Close to the Harz

PLACE IN FOCUS
Lewis and Louis Wiesener. In 1907 young
Lewis, son of Otto, was sent from Belfast
to Goslar to live with his grandfather
Wiesener family, Belfast
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PLACE IN FOCUS
Corinna Meiß uses an example from her own family
to show how people in the UK and Ireland can begin
to trace a family branch in Germany
A
lthough Goslar is only a
small medieval town in the
Harz mountains, its archive
is worth a look. It is one of the most
famous and comprehensive in
Germany, with documents going back
to 10th century. It’s also an example of
what you might find when
researching your ancestors’ German
roots, if you are lucky.
My research into the life of
Otto Wiesener (1868-1903), who
emigrated to England, started in the
winter of 2009. I was snowbound for
some days in my flat, high in the Harz
mountains. Luckily I had a good book
with me, Treasures from the Attic: the
Extraordinary Story of Anne Frank’s
Family.
This book inspired me to have a
closer look at the 19th century family
correspondence of my greatgrandmother Auguste Meiß, née
Wiesener. I had already been doing
ancestry research for nearly 20 years
and have traced my family tree back,
in some cases, to the 13th century.
The letters gave a good insight into
the family and the social life of a wellto-do bourgeouis family of the late
19th century. Through examining the
wealth of information from various
sources, the pieces of the jigsaw slowly
came together. I scanned and printed
Close to the Harz
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everything, enlarged it and shared the
information with family members.
The postcard collections of Marie
and Anna Wiesener brought to light
information that had been forgotten
for several decades by some family
members and told the present
generation about a past of which they
knew nothing – especially the
emigration of nearly all male
Wieseners of one generation to
England.
Belfast branch
In the course of this research, I also
became aware of a Northern Irish
branch of the Wieseners. Henry Louis
Otto Wiesener (known as Otto), a
cousin of my great-grandmother,
lived in the United Kingdom at least
since 1891, first in London and then
he moved with his family to what is
now Northern Ireland. He is listed in
the 1901 census as a commercial
enquiry agent, living with his wife
Elizabeth and their three children.
Otto died in 1903 at 35, leaving his
pregnant wife and four small children
in the UK. Many of their descendants
are still in the Belfast area today.
Another cousin had lived
in Glasgow, but had to
leave Britain as almost all
German men were forced
to do. He only returned to Britain
in the early 1920s.
Anti-German feeling due to two
world wars meant that stories were
invented to protect the children from
local hostility as far as possible.
Fiction must now be replaced by fact.
Using Otto and his origins in
Goslar as an example, I will explain
how people in the UK could proceed
to find out about a German branch of
the family.
First of all, you would need to check
all available documents in the UK.
Often ‘insignificant’ documents or
belongings might give a clue. In Otto’s
case, a gold pocket watch was
available, probably his journeyman’s
piece, engraved with ‘Otto Wiesener,
Goslar 1888’. Otto’s marriage
certificate in the UK also had much
information to follow up and revealed
that his residence was 5 Park Avenue,
London NW2. Later I learned that in
1897 Otto and at least two of his
brothers lived there. Otto’s father,
Louis Wiesener, a managing director,
was still alive.
The best man at the wedding was
Part of the Wiesener
family postcard
collection, which
opened up many new
avenues of research.
This one was written
by Otto’s youngest
brother Emil in
London to their
sister Anna in Goslar,
1897. Right: Otto
Wiesener’s watch,
which has useful
details engraved
on the back
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Gustave George Wiesener who later
supported the widow and the children.
As Otto was born before 1874 in
Goslar there is not a civic register (at
the registry office) – only his
birth/baptism register. As he was a
member of the Presbyterian Church in
Whitehead (a small town on the coast
of County Antrim), he presumably
must have been Protestant.
Goslar’s original Protestant church
records are kept at the EvangelicalLutheran Church Association in
Goslar. The department is called the
‘church registry’. Microfilmed copies
of these records can be found at the
church book archives in Wolfenbüttel,
part of the Central Protestant Church
Archives of the Lutheran Church,
Brunswick (Braunschweig).
In the church records one will find
not only birth, marriage and death
entries but also confirmation lists.
These can be helpful if names are
known of an ancestor’s acquaintances.
Besides, the date of the confirmation
could also mark the beginning of the
ancestor’s apprenticeship if he did not
attend the German Gymnasium
(similar to grammar/prep schools).
Goslar archives
To learn further details about Otto’s
social environment, the next step was
to get in touch with the municipal
archives in Goslar. In lean times, most
archives are understaffed, which
means they cannot help with your
search and there might be staff
members who only speak basic
English. I would recommend that,
before you arrive in Germany, you
seek the help of a professional
genealogist or a volunteer employee of
the archives/ historical societies etc as
most of the handwritten documents
are written in Kurrentschrift (old
German script with its origins in
medieval times) and therefore
illegible to an English researcher even
if they can speak German.
First of all, you should ask the
person in archives to do a search in
the name – in this case ‘Wiesener’ –
as there may be records or other
documents about the person already
archived. If nothing can be found,
Documents and photographs relating to Otto Wiesener and his family, collected for an exhibition in the Goslar archives. They
include Otto’s marriage to Elizabaeth Mary Watson in London and their 1901 census record. Otto is pictured at the top left
corner. In the right-hand top corner is a Belfast newspaper obituary marking Otto’s death. It describes him as a “genuine
favourite” of the community and says he “took a keen interest in the political and domestic problems of his adopted country”
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PLACE IN FOCUS
Above: death notice of Louis Wiesener,
Otto’s father, in the Goslarsche Zeitung
Right: Otto’s baptism register at
St Stephanikirche in Goslar
then try the registration books.
During the imperial era they
registered people coming to and from
Goslar. Later there were registration
cards for every individual living in
Goslar, listing personal data, when
they moved to Goslar and their
residence as well as when they moved
away and where they moved to.
Address books are not only helpful to
find out in which street and house the
ancestor lived in. Often there are extra
pages about the municipal administration, the guilds, and various societies
and clubs in the city. With a bit of luck
your ancestor might be named in one of
these. This might lead to a further
search, such as the minute books of
guilds or societies. However, only 10%
of such documents are archived.
Maybe you will find additional
information about schooling, military
registers, acquisition of citizenship,
building works and architectural
information. Records of buildings and
architectural works are particularly
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CORINNA MEISS is a
PR manager and family
historian who lives and
works in Goslar, Germany.
Her professional genealogy
service can be found at
www.woerteragentur.com
– see advertisement on page 155
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interesting. Through these we learn
not only about an ancestor’s housing,
but also floor plans are often attached
to the document, and you could learn
about the value of the place from fire
insurance documents and so on.
Last but not least: read the local
newspapers. Ancestors’ obituaries are
a good source for finding the names
!
of descendants and other information.
Doing ancestry research (in any
country) has a lot to do with patience
and coincidence. Sometimes it is
useful to think laterally or ‘the other
way round’ too. !
For more details on the Wieseners,
see www.wiesener-family.com
ONLINE RESOURCES
The following websites will be of help to anyone with German
ancestors who emigrated to English-speaking countries:
• www.agfhs.org.uk – The Anglo-German Family History Society
• http://wiki-en.genealogy.net/wiki/Germans_to_America –
German and American sources for German emigration to America
• www.dausa.de – Research Center for German Emigrants in the USA
• www.deutsche-auswanderer-datenbank.de – database of
German emigrants to USA, covering 1820-1939, based on New
York passenger lists beginning in 1820 and other material
• www.germanroots.com/ei.html – emigration and immigration links
• www.roots-in-germany.de – general resources on exploring
German ancestry
• www.germanyroots.com – includes a database of more than
230,000 emigrants extracted by volunteers
• www.routes.de/database.html – links to several emigrant
databases relating to different regions of Germany
• www.rootsweb.com/~wggerman – the Germany GenWeb Project
• www.genealogy.net/reg/WELT/austral.html – links to resources
on German emigration to Australia
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