal.
Hopefully Tobias will give me some feed back

I can make more sense out of this older German font than I can out of the newer font. Give me a little time - maybe an hour, and I'll try to figure it out for you.

Sincerely,
Sylvia M. Hertel

f=s confused me at first but I've seen that before I think. In Dutch or Finnish?

Alex,
Schiefer's rank was Foot Guard, Guards Fusilliers Regiment, 1st Guards Infantry Brigade, 1st Guards Infantry Division, Guard Corps, 2nd Army.

This is actually a backwards listing, but the Guards Corps was commanded by Prince August of Wuerttemberg, and the 2nd Army was commanded by Prince Frederick Charles.

This is the link for a better understanding in English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War_Order_of_Battle

Look under "Germany", 2nd Army, which is about 2/3rds of the way down the page. To get an idea of the weaponry these foot soldiers carried, look under the French foot artillery batteries. Actually, you should be able to find a better source for the weaponry of these German soldiers.

I hope this helps. How do you know this Schiefer is a Joseph though.

Oh, I also got the source of the book this information came out of, If you can find it in English, because that might be the only way you are able to get a ballpark date for his injury.

The German name is:
Source Citation:
Königliche Geheime Oberhofbuchdruckerei (Hrsg.). Deutsch-französischer Krieg, 1870-71, Verlust-Liste. Berlin, 1870-1871.

View original image

Basically, it's not a book at, it's a compilation of casualty list print outs, which came from the secret upper printing shop at the royal court in Berlin. If you could see the image, you would find Schiefer listed on page 2, but that page is half to 2 thirds of the way through the book. The lists are numbered, but not dated. The list Schiefer is on is #169, but there are also numbers for his regiment: 35, 37 and 42. Also, Siefer is the very last name listed for his company, and they are not listed in alphabetical order.

I found one more interesting note. Under the name of the regiment, it says, "Sorrow-filled (sad or sorrowful) Company. Then, instead of stating 1st Company, it lists 15 names, most of whom are all Grenadiers or under officers. There are three others, two of one rank and one of still another rank. On closer study, it seems to be a list of national heroes, who were either retired or died as a result of injuries.

Alex,
Sorry. I hit "post" when I didn't mean to. The last paragraph I intended to delete.

I live in South Dakota. It just happens my father is 100% German from Russia, who I started family research on almost 40 years ago, so I had to learn some Schwabien German to understand a lot of documents.

My mother, on the other hand, grew up in Germany, and I heard a lot of German until I got married, more from my grandparents, than my mother, especially if they got into an argument, but I never learned enough to be able to speak or write it. I am able to understand German fairly well when I read it, but again, because of old documents, and I've learned to be able to translate the older font, often better than the newer font.

I have still another advantage though, which is probably my greatest one. Grandpa and Mom made an extreme effort to learn English well. Therefore, I have several (about five) German-English dictionaries, all of different ages. The oldest one was published in 1881, and the most recent one I have is from about 1990. I can't find that one right now though.

With all the German I have to translate for my own family research, I've become pretty good at recognizing all the "little" intricacies of German spelling, odd lettering, fonts, syntax, gender, etc. The only thing that REALLY stumps me is the verbs. There are so many forms for their verbs, they just blow me away. I've also learned that they often put, what would be three or four words in English, into one long word in German. That can get to be a little tricky, too.

My mother refused to teach us German though (Dad didn't really get a choice in the matter), although she did teach us a few words and several proper pronunciations of various letters, but we usually had to push her to get that much out of her. My grandmother actually taught me more than anyone else, but she wasn't a very patient woman.

At this point, I'm trying to teach myself German. Even though I got one semester of it in college, the instructor taught the class in English. Needless to say, I learned almost nothing of the language through that course.

Anyway, I find languages very interesting. I'm also trying to teach myself Hebrew, a much easier language to learn. I just have to get the root word system down.

Thank you for the privilege of helping you. I learned quite a bit through the experience myself.

Most Sincerely,
Sylvia M. Hertel
Lead, S.D.

Alex Moes I thought it was either dutch or german so i ask fred knowing that he knows both if he could help but it looks like he's busy. also what do you want from the document.. comformation of death and death date?

Thank you for all this help Sylvia I am relieved that you are gaining from the exchange also.
I have absolutely no proof that this Schiefer is my Joseph.
Perhaps following this man will reveal his full name one day, if it is Joseph that will be amazing, if not at least I've tried.
I've had no success trying to find any German records for my grandmother, I have a copy of her marriage certificate in Dutch which confirms she s was from Cologne and implies tat her parents were alive at the time of her marriage but not present at the ceremony, it also lists their names and that they are in Cologne.
I will chip away at this mystery for my whole life if necessary. Perhaps I will one day walk the foot paths of Cologne and read tombstones from one end of the city to another.

some day i wish to do the same with my irsh nordic ancestors

Michael these are not death records. My grandmother was not born until 30 years later so her father can't have died!
This record has identified the military unit of the man in question so that shall be the next target trying to find info for that unit which might conform that this man is my ancestor.

ahh gotcha.

I wasn't surebecause it was a casulty book you asked about

Yes I appreciate your input but Casualty can refer to injured people too not just the dead.

Private User this is the request alex was talking about

Thank you everyone for your posts here and private messages, i think we have learnt all this document can tell us:

1. Sometime during the war, either 1870 or 1871 a solider named Schiefer was injured/went missing.
2. Schiefer eventually returned to his unit, so he did not die.
3. Schiefer's rank was Foot Guard
4. Schiefer's unit was 10th Compay, Guards Fusilliers Regiment, 1st Guards Infantry Brigade, 1st Guards Infantry Division, Guard Corps, 2nd Army.

Unfortunately the Guard's Corps recruited from all over Germany so his membership gives no indication of his origins.

I've been trying to read up on the Guard's Fusilliers Regiment but information online is quite vague. I think at this point there is not much more to learn.

Recruitment records, payroll lists or discharge papers for this unit which might show what Schiefer's first name was are the next logical target but i am not hopeful of these having survived 150 years.

Thanks again to everyone,

Regards
Alex

Alex,
You said you were having problems with finding more information on your grandmother. There isn't that much difference between the Dutch and the Germans, and they both crossed the border quite readily, as I have discovered from both my and a friend of mine's trees. I don't know how much I could help, but give me the information you have on her and I'll look at it.

Sincerely,
Sylvia M. Hertel

Gertrud Moes

We know her brother's names but not sure about their ages nor birth order.

https://www.wiewaswie.nl/personen-zoeken/zoeken/document/srcid/4852...

regarding http://search.ancestry.ca/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=HannoverLibrary_Franco...

There are 26 records to look through. If you want I will do this tomorrow and let you know what I've found if anything that may help in your search. :)