How I went about the
research...
Prologue
I have always been interested in my family
background and history since the age of around 10 years. I vividly recall
the first time I was told that my Grandfather was half German. As a young
boy the story became a source of amazement and great interest, especially
as it was never really spoken about. It was probably for this reason the
'mystery' became so important to me. My Grandfather had died when I was
about 8 years old and I had loved him dearly and missed him very much.
I had no idea of his secret and could hardly believe it. It was very difficult
to find out more as it was never discussed, and when it was there were
more questions than answers. I just took it for granted and though of it
often as a child, imaging what it would be like to one discover relatives
living in Germany. I didn't really understand the significance's of my
Grandfathers family being of Jewish descent. Our family was not at
all religious. It wasn't until I was in my teens that I really thought
about the consequences of my family being persecuted in the Holocaust.
I found this idea very upsetting, especially when I heard a story of my
Great-Great-Aunt dying in a concentration camp.
Because of my interest in the Internet
I had often thought of trying to trace my family, but until November of
this year (1997) I didn't get round to doing it ! It had been in the back
of my mind for ages ! One day whilst sitting at my PC I suddenly though
about starting the research and plunged into what became an all consuming
task !
The Search begins...
IFirst
of all I found all of the information I could from my family relating to
the Haarburger's. It wasn't a lot !! Hardly anything could be rememberd,
not even the correct spelling was sure ! Then I discoverd three A5 pages
of notes that my mother had written. They were dictated to her by my Grandfather's
wife, Faith Graham. Although she was only married into the Haarburger family
she knew the most of the history. She had name of ancestors, areas they
had come from and the corect spelling. almost 95 percent of what was written
proved to be correct. If she hadn't told these things to my mother my search
would probably have ended there and then !
I have had a
lot of experience in using the Internet. Bearing this in mind my first
point of 'net use in my research waas the Usenet Newsgroups. I have found
on many occasions that Newsgroups are an excellent source of information.
I searched the 21,000 or so groups and found topic areas relating either
to genealogy or general German language groups. I posted out a message
titled "HELP: trying to trace my family
with name 'Haarburger' from Hamburg."
and with the content as follows :
I cannot speak
German. I am trying to trace members of my family who left Germany for
the UK in 1906-7. The family name was 'Haarbuger'.The forenames of the
family left behind were Franz (believed to have been a solicitor), Hans
and Gertude. They lived in an area know as 'Hamburg 13' (I think this is
a postal area). Do you know where trhis area is ? I was told postal
districts in Hamburg were changed 30 years ago. Any help or ideas would
be great !
E-mail replies please
Mark (mg@uk-expo.com)
I couldn't believe the responce
that I received ! Tens of E-mails with suggestions, ideas, web resource
links, offers to translate and so on ! It immediatly got me excited and
hopefull. I soon learned that the Haarburger name was particularly unusual,
a fact that we had not know. This would make my search much easier.
From this pointn I began to rearch
various Web search engines for any references to the name Haarburger. I
also searched the Web E-mail directories and German Telephone directories
on-line. My discoveries made me even more hopeful ! Only a hand full of
results from the search engines and directories. If one of these was to
point to my family it would take me long to make contact !
Web Search results ...
TO BE CONTINUED....
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