How to Determine Which Town of Origin is the Right One?

From German Girls Genealogy (Teresa Steinkamp McMillin & Debra A. Hoffman):

 

As we noted in the last post, conducting research in Germany requires knowing the German town of origin. Unfortunately, sometimes when you find the name of the town, there are more than one town with the same name! How do we narrow the choices down to the correct one?

 

Researchers are lucky with this 1880 U.S. census enumeration for Baltimore City where the enumerator provided specific town names in Germany. For Catherine Benamon, aged 79, her birth place is listed as Wallein. Her father’s birthplace is given as Fishpach and her mother’s birthplace is given as Wallan. Wallein and Wallan may be the same place. All three spellings have the potential to be wrong. 

 

 

A search for “Wallein” and “Wallan” in Meyers Gazetteer, https://www.meyersgaz.org, returned no towns with either spelling. “Fishpach” also returned negative findings. The correct spelling of “Fishpach” is probably “Fischbach” in German. Meyers Gazetteer returned 41 hits for that spelling. That is a lot of choices to go through. A passenger list for Catherine and her first husband, Kaspar Weber, had provided another spelling … “Wahlen.” Searching with that spelling located five choices; two in Hessen and three in Rheinland.

 

A reasonable hypothesis would be that the two towns are located in close proximity to each other. By viewing the historical map on Meyers Gaz, the first entry, Wahlen, Kr. Alsfeld, OHessen, Hessen, as you can see below, Wahlen and Fischbach are located near each other.

 

Looking at the other entries, did not result in the same findings. This makes this Wahlen a priority for checking church records. 

 

Sources:

1.     1880 U.S. census, City of Baltimore, Maryland, population schedule, p. 6 (penned), enumeration district (ED) 160, dwelling 44, family 50, Catherine Benamon; digital images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 October 2021).

2.     “Baltimore, Passenger Lists, 1820–1964,” database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 14 August 2015), passenger list, Jupiter, 16 August 1834, penned page 1, line 34, Caspar Weber; citing NARