Website Wednesday - Meyer's Gazetteer

Meyer's is arguably the most important of all German gazetteers. The goal of the Meyer’s compilers was to list every place name in the German Empire (1871-1918). It gives the location, i.e. the state and other jurisdictions, where the civil registry office was and parishes if that town had them. It also gives lots of other information about each place. The only drawback to Meyer’s is that if a town did not have a parish, it does not tell where the parish was, making reference to other works necessary.

Searching Meyer's

Type the name of your place in the search box.

• You can use a wildcard * (an asterisk) in your search. For example, ‘*gheim’ will return ‘Balgheim, Bergheim, Bietigheim, Billigheim’ and anything else that ends in ‘gheim’.
• You can type only the beginning of a name and it will return all places that begin with those letters. For example, ‘Neu’ will return ‘Neu Abbau, Neu Abschwangen, Neuacker, Neuafrika’ and many others.
• You do not need to include umlauts; ‘Munchen’ and ‘München’ will return ‘München.’ You can type umlauts if you wish, but you should not expand umlauts, e.g. ‘ü’ as ‘ue’, as that will return no hits.

A list of places with that name will appear—all those places of the same name, but with other jurisdictions which will help you identify your town.

• You can ‘Filter results by region’ with the drop-down menu. The regions are the various states/provinces of the Second German Empire (1871-1918). Filtering will help you determine the correct town by narrowing the number of returns you get.

Choose the town for which you want more information. This takes you to the ‘Entry’ page.

• You will see the name of your town and a menu that includes the following items: Entry, Map, Ecclesiastical, Related, E-mail, and Feedback.  You can click on each for more information.
• You will see the entry as it appears in Meyer’s, the extraction of the entry, the explanation of the extraction, and a map. The extractions include and are primarily limited to jurisdictions and parish information. The explanations are helpful for those who do not speak German or are not familiar with the old jurisdictions. For example, you will learn what Kreis, Bezirkskommando, and Landgericht mean.
• By clicking on ‘View entry on PDF of the original page,’ you can see the entire page on which the entry appears.
• Click on ‘Show previous and next entry’ to see the previous and following entries. If there was a correction in the Meyer’s addendum, this will also be indicated.

Family Tree UK Magazine

The latest issue of Family Tree UK magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue : 

• Findmypast’s Pals Campaign
• Blenheim Palace develops pioneering digital twin
• 41,356 census substitute records from Fermanagh, Wexford, Cork, Dublin & Kerry now online
• Call for presentations: Academic Genealogy Conference, June 2026
• Locate shipping company ephemera via online catalogue
• Prize-winning educators at The National Archives
• Barley purchase orders, 1825-1834 
• New look Family Chartmasters’ website 
• DNA Club news 
• A Family History Manual: ‘An excellent example of sharing knowledge’
• Tracing Royal Marine ancestors at sea and at home
• Desolate and destitute
• Speeding up family history with AI for genealogy safely & strategically
• How does Family History fit into history?
• And more... 

Week 48 (Nov. 26-Dec. 2) Family Recipe

I have commented before on the family recipe book, primarily created by my sister.  One of the more fun jobs while we were cleaning out the family home was emptying out Mum's recipe drawer.  While the drawer contained a few proper cooking books, and some complete magazines, it was primarily a combination of loose snippets torn or photocopied from old magazines and books, and hand-written recipes from who-knows-where.  Many had notes written on them - things like substitutions of ingredients and notes on who particularly liked the dish.  There were also a number of recipes written out by others and given to Mum - by several different friends and relatives, judging by the assorted handwriting.  She even had a little A5 folder with hand-written favourites stored inside.

Included in that recipe drawer were the details of so many dishes we remembered from our childhoods - some with fondness and some with a shudder!  My sister and I spent an entire afternoon sorting through these scraps of paper, reading them out to each other and sharing our memories.  Yes, there really WAS a recipe for Dixon Street Chicken!  Do you remember Mum's spaghetti and mince casserole?  So many family recipes are now recorded in our family recipe book, complete with notes and comments.

Food, cooking and mealtimes are such an important part of our families, and so often discounted.  What was your favourite home-cooked meal as a child?  Do you have the recipe, and do you ever cook it for yourself as an adult??  Do you remember any cooking disasters - either your own or that of another family member?  Having them written down with all our memories and stories attached to each recipe is something I treasure, and such a simple thing to create.  If you a looking for a Family History project, maybe a family recipe book is something to consider.

Week 47 (Nov. 19-25) The Name's the Same

Every family has their popular names - names that appear generation after generation regardless of fashion.  There were also fads among names - copying that of the current Monarch and their family, for example, as well as using a traditional name common amongst ancestors.

Naming patterns were also frequent in many families, although they are by no means a reliable way of predicting the names of children.  Traditionally, the first son would be named for the paternal grandfather, the second son for the maternal grandfather and the third son for the father.  For females, the first daughter would be named for the maternal grandmother, the second daughter for the paternal grandmother and the third daughter for the mother.  Providing, of course, these names were not the same.  

In the 1700s the top five names for each gender were :
Boys - John, William, Thomas, Richard and James
Girls - Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane

In the 1800s the top five names for each gender were :
Boys - John, William, James, George and Charles
Girls - Mary, Anna, Emma, Elizabeth and Margaret

There was also the tendency, unusual as it may seem to us today, of reusing the name of a child who had died.  In the 1700's and 1800's this occurs frequently in my family tree, with the name of a child who has died in infancy being reused for the next child of the same gender born to the family.  

This can make research quite tricky, especially when a popular name has been used by several branches of a family.  In my Irish Mulholland family, for example, four brothers all named their first son James, after their father.  One child died at 2 days old and the name was reused 18 months later.  This meant there were five children named James Mulholland, born within six years and a few miles of each other.  Sorting out which records belong with which child is quite a challenge.

Then two of them married women named Mary.

Week 46 (Nov. 12-18) Wartime

Russell Nicholas Clark, WW2

This week the focus is 'Wartime' which seems fitting as we have just commemorated Remembrance Day.  As I have commented previously my family was extremely lucky, in both world wars and other conflicts, to have most of those who served not only come home, but come home fairly unscathed.  Once second cousin was killed in France in World War 1 ; one uncle died in the Merchant Navy in World War 2.  All the other relatives who served – my father, uncles and great-uncles and more recently several cousins - returned safely to their loved ones.  While they all had to live with the memories of the conflicts, they were mostly uninjured by their experiences and able to rebuild their civilian lives.  

So many others were not so fortunate.  Numerous Australian families endured the loss of loved ones on foreign soil, the arrival of the dreaded telegram, or the return of family members forever scarred by their service.  So many who returned faced a lifetime of ruined health or years of recovery and rehabilitation, and ongoing trauma from their wartime experiences.  My family has been lucky indeed.

 

Ernest Green, WW2 postcard from Egypt

Through the National Archives of Australia I have downloaded several family military records -  the NAA has indexed and digitised Boer War and World War 1 and 2 dossiers, which you can search and view online for free.  Other websites include Discovering Anzacs which allows you to add your stories and images, and the Australian War Memorial, which has databases like the WW1 Embarkation Rolls and WW1 Red Cross files.  Researching  newspaper reports in Trove has also been a gold mine, with reports of enlistments, farewells, news from the front, even letters home published in local papers.

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day, once known as Armistice Day, is one of our most important commemorative dates. On 11 November 1918, the guns on the Western Front fell silent, and the armistice with Germany to end the fighting on land, in the air and at sea was signed.

Each year on 11 November we pause as a nation at 11am for one minute of silence to honour all those who have suffered and lost their lives during wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations.

A wonderful resource for hosts of a Remembrance Day service, or those commemorating at home, is available from the Department of Veterans Affairs.  Through their ANZAC Portal, they have a free Remembrance Day Kitbag.  It includes the order of service, music, making a speech, the Ode of Remembrance, a brief history, suggestions for a personal commemoration, guidelines to making a paper poppy, and more.

So wherever you are at 11am this 11th of November, take a minute to pause and remember those who have served to protect our freedoms.

Lest We Forget.

Week 45 (Nov. 5-11) Multiple

For the prompt of 'Multiple' I have chosen Thomas May, my 3xGreat Grandfather, who married multiple times.  Thomas had a total of 5 wives, outliving all of them.

Thomas May was born 20 September 1762 in West Mersea, Essex and was baptised 16 October 1762 at the church of St Peter and St Paul.  He died on 27 February 1843 in West Mersea and was buried on 7 March 1843. 

Wife 1 – Elizabeth Godwin
Born 1763 Thorrington, Essex
Married 27 March 1787 Thorrington, Essex
Died 25 August 1790 West Mersea, Essex
Children – Thomas, Edward

Wife 2 – Sarah Sadler
Born 1775 West Mersea, Essex
Married 1792 West Mersea, Essex
Died 7 January 1799 West Mersea, Essex
Children – Elizabeth, Sarah, Hannah, John

Wife 3 – Henrietta Stevens
Born Unknown
Married 12 May 1801 St Mary, Lambeth, Surrey
Died 2 May 1812 West Mersea
Children – Henry, Mary

Wife 4 – Susannah Balls Green
Born 7 June 1770 West Bergholt, Essex
Married 10 November 1818 Fordham, Essex
Died 11 February 1828 West Mersea, Essex
Children - Nil

Wife 5 – Mary Ann Pullen
Born 13 October 1791 West Mersea, Essex
Married 9 August 1829 West Mersea, Essex
Died 1838 West Mersea, Essex
Children – Edward, Sophia Mary Ann

It is his 4th wife, Susannah Green (nee Balls), where the relationships become truly convoluted.  Susannah's son Isaac (from her first husband John Green) was married to Thomas's eldest daughter Elizabeth.  So Thomas became not only father-in-law but also step-father to Isaac, and his new wife Susannah became mother-in-law and step-mother to Betsy.