Family history across the seas

I have been spending happy hours chasing down stories about ancestors and other emigrants from the village of Dorfprozelten in this site for Bavarian newspapers: digiPress – Das Zeitungsportal der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek

At least some of my discoveries are ones I’ve previously found by searching Google Books (yes, not newspapers) where you’ll find digital versions of some Bavarian newspapers. I wrote about this some years ago, here, here, here, and here

However, I’ve also found some new articles including the liquidation of my ancestor’s inn in Dorfprozelten, which seemed to teeter on, into the future for a while. Then last night I made a discovery of the sale of the inn in 1868. This occurred because key members of the family had died of Lungensucht which I understand to be tuberculosis or similar. The inn had been in the hands of my 2xgreat grandfather’s step-brother, Jakob August Ulrich who died on 19 June 1868, followed by his wife Elisabeth Firmbach on 20 August 1868. Shortly afterwards, on 15 October 1868, Eva Catharina Kunkel, born Happ, also died. Catharine Happ later Ulrich then Kunkel was the mother of both Jakob Ulrich and my George Mathias Kunkel. These consecutive tragedies marked the end of the Happ family’s history with Das “Goldene Fass” which had been in business for over 100 years by then. Jakob and Elisabeth’s children emigrated to upstate New York.

As always, I’m indebted to local historian, Georg Veh and the team who wrote the wonderful book “Dorfprozelten Teil II” for information relating to my family, and for the photo of the inn.

There are some tricks to be used when searching these papers:

Tip 1: Spellings may vary from what you’re familiar with, so do try to use the German version eg Georg not George (Not that I’ve found him – yet!)

Tip 2: the first search and the first time an image comes up it is very sloooow. After that, each image comes up much more promptly.

Tip 3: When you get the little image snapshot, you can click the down arrow to see what it includes. Clicking the image itself brings up the whole page.

Tip 4: Once the page has loaded, if you click the download icon at the top right, you can click on the JPG options and see the image separately, enabling you to save it.

Tip 5: This doesn’t tell you which newspaper, date, or page you’ve found it on, so best to include that information in your saved name.

Tip 6: If you have a long place name like Dorfprozelten, it is worth searching with it hyphenated eg Dorf-prozelten as you will get different additional results.

And now let me share with you my major discovery.

My feeble translation courtesy of my outdated German skills, Reverso and my very large German dictionary…all of which were defeated by some phrases/words/sentences.

In the estate of Jakob Ullrich Widow Elizabeth of Dorfprozelten, auction by the under…(signed?) Notary.

Thursday 17 September …1pm in the Guesthouse “Fass” in Dorfprozelten

1. Following real estate
2. The Guesthouse “Fass” Plan number 341 -119 decimal (?) residence with stable, pig house, brewery, barn, bar-hall (??), barn, guest…rooms, well managed (carriageway??) ….and farmyard.

Plan number 343* -19 decimal, Entry and farmyard, one-eighth share (??)

Plan number 349-123 decimal, nurseries (hothouses?) to both sides of the carriageway

2. Plan number 4433-170 decimal, vineyard Rothenhäuser
3. Plan number 1412-619 decimal, vein/core of the ….(Abschlag) of Hösbach
4. The same Guesthouse -Inventory

Tables, …., stools/chairs, glasses (?), Beds etc

The inn’s position in the middle of the High Street of some 1200 residents of the village of Dorfprozelten is one of the most favourable.

The Money for the moveable property is therefore…, that for plan numbers 4433 and 1412 to pay nearly 5% ???? in 1869, 1870 and 1871.

The rest largely defeated me but it seems that there was an amount of 2400 florins and 5% interest remaining. (????)

There were three payments due in 1860, 1870 and 1871 at 5%.

Anyone who has better German skills than I do, is more than welcome to correct or clarify. I’ve also discovered from this that perhaps I need to investigate the relevance of Hösbach.

Happy hunting if you’re looking for your Bavarian ancestors’ story.