My Elisabetha Part III: Jews & Mormons Join Forces to Achieve Genealogical Victories
My Elisabetha, Part III:
Jews & Mormons Join Forces to Achieve Genealogical Victories

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A Postscript

LDS (Mormon) Family Search
 You�ll find here evidence of birth records, baptism records, marriage records and death records-- not the real records, but information that has been collected by other researchers, which may or may not be accurate. Always confirm what you find in these databases, but they usually contain good enough information to point you in the right direction. Through this service you can also locate microfilm numbers for researching directly. These microfilms may be ordered at your local LDS Family History Library [link to list].  There is a charge of $3.50 per roll, and it may take several weeks to arrive. 

Shtetl Seeker, an online tool created by the Jewish Genealogy community that allows you to find towns within a given number of miles from a specified city or town.

The crucial missing years : Between 1789 and 1815, the Rheinpfalz was occupied by the French.  During this time, all records of births, deaths and marriages for this time period will be found in Civil records, not church records.  If you can't find the years you're looking for in church records, check the civil records. The LDS often has filmed both.

  

"Jews & Mormons Join Forces to Achieve Genealogical Victories"

Well, not exactly, but it sure feels that way sometimes. Between the Mormon microfilm and the online Jewish resources, I made great strides in my research.  Here�s what I did:

  • First off, I started from the premise that the couples who married in Buffalo knew each other back in the "old country." I also knew I'd have to back this premise up with fact.
  • I found and printed out the 1818 map of the Rheinpfalz region. Kreuznach was already on it. I could also have used a modern map, but working with a "period" map put me in the right mood.
  • Then I used www.mapquest.com or maps.expedia.com to find Altenbamberg, the town where the wife of one my Buffalo Betz men was born. It turned out to be just 4 miles south of Bad Kreuznach, on route B48 along the Alsenz River. I noted this on the 1818 map.
  • Then I used  SHTETLSeeker and printed out a list of towns close to Altenbamberg, familiarizing myself especially with those within 10 miles.
  • Then, with two Web browser windows open simultaneously, and making aggressive use of the ALT-TAB function (to switch from screen to screen), I searched www.familysearch.org for the surname BETZ in the "state" of BAYERN, in GERMANY. In the second window, I used Expedia.com or MapQuest.com (whichever was running more quickly that night) to locate on current maps the towns that came up in my familysearch.org results.

    This last was important for two reasons:

    1. Familysearch.org�s data does not distinguish the Rheinpfalz towns that were once part of Bayern from current Bayern (Bavarian) towns. The map searches enabled me to dismiss quickly those towns located in current Bavaria.
    2. I could start to identify towns and regions close to Altenbamberg and Bad Kreuznach.
  • When I found BETZ records on www.familysearch.org , I jotted the information down, including the names of the parents (if listed) as well as the the microfilm numbers. Darcy might need these numbers later.  I also noted on the map those towns that had BETZ families in them. There was a cluster of Betzes just south of Bad Kreuznach and scattered throughout the rest of the Rheinpfalz region.

1818 Rheipfalz map indicating positions of Altenbamberg and Feilbingert in relation to Bad Kreuznach The more I wrote down, the more connections I started to find�not yet to our Buffalo Betzes, but within and between the little towns south of Bad Kreuznach. Then I found one particular family with a set of children with the same names as my Buffalo Betz set: Philippina, Elisabetha, Philip, and Margaretha! BUT! They were not of the right generation. This set�from Feilbingert, two miles west of Altenbamberg�was a generation older than our Buffalo Betz set. But the fact that they ALL had the same names seemed to me to be worth exploring further. An experienced genealogist would remind me that these names were so common back then that the existence of these names in two families is hardly extraordinary. But my intuition said go for it, so I did.

As I often do, I turned again to Darcy, and suggested that she order the microfilms for the Feilbingert Protestant church records. She did, but my travel date had approached before the films arrived.

One week is not enough time!

Off we went to Hannover for the lovely wedding of our friends, Wolfram and Kirsten. We spent about a week there, with side trips to Berlin and Essen, before heading south with the newlyweds for our weeklong genealogy adventure through the Pfalz and Schwarzwald.

The day before we left Hannover for the south, I was able to check my email. And it�s a good thing I did. Darcy had great news.

