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Der Kurier

Image of Der Kurier front page
 
Our newsletter - Der Kurier - is published quarterly in March, June, September, and December. It is indexed in the Periodical Source Index by the Allen County Public Library, Ft. Wayne, Indiana .This publication was honored by the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors (ISFHWE) as one of the winners in the society’s 2014 Excellence-in-Writing Competition. Der Kurier was awarded 2nd place in Category 3 – Genealogy Newsletters.
 
Members can access a digital version of the current issue and issues from the past five years on the Members page of the website. Older issues beginning in 1982 are available for everyone on the Public Documents tab.
 
Synopsis of articles in current issue
  • U.S. German Church Records – A Key to Immigrant Migration, Bob Greiner
Bob Greiner shares his experience investigating, following, and transcribing German church records, as well as some of the stories of the people he found. When establishing a connection between an immigrant and their home village (Heimat), you can see from the examples he uses how church records in both locations can be used to build a community of immigrants. The results not only enhance your understanding of your ancestors and their friends but can also provide a starting point for other researchers to discover their roots. He encourages anybody to explore the early German church records of their ancestor’s community more deeply in the United States.
  • Eight More Years of Names: The Overseas Pension Database Now Extends to 1914, Gunter Schanzenbacher and Kenneth W. Heger, Ph.D.
In 2015, MAGS uploaded a new dataset that indexed hundreds of letters from the Commissioner of Pensions to the Secretary of the Interior covering the years 1881-1907.  Those letters consisted of lists of men living abroad who had applied for pensions or for an increase in an existing pension, and the dataset facilitated access to information on thousands of American veterans throughout the world, providing family members with facts essential to writing a biography of their ancestors and the history of their family. This article revisits the database, talks about the records, and describes new records the expanded database includes.
  • A German Lesson: Reading Old Script and New Sources to Research, Gunter Schanzenbacher
Gunter Schanzenbacher provides us with a sample article and translation, as well as helpful links for searching for older newspapers from the 1800s and 1900s. Reading old German script is a must when looking for Ancestors in the old country.  Old newspapers, German-English dictionaries, old books and even printed articles are all in some form of the old script.  So, if one can read it, one can easily copy it and have Google or other programs assist in translating it.
  • Chocolate Collector Cards: Berühmte Brücken or Famous Bridges, Translation by Debra A. Hoffman
Debra Hoffman shares images and a translation of a collectable card below was printed by a German chocolate company Hartwig & Vogel as part of a series titled Hartwig & Vogel’s Tell  Cacao und Chocolade.
 
Synopsis of articles in recent issues
For a list of article titles and authors in recent issues of Der Kurier, see this page
 
Submissions to Der Kurier
Articles concerning Germanic genealogy and heritage in the Mid-Atlantic region are welcome, as are "Letters to the Editor." Research articles should document conclusions with appropriate citation of primary sources.
 
MAGS reserves the right to edit submissions for length and style. Any material published becomes the property of MAGS. Please observe the following deadlines for submission to the newsletter.
 
Issue Deadline
March 1 January
June 1 April
September 1 July
December 1 October
 
Send articles to:
Morgan Adle
11813 Wandering Oak Way
Beltsville, MD 20705
or

To order back issues of Der Kurier visit the MAGS Store page on our website.