Yesterday I received the documents pertaining to my family for the HOPFENGARTNER's in the mail.  The manilia envelope contained 6 pages of information all written in German.

First hurdle to get past was to figure out what the main words were so I could get somewhere.  Over to my trusty translating site (Google Translate) to start the initial decoding.

Some of the words were easy to figure out without translating or at least get the gist of what it meant.

Familienname: Surname
Vorname: First Name
Geboren: Birth Date
als Sohn des:  Son of
un der: Mother
gestorben: death
beruf: profession


Now armed with the basic I set out to figure out the 6 pages of names which equaled about 36 names ranging from 1700-1830.  Each listing had the name of interest, his parents, wife's name, marriage data/place, and wife's parents name.   Overall it was a treasure trove of information of the Hopfengartners in the 1700-1900.

Additionally I emailed them to a cousin who lives in Germany to verify the information, and translate anything that was hard to read or translate (the documents were hand written) so it was not the easiest things to figure out.  With someone from Germany that would have been able to better decipher  and figure out meaning of names and places.

I was able to get birth dates/places, death dates/places, marriage dates/places, and occupations.  The brick wall has now been pushed back at least 3 generations on all sides of the Hopfengartner's.   I am lucky to have found such a good source of information on the family