Searching German Records

Good genealogy practice starts with what you know (yourself) and works backwards. To present my research, however, I want to do the opposite. I want to start in the old country with information on the oldest known ancestor.

Birthplaces in Family Records

I am grateful to Herbert C. Cayton for filling in detailed information on the death certificate of his mother-in-law, Eda Rubinstein Spitzer. He reported Eda's birthplace as Koerlin, Germany, and the full names and birthplaces for her parents as father Meyer Rubinstein, born in Koerlin Germany, and mother Rosalie Bush (should be Busch), born in Kornick, Germany. This is gold to a genealogist. Not even the birth records of Eda's children have this specific birth information for Eda.

Death record for Eda Spitzer, nee Rubinstein.

Finding German Records

Armed with birthplaces, I searched for information on the Jewish Genealogy website. No online Koerlin records could be found, but links were posted for online vital records for the town of Kornik. Maybe there would be a birth record for Eda's mother, Rosalie Busch, or at least some Busches in the records.

After tediously searching the records and resolving old German handwriting issues, I found twin daughters, Dwore and Rahel, born on 31 October 1821 to Abram Hersch Busch and his wife Dine. An older sister, Yette, was found born to these parents on 14 May 1819.

To find these records, go to this link for the Kornik birth ledgers for the years 1817-1827: http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/53/3579/0/1.1/1/str/1/3/50#tabSkany. Request 30 scans per page. Then click on the 23rd box. Look along the left side to item number 246. This is the birth record for twins Dwore and Rahel. For the birth of sister Yette, click on the 12th box and find item number 119. Unfortunately, there is now copy protection on these ledgers. When I did this research over a year ago, however, I was able to enlarge and copy the entries. They appear below.  [Note: these records are also available at the LDS Library, microfilm #742,003.]

This is page 1 of the birth record for the twins. See the red arrow on the left where the parents' names appear.
The date of 31 October 1821 written at the top is the birthdate in that column next to the parents' names.

This is part 2 of the birth record. See the red mark on the right where the names of the twins appear.
Ignore the Yette name below as that is for another family.

This is part of the birth record for older sister, Yette. Unfortunately, I didn't get the second part copied with her name
shown, but you can see it clearly if you go the links given above. What you can see here are the parents' names.

Meaning of Names

So how do I know this is the correct family? It would be nice to have another confirmation in a second record, but it looks very good to me. There are clues in the names.

Rahel is Hebrew for Rachel and its origin is Genesis 29:6. The Yiddish versions are Rokhil, Rokhl, Rukhl and Rahel. The Yiddish nicknames are Rokhe and Rukhele. The local secular is Rachel, Rachil, Ruchel, and Rozalia. The comparable name in the U.S. is Rose. It's not uncommon for people to modernize their first names, especially if they are immigrating to the U.S.

Dwore is a girl's name. I couldn't find a meaning.

Yette is Yiddish and Hebrew for Henriette. It's Yiddish nickname is Yetkhen.

Abram means Abraham.

Hirsch means Harry in the U.S.

Dine is Yiddish for Hebrew Dina.

Taubechen is a nickname of Yette's. Taube means dove in Yiddish. Chen means grace in Hebrew.


Note: Information on the towns will be in an upcoming blog post.