The City Hall in Leingarten is located right next to the Lorenzkirche, which is across the street from where Grandma Elsa and Grandpa Rudolf grew up.
I’ve been communicating with the archivists here about my visit this week. I’ve done quite a bit of research in old Grossgartach records, in fact, I’ve extracted and transcribed all of the church records that are microfilmed from 1563 until 1876. That’s as far as the filmed records go. It took me several years to do that, working on non-stop with a microfilm reader in our basement that I acquired for $25 at at BYU Library surplus equipment sale. I love reading the old documents. And I am related to almost everyone in the town back then.
For the next 3 days in Leingarten, we spent many hours in these archives digitizing the civil registry records. The church kept records, and the city kept records. Only the church records were microfilmed.
My goal this week was to photograph as many pages of Grossgartach records after 1876 as possible. I’m allowed to see anything outside of the privacy limitations (110 years for births, 80 years for marriages, 30 years for deaths).
When Regina, the archivist, started handing me the old ledger books, my hands started shaking and my heart started beating. These books contain names, that are treasures to me. They are my family.
During the next 3 days, we worked like crazy to photograph as many of the records as we could before we had to return to Frankfurt.
There are 4 different types of records we filmed: Family Register Books that contain a 2-page entry for every family compiled from birth, marriage and death records. These are great for putting family relationships together. They also contain the parents of the father and mother. Here’s an example of one random page. Wilhelm Heinrich Link, shown here, is my 4th cousin, 3 times removed.
The other books contain Births, Marriages and Deaths.
We worked as long as the archive stayed open.
And when closing time came, a MIRACLE happened. Regina allowed us to take the record books home so I could keep working through the night!
The next morning we were back at it. I asked Regina if I could go down into the archives with her to see where the record books were kept. (As we’d finish a book, she’d bring us the next.)
Here is what the Leingarten Archives look like:
Sadly, Regina said, there are very few people left who can actually read the old handwriting in these old records.
Regina knew my Grandpa Rudolf Laemmlen emigrated from Grossgartach in 1929. She said they had a box with folders and information about townspeople who emigrated from here. She later made copies of the pages of all of the immigrants for me to take home. In those lists were Rudolf and Elsa.
Then she pulled out another folder containing letters that were written by these people, back to the Burgermeister in Grossgartach, reporting on their lives in new places. As she gently turned the pages of letters, she came to two with handwriting that was very familiar to me! Rudolf wrote 2 letters back to Grossgartach–one in 1958 and one in 1964.
Here they are:
What a thrilling discovery!
By the end of our third day in the archives, we were exhausted! I photographed 15 of the 19 large old books we copied. John and Jutta helped do some too. My hand was EXHAUSTED from clicking photos and my back was aching and cramped from standing and bending over books all day. I’ll take 17,323 images home with me to transcribe. It will keep me busy for a while!
Why do I feel compelled to gather these names? That’s a good question. These are MY PEOPLE. And their names are in THESE BOOKS. I think I just want them to be remembered. And I want to know them. I hope that someday I will meet them and they will know that I cared enough to learn their names. That’s why I do what I do.
Our Frankfurt Germany Mission 