Would villages or towns be too small for the discussions?

Started by Nancy B. Thompson on Monday, August 7, 2017
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8/7/2017 at 2:15 PM

I'm wondering about Lindenhof and Nawitz - and whether anyone here is familiar with them.

I have great-grandparents who listed Prussia as where they were born (on ship Bremen, when immigrating). On one search (that I didn't save) I found those two villages(?) listed as "home" for each of them, though I don't know who was from which. I did find those two villages/towns on a map finally - within borders of Poland.

DNA Results list what has to be these two great-grandparents - one as being Finnish and one as Ashkenazi Jewish (Baltic area) - but not which person was which. There are no others in our family history who could fit those slots in the Results - other than: Friedrich Friedrichs and Wilhelmina Quinton.

I thank anyone who has read this.
Nancy Blake Thompson

Private User
8/7/2017 at 2:42 PM

I believe these are the villages today (they're not close together):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nawcz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipowy_Dw%C3%B3r

I can't find either in JewishGen's Town Finder database. They're small places, so that's not terribly surprising. Both areas have had Jewish populations, but my understanding is that the area around Gdansk didn't have a large Jewish community at that point in history, whereas the area around Olsztyn did.

Those surnames are not typically Jewish ones, but people change their surnames all the time - and the connection could well be several generations before them in any case. You may need to locate their birth records and try to find their parent's names to resolve the mystery (might be feasible - Prussian records are available on FamilySearch, in many cases, from that time-frame - although the handwriting is often gruesome).

Private User
8/7/2017 at 2:44 PM

BTW, Lehmann is sometimes a Jewish surname (although generally German).

8/7/2017 at 2:52 PM

Re: August Lehmann - he was the first husband of sister (Sophie) to my great-grandmother (Bertha). Sophie's second husband was widowed Christian Frederick Carl Legband. All in Nebraska.

Private User
8/7/2017 at 3:57 PM

Well there's nothing about their surnames that would provide an indication of Jewish ancestry.

You'll probably have to do some research in the actual records (hopefully digitized on FamilySearch, but otherwise in the Polish or German archives) to see if their births are listed (often registered in the nearest town, for small villages like these), and then see what their parent's names tell you.

8/9/2017 at 10:09 PM

I'm confused about the DNA results. Did you get a percentage Ashkenazi Jewish? I assume so. What was it?

8/10/2017 at 4:41 PM

To me those last two represent 2 individuals - which I believe represents the parents of my great-grandmother.

My results were: 100% European
98.6 % English
04.9 % Irish/Scots/Welsh
02.8 % Finnish
02.7 % Ashkenazi Jewish
(Baltic/Eastern Europe)

8/12/2017 at 11:06 AM

Unfortunately with that small a percentage, it may be further back than great grandparents or even just an issue with the statistics / population databases. But you're taking the correct approach to try to go back in the paper trail as far as possible.

1/19/2018 at 8:48 PM

@Jeremy Richard Lichtman - I was mistaken on the surnames. It seems that I should have been following my mother's lineage - and the surname is _ Pickel _.

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