Our Family Treasure

For 102 years, various members of my family have been responsible for keeping the documents that my great grandparents Leo and Emma Schrader brought with them when they immigrated in 1906. Without these items, much of our family’s history would have been lost. Many records belonging to those areas east of the Oder-Neisse line, where my family originated, were destroyed during World War II and its aftermath. It is doubtful that we would have been able to reconstruct this information without these originals. Below is the marriage certificate of Leo and Emma in Muttrin, on April 5, 1904

The next item, which I had to have translated, was written by the minister of Budow’s church. It was needed to prove the details of Leo’s birth. It gives Leo’s parents as Wilhelm Schröder and Caroline Quetschke. (Quetschke, I am told is an uncommon German name.)

Below is the Kirchliches Zeugnis or Christian Certificate that shows, the birth, baptism, marriage and confirmation of Leo, Emma, Willi and Max.

These are pictures of an unknown German family. The woman bares a family resemblance, so my guess is that she is related to either Leo or Emma.

One of several papers relating to Leo’s military service.

The definition of an heirloom is something that has been in the family for generations. These papers are my family’s heirlooms.

This post written for the 55th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. 

Note: German family names – Schröder, Gleffe, Quetschke, Hingst Related German family names – Tuschy, Kollat, von Malottki

© 1 September 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder