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A German past life

shadowsofmypast

shadowsofmypast

Member
I've been singing in german
for about a year.
Most times it's out of stress alot times
I am unware I am doing it.

I did have glimpse of blond curly haired little girl
setting near a farm house in the country.
There was laundry hanging near back of farm house.
lots of trees near the farm house.

The little girl was about 4 or 5 holding a doll
and singing. I think a war took her life.
 
shadowsofmypast said:
The little girl was about 4 or 5 holding a doll and singing. I think a war took her life.
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Germany has been in lots of wars. Mostly with the French, but sometimes with others. Before WWI there was the Franco Prussian War of 1870. Also look up German Civil War which was between Catholics and Protestants. Before Bismark united Germany it was a bunch of little kingdoms ruled by Princes.
 
My great grandmother fled from germany during


1900's because of all wars .


It's strange she spoke fluent german


My grandmother and mother never did.


I never heard my great grandmother speak german.
 
shadowsofmypast said:
It's strange she spoke fluent german. My grandmother and mother never did. I never heard my great grandmother speak german.
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The German immigrants to America wanted their children to assimilate as fast as possible. The kids were taught only English in school. By the second generation only the grandparents still spoke fluent German. Also when WWI started there was prejudice against Germans. Many Germans changed the spelling of their name so it didn't sound German. I live in an area that has a lot of "Volga" Germans who left Russia and the Ukraine. After 1917 they started telling people they were Russian, not German.
 
While doing ancestry research, I have been amazed at how quickly German immigrants changed their names to an American version. Even before the Revolution, it took only a few years. The term "the great melting pot", which was used to describe the U.S., in the history books of my childhood, was very accurate, at least in terms of European immigrants.
 
One thing I like to do when I run across a name that sounds like it could have been German is to guess what the original name was. When I was a child we had a neighbor named Stymans. As I got older I wondered what nationality that was. Now I think it was probably something like Steinmetz, which I think is a Jewish name. German Jews especially were quick to change the name because of discrimination against Jews.
 
argonne1918 said:
The German immigrants to America wanted their children to assimilate as fast as possible. The kids were taught only English in school. By the second generation only the grandparents still spoke fluent German. Also when WWI started there was prejudice against Germans. Many Germans changed the spelling of their name so it didn't sound German. I live in an area that has a lot of "Volga" Germans who left Russia and the Ukraine. After 1917 they started telling people they were Russian, not German.
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That's strange.... when my great-grandpa came to America he said he was Russian, but on his death certificate it says he was born in Germany.
 
Red Night, perhaps someone furnished death certificate information that didn't know your grand-pa's history very well. Sometimes, we think our loved ones know everything about us, but they really don't - hence mistakes of that type. I've encountered that type of error on death certificates before.
 
Red Night said:
That's strange.... when my great-grandpa came to America he said he was Russian, but on his death certificate it says he was born in Germany.
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Do you know anything about him? Was he German? Do you know the history of the "Volga Germans"? It has to do with Catherine the Great. She was Impress of Russia but she was born in Germany. Part of European royalty. She invited Germans to emigrate to Russia so they could educate the Russians, who many considered "backward". Thousands of Germans moved to Russia. But they never assimilated and kept to themselves. They had their own villages, schools, churches, etc. After Catherine died the Russians started attacking the Germans and many left. These Germans were wheat farmers and brought their seeds and skills to the U.S. The "wheat belt" is where you find the Volga Germans today. Kansas, California (was dry farming before 1900), etc. Have you ever heard of a type of food called "bierocks" or "beerocks"? I think this is a phonetic spelling. It's popular with Volga Germans. Looks like a meatball with cabbage in it. But Germans from Germany have never heard of it. Probably a Russian food they adopted. In Kansas you can get them in fast-food places. Central Calif. also has cafes and sandwich shops where you can get them. There are several YouTube videos for making them. including

one. They are also called runzas in some areas.
 
My sisters has friends who say they are Russian and emigrated from the Ukraine just over a decade ago.
 
I am half german. I have all the records.


Some war did take the little and her family.


It was peaceful place I where lived in that life.


I seen men in military oufits .
 
BriarRose said:
Red Night, perhaps someone furnished death certificate information that didn't know your grand-pa's history very well. Sometimes, we think our loved ones know everything about us, but they really don't - hence mistakes of that type. I've encountered that type of error on death certificates before.
Click to expand...
That might be it...

argonne1918 said:
Do you know anything about him? Was he German? Do you know the history of the "Volga Germans"? It has to do with Catherine the Great. She was Impress of Russia but she was born in Germany. Part of European royalty. She invited Germans to emigrate to Russia so they could educate the Russians, who many considered "backward". Thousands of Germans moved to Russia. But they never assimilated and kept to themselves. They had their own villages, schools, churches, etc. After Catherine died the Russians started attacking the Germans and many left. These Germans were wheat farmers and brought their seeds and skills to the U.S. The "wheat belt" is where you find the Volga Germans today. Kansas, California (was dry farming before 1900), etc. Have you ever heard of a type of food called "bierocks" or "beerocks"? I think this is a phonetic spelling. It's popular with Volga Germans. Looks like a meatball with cabbage in it. But Germans from Germany have never heard of it. Probably a Russian food they adopted. In Kansas you can get them in fast-food places. Central Calif. also has cafes and sandwich shops where you can get them. There are several YouTube videos for making them. including
Click to expand...
I know very, very little about him. Unfortunately. I'm gonna do a little digging on Ancestry.com and see what I can find.
 
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