If you have Volga German, Black Sea, Volhynia or surrounding Russian area ancestors with confirmed sources of their birth/village location, immigration year, and areas they resettled, please consider completing a survey(s) to further research on migration patterns. The survey will be used for generational family migration patterns to and around the U.S. More details will be given at AHSGR and GRHS conferences.
This free survey is by Sandy Schilling Payne who created the Germans from Russia Settlement Locations map, and will remain open until the end of 2019. It is VERY important to list the names of the TOWNS and not just the states where they lived. You can list your ancestors WikiTree link on second to last question of survey if you wish as that would point to any family census records.
Thank you! ~Koreen Goodman
Worthwhile to support others who are working so hard to document our ancestors and help others with research. How the colony areas are grouped on her mapping may be something to consider for categorization as the work continues for the WT German Roots subgroups/structure for Volga Germans and Black Sea villages. Dr. Mai's Gazetteer is another valuable structure source: https://vgi.fairfield.edu/gazetteer Thanks Maggie!
I was doing some work on a family recently, that I'm not related to, who are Mennonite. Come to find out they are from Volhynia, originally from Germany (or Switzerland, not sure yet), and migrated to Kansas.
Interestingly, I found out that the Mennonites are a group that keep a lot of genealogical records and heavily intermarry, so you see the same family names over and over again.
Some WikiTree Resources that I found about this:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Mennonites_in_North_America
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Grandma%27s_Window
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Mennonite_Faith
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Mennonites
Interesting links, thanks for sharing Eric.
For anyone interested, the Mennonites were among the conscientious objectors or pacifists. I did not even know this history until recently. Buckingham Camp was an area in Northern Colorado. Quite a story:
I also just came across The Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (another type of Wiki). They have a good article on Genealogy here:
https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Genealogy
Plus many other useful articles that I'm now using as references for the family I'm researching.
@Koreen: are you in Colorado? I live in the Denver area (Lakewood).
Yes, from what my relatives taught me they all spoke German (not Russian) and had created Low German (vs. High German spoken in Prussia/Germany) with their inflections. I read once they used the Russian word for watermelon, so I'm sure there were more words added as they tried to communicate. Yet another reason that cultures tend to flock together. My relatives would speak it when they didn't want the kids to know what they were talking about :-)
An example I read:
English-German-Low German: So we will do it - So machen wir das - so mog wi dat.
There have been genetic studies on Alzheimer's but not full autosomal recessive gene studies to my knowledge.
Admittedly I have a lot of work to do yet, but here’s the couple:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Schmidt-9893
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Eckhardt-337
Hi Pip,
I updated his profile and looked up brothers to try to determine the ship manifest which would tell us more. Pulling up AHSGR Soar obits I found the brothers Carl and Peter which told more of the story. Fred may have been born in Frank but believe there was village movement as brother Carl Jr. was born in Katharinenstadt per obit. Left research notes for you on father's profile. Will PM you.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Schmidt-9900