She�d been busy the first week I�d been gone. Not only had she received the Feilbingert films, but she�d made a great discovery: the Buffalo Betz Group of Five (Philippina, Elisabetha, Heinrich, Philipp and Margaretha) were indeed siblings! And they�d all been born in Bingert (which had later merged with next-door Feil to form Feilbingert). The LDS films were difficult to read, but she�d deciphered enough to confirm that our five were born to Johann Heinrich Betz, himself son of a Valentin Betz. [Editor's Note: We subsequently learned that Joh. Heinrich was NOT the son of Valentin, but son of Joh. Jacob Betz and Anna Maria Seitz. This information has been corrected on final "tree" you'll see in the next "chapter".] Not only did she confirm the familyhood of our five Betzes, including our great-great-grandmother, but we now had gained two more generations!

Image indicating that all five Buffalo Betzes are indeed siblings

Let me review the steps that led to our success:

  1. We documented the godparents of Elisabetha Betz's children.
  2. We looked at the marriage records of those Betzes that served as godparents to Elisabetha's children, noting birthdates, birthplaces and marriage witnesses.
  3. We looked at the baptisms of the offspring of these "godparent Betzes" and noted who served as godparents to them.
  4. We looked for evidence of German towns of origin on all records, especially marriage and death, of all these Betzes and their spouses.
  5. We mapped out the location of these towns, relative to each other.
  6. We used familysearch.org to look for other Betzes in or near the towns we did know about.
  7. We ordered and researched the microfilm of a potentially strong candidate of a home town by noting (from familysearch.org) the existence there of a Betz family with exactly the same names we sought.
We were, in this case, right!

The irony of all this is that there is yet no direct connection between this generation of Betzes and the family of same names that I found one generation back in the same town. (I hope to confirm relatedness soon.) Still, the similarity of the names spurred me to pursue the Feilbingert films, and there they were! I can't stress enough the importance of looking at witnesses on marriage records and godparents or sponsors on baptism records.  In our case, it resulted in finding new generations.

In the meantime, I had also learned that the civil records in Bad Kreuznach were only for events that occurred in the city of Bad Kreuznach, not in any other nearby towns. Given that I now had confirmation that my Betzes were from Feilbingert, not Bad Kreuznach, I cancelled my appointment there, and decided to focus instead on the Feilbingert records at the Speyer Archives. I wondered why Kreuznach had been recorded as the hometown on the records of two of my five Buffalo Betzes. The Speyer archivist later surmised that because it was the closest big city, immigrants in the U.S. referred to it instead of the less-likely to be recognized small village of Bingert, four miles away.

LESSON:
If you don�t find record of your ancestors in the town their U.S. records say they�re from, check out the neighboring smaller towns.

Our first night on the road, after leaving Hannover, we spent in Altenbamberg, ancestral home of Catharina Dern, wife of my recently confirmed great-great-granduncle Heinrich Betz. Altenbamberg is a small village located on route B48 along the Alsenz River about 4 miles south of Bad Kreuznach.

Jillaine standing in front of the Gastehaus zur Linde in Altenbamberg Gasthaus & Pension
"Zur Linde"
Hauptstra�e 40 Tel: 06708-2210
[email protected]

There is one Gastehaus (guest house) on the main street, "Gastehaus zur Linden" (Guest House under the Linden Tree), owned and operated by Herr Otto Berens and his wife. We paid only 80DM per night, which in May 2000 translated to $40 per night. This included breakfast� and lots of advice. With Wolfram and Kirsten acting as interpreters, we learned that Herr Berens is quite fond of the region�s history, knows a fair amount about genealogical resources in the area, and in between his duties as chef and handyman, loves to talk about it. In addition, we learned that I was not the first American to visit Altenbamberg looking for Betzes and Derns. It turned out that another Washingtonian (DC, that is) had come through two years before, a military man, looking for the same names.

We looked through the guest book from that time period, but no luck. We found very few Americans had been through this town (or at least signed the guestbook) in the last several years. I continue to be very curious about this researcher, and hope we find each other some day. We�re probably related.  

By the way, German adults, even young ones, are not as informal as we Americans are. When you ask someone�s name, they give their last name, rarely their first name. I only learned the first name of our Altenbamberg innkeeper because we overheard someone call him Otto. The archivist I would meet later in Bad Munster also only shared her last name. This is the "German way," according to our German hosts.

Herr Berens confirmed for me that for now, my time would best be spent in the Speyer archives, so the next day, that�s where we went.

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