Finding the Krolls (and Herzkes) in Germany

(c) 2020 Frederick Walton, Kroll/Herke Family Historian

Based on my previous Blogs, I have decided to go back to the beginning to probe our roots in Germany.

That is really the first misnomer…While the Krolls and Herke's were “German”... that is, our ancestors identified as "German" vs. Polish, Russian or Jewish, they were  technically from a little village called Przependowo, in the Kreis (county) of Obornik, in the Province  of Posen, in the Kingdom of  Preussen (Prussia) in the German Empire.  This relationship ceased after World War One and today this place (Poznan) is now located firmly in Poland! 

Where in the World did our Ancestors come from?

Ancestry gave me a one month trial of world records. I was, frustratingly, NOT finding the Kroll and Herzke records that I was hoping would fall into my lap! The problem is not that the records don’t exist, it is that the databases containing records from Posen may not be included in the Ancestry collection. For each German database I looked at, they generally did not have Posen included. 

So I started by reviewing where these records should be. The Civil registration district for Przependowo is nearby Murowana-Goslin. If those records are not in the Ancestry database (generally NOT) then no sense looking there!

I searched the internet for other record sources in Posen and stumbled across http://poznan-project.psnc.pl

POZNAN PROJECT - Marriage indexing for the 19th century within the former Prussian province of Posen, now Poznań, Poland, and neighboring districts.

My Great-Grandparents were married in Blue Island, illinois, so no marriage record would be found in Posen. However Julius Kroll's brother Freidrich, married Ottilie Herzke's (Julius’ wife) sister, Anna, in Germany, so maybe I could find that record.

I searched on their names and found a 100% match! Unfortunately it doesn’t provide the exact date, but it does provide the year,1887. 

source: http://poznan-project.psnc.pl/search.php

 

More importantly it provides the parents names. I know this is really not new news, but it is, finally, a documentable citation from a valid period civil record where every name and date lines up to PROVE that these are the CORRECT and valid parents names. 

In my previous research, I have never found a record with a valid citation (or ANY citation for that matter) of WHERE the names came from, although they can be found on perhaps a dozen public family trees on Ancestry and elsewhere. I am sure that when somebody originally put this “out there” and was somehow confident in the information, everyone else copied it to their trees, but somewhere the citation was lost or never provided, so this information is “technically” questionable…but no longer!

There is also a link (original Record link) to the Polish Archives in Poznan (Poland) where this original record is housed. You could get a copy of the original Marriage record if you can figure out how to request it…in Polish!

I will continue searching through this database to see what other information I can retrieve. But right now I have to go take some polish sausage out of the freezer, I have a sudden unexplainable urge for Kielbasa for supper tonight!