27 May 2015

Bertus Grass Prepares to Emigrate from Ostfriesland

This document from 1876 appears in the microfilmed copies of the Auswanderungskonses (1842-1919) that the Family History Library has on microfilm.  This set of microfilmed materials only applies to those individuals who were leaving the Ostfriesland area of Germany. It does not cover the entire northern region of Hannover nor does it include every Ostfriesian immigrant who left for America.

Bertus Grass was born in July of 1851 in Backemoor and was living in Wiesens when he prepared to immigrate.

Not all Ostfriesian immigrants are covered in this record set.

While my study was anecdotal (and not really even a study), I found three relatives (ancestors, siblings of ancestors, and first cousins of ancestors) in this series. That's not very many considering that one-half of my family hails from Ostfriesland and many extended members of my family immigrated in the last half of the 19th century.

The items in this series tend to be more heavily weighted to the last half of the time period covered. The series is alphabetical based upon first letter of the last name. They are not in chronological order within a series as I discovered the hard way.

In a future post, we'll see how Bertus' immigration date compares with the date of this document. If you've got immigrant ancestors from Germany see if there are similar emigration preparation documents available. These are not village or kries level records (usually), although some books of extractions for some specific villages have been published.

How much time elapsed before he arrived in the United states.