Hi All Fully realise this discussion has been going for a while, but thought I must share this experience. A while ago we ordered four wardrobe doors (portes coulissantes) from Leroy Merlin. They were delivered yesterday at about 9.30 in two packs each of two doors. The plastic covering the packs was quite wet making it hard to inspect the contents. Shortly after the truck had departed, we wiped the packs dry, and discovered to our horror that two of the doors were damaged. I rattled off an email with attached photos, at 11.30. yesterday. I received an immediate email reply to say the matter would be investigated, followed by a telephone call this morning to confirm the order number, and an hour ago (15.00) I received an email confirming a full replacement to be delivered next Thursday, if that is OK!
Leroy Merlin have shown that email is alive and well in France, and Leroy Merlin go to the top of our tree for excellent service, without question the best we have experienced since we arrived in France.
On ancestor searches they tend to be very helpful and it is only in the case of the living that they keep it back Theo. I've helped a few people, including a woman who found some very unpleasant 1940s info.
Theo, thank you. Schleiz was in East Germany, and as Maria's father was unable to return after the War, many contacts were lost, and he had very little in the way of personal papers when he settled in Dublin.
Roger, Brain is on the right track. The first step is always the "Standesamt", everything, birth certs, family books etc is there. There is a huge hurdle when it is coming to data protection, - means sending them an eMail would result into the same reaction this posting by Brain is about: "what is the point of email in France". The civil servants are simply not entitled to give any information. If such breach would come out, a real "shitstorm" would be the consequence. (This is one of the reason why "De-Nazification" was not really successful)
So, I recommend to you to write a "snail mail" (letter) and provide information you have. Then they can eventually become helpful. If you are really very much interested I can offer you help with translation, as I know how the system is working in Germany, at least in former West-Germany.
The destruction of personal history files in East-Germany was really heavy as there was a need to cover up polit-bureaucrats who just changed from being a "blockwart opr minor SS" to "politischer Kommisar" out of which the Stasi then was formed after WWII. Anyway, I managed to trace back till 1700 discovering that one of my ancestors was hanged in Austria because of political reasons.
You need to search for the Personenstandsregistern or Abstammungsurkunden. The first being the registry and the latter certificate of origin, once you have the first step then it is easy to follow. For Schleiz you probably need the Thüringen Standesamt in Schleiz so email standesamt@schleiz.de. Do it in English very precisely but copy in this to them to show willing: Ich bitte um entschüldigung, da ich Englisch gebraucht habe weil ich eigentlich Deutsch unmächtig bin.
(Please excuse me for using using English since I am unable to use German).
Simply give them all the details you have: name, d.o.b. and any other you have at all. Once you have the first set of data back you can run back as far as records are there.
Ancestry.com are bluffers. I have had a look at what they offer and dropped them fast.
Hi Doreen and Brian, Thank you both, have tried that route, but with very limited success. Ancestry.com claim to have a large German database, but in fact its very limited. Family Search have some extensive records, but only in some areas. We did have some minor success via Maria's father's church in Schleiz - a school photo and picture of the house where he lived with his grandparents, again all serviced via email.
Exactly, in fact the Germans went overboard putting it all up electronically and you can get back a long way there too with a very basic compendium of useful search words if you do not have the language.
Scotland's census register is a pain in the rear Doreen. I had a look at the 1801 registers, at least copies, in Elgin way back in the 1980s. I thought that when ScotlandsPeople put things online that would all be over. Aye... I have done the manual slog before electronic records, so mustn't complain. However, I have a 'mystery' to solve. All of the direct line until my father were called Joseph. At the time of the 1821 census there was a Joseph born, his grandfather was Joseph and he had two siblings. His mother was unmarried, hence he carried over the family name. However, the elder Joseph then had only the one child and her mother dies in childbirth. I am trying to work out whether she had a 'partner' but did not marry to keep the name and thus inherit the not inconsiderable cattle farm that had a fairly good income from the meat market in Inverness. I can speculate all I want but piecing that bit together needs 'detective' work. It would be useful if I could do that online rather than try to spend X amount of time looking at old registers and their ilk. It is ironic I recently (2004, I think) got all the stuff back to 1482 manually because somebody has put all the births (actually baptisms with d.o.b. - those who did not make baptism were never recorded), marriages and burials (rarely more than 48 hours after decease) on to a database. Can I persuade them to put in more detail? Can I heck...
My OH's family records show interesting shifts back and forth, so that her canton Ticino was the centre of struggles between the free communes of Milan and Como around 1100 and ducal records of her family name, especially maternal side Togni, go back that far. By the time the Visconti took the territories in the 14th century they were recording how much tax each household paid and exact records of everything from when the Swiss Confederation actually incorporated Bellinzona and Riviera districts where they all hail from are now on line. Maternal grandmother was actually born in Arizona and died a US citizen in Biasca, daughter of a migrant family who 'went back' for some reason known only to her. She had to learn Italian but never taught her children English! Another mystery to look at one day perhaps. My father in law has paper files of the lot thicker than a phone book. That is interesting stuff. Mind you, earliest stuff is in bad Latin and in the 'middle' in Schwyzertietsch (the German dialect), so is hard work.
Doreen, I too spend a lot of hours researching my Family Tree. Much of it is fascinating, discovering dark secrets of the family, and many things never talked about! One of the most interesting is finding cousins I didn’t know I had in Australia, South Africa and the USA, and now emails fly backwards and forwards at regular intervals. I’m also building my wife’s tree, since she was born in Ireland, and recently heard from an elderly cousin of Maria’s in Massachusetts, who seemed amazed to find a relative living in France! Whilst scribbling this note I wonder if anyone using the Internet for family searching has found any useful sites for Germany. Maria had a German father and so far we have not been able to find very much on his side.
I did similar years ago when I worked for RNIB....When my boss rang and asked where I was...I told him truthfully, Hollywood...he was speechless....till I qualified it with, Hollywood, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire...!
Haha Brian - Elgin when I was small was the marbles & also the place my granny got my special emulsified cod-liver oil sent from. I never set foot there & I was tiny so I was convinced they must all be fantastic sculptors, apart from the chemist...
wow....as I just said...fantasatic to have that knowledge. My best friend, who in fairness is half Scottish...has spent 3 years tracing her family tree...and we are talking hours every week. She pays a yearly subscription...that is not so steep...but its still hard work.
With a family who has no idea about family beyond their great grandparents...I think its wonderful to have that facility. I feel blessed to have met my great grandma and have two photo's of her...but they were taken in the 1920s...hardly ancient!
I love telling people my family come from Dallas. After they get over the Texas assumption and I have explained it is a village not so far from Elgin where the kirk has all of the records back until roughly the 1480s, albeit my family appears in the early 1500s, then they cotton on. My father was born in Aberdeen but taken back to Dallas to be baptised, so he is the last entry. My mothers side of the family came from near Ballater and their records are likewise relatively early 1500s.
The General Registry Office for England & Wales was only founded in 1836, which doesn't really take you back very far. I have photographs of my family from the 1840s onwards and it's hard to think of them as 'ancestors' rather than family ;-) for me ancestors are a lot further back & more remote.
Parish records are probably the most reliable source but subject to vagaries...
Wow, that means you can do both sides of your family better than most other people then. Scots parish records are nearly as good and it is always a good laugh when English friends start paying one of those firms who drip, drip, drip money out of people as they get back to 1700 and something and then have to give up.