All beginning is dificult
In the fall of
2001 I started to take an interest in my ancestors. I still had the idea that
gathering information should be only a matter of time. I had to leave this idea
very fast.
Soon I noticed
that this entails much work and that one also needs some keen nose. But this
makes everything so exciting for me.
When I started
I merely had the death-certificates of my grandparents on mother's side, the
Orjada family, who originated fromWest- Prussia and who had left for Bochum at
some moment after their wedding in 1913. That was all I knew. From these
death-certificates I learned that my grandfather’s native name was Orsada and he
was born in Zahn, in the district of Flatow. My mother is already over 80 years
old and couldn't help me much further. She told me, however, that originally
the family was named Orzada. So it became a rather confusing matter.
First of all
in the German Federal Archives I got a map of the district of Flatow, in order
to get an idea of the whereabouts of the village of Zahn.
But how should
I proceed?
Internet was
and became a great help for me. First of all I placed an advertisement that I
was looking for the names Orzada and Manowski (the maiden name of my
grandmother) and some weeks later I received a reply. After some writing back
and forth we could ascertain that we have common ancestors and I received more
names.
I also found
the site www.westpreussen.de
and I learned which registrar’s-office was responsable for this district. I
found out that documents of the registrar’s-office from before 1900 were stored
in Bromberg in the Federal Archives. So I wrote to them and got an answer very
fast. But the transfer-charges were to high for me and so Easter 2002 I decided
to drive to Poland myself as I wanted to have a look on the spot.
The first
positive surprise I experienced in Bromberg. Someone told me that I could look
for the birth- certificates myself. No costs for a personal search, I had to
pay some 6 Zloty merely for a copy. I could collect the marriage-certificate at
Kamin, but there wasnot allowed to look for myself. I knew, however, the
register- numbers from the death certificates and so it wasn't a problem .
Now I also had
the names of the parents and I was a bit further. I knew now for what I had to
look.
In the
meantime I had joined a mailing list and got valuable tips. So I learned that
the Mormones have filmed many church- registers. So I ordered the first films
to look for my ancestors.
As far as my
grandmother is concerned it was particularly difficult because I soon had
observed that the name Manowski occurs very often.
Therefore in
June 2002 I decided to drive again to the Archives in Bromberg and to search
there for the parents of my grandmother since those years weren't filmed by the
Mormones. Unfortunately, I couldn't trace her wedding. But my journey was
nevertheless successful since I found quite a number of entries to the
Orzada-family.
As far as my
father’s ancestors were concerned it was fundamentally easier although the name
Neumann occurs very often with my ancestors. Here I proceeded very fast and even
found a grand nephew in the missing personal reports. As he also goes in for
genealogy and had already done fundamentally more investigations, I found the largest portion of my ancestors there.
In the
meantime, I started to learn the principles of genealogy quite well. Other
notations of names don't confuse me any more and I have already developed a
keen nose.
In May 2003 I
traveled to Poland again. For this purpose I have written a travel story.