Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Finding Frederick Schmidt - Part 1







My great-grandfather Albert Herman SCHMIDT apparently had a ton of brothers and sisters.

I asked my dad about them and each time I would get a varrying set of names.  A few names were fairly consistent.  One of them was Fredrick.  And so the hunt is on for Fredrick SCHMIDT. He was probably born in Lehe, Bremerhaven, Bremen, Germany in the 1875-1890.  His parents were Albert Fredrick SCHMIDT and Martha TOELLNER/TOLLNER/TURNER  And that's about all I know.  

My dad has a sister [t] who is still alive.  I asked [t] about Frederick.  She's smart as a whip, and keeps family things retained very well.  So the basic story was Fredrick had a daughter Patricia, who married someone with the lastname [h].  Ok, noted away.

On for special research technique called "plunder the address book".  My wonderful Great-Aunt Martha Fox need Schmidt passed a few years back.  I stopped by my Aunt [t]s house to have lunch with her, and while there got a peek at my great-Aunts record book.  Amazingly enough I found an entry for Patricia [h] (along with many other goodies).  And she's in Florida.   Oh my.

So today I sent off a blind email introducing myself and asking if she could contact me or I couuld contact her.  I'm fairly sure its the right lady.  Hopefully she's still alive and wants to help.

I'll keep you posted on my adventure in Address Book Mining and UnSolicited Letters.  Hopefully we have a happy ending with more stories to tell.

Next steps for Fredrick.  Continue to find just some base records for him.  Death?  Arrival?  Marriage?   Tough one here.  Anyone got any other ideas?

1 comment:

  1. Happy ending to this one. PatH responded to my letter. Notes on the call are at http://weekendgenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/01/sending-out-letter-to-unknown.html

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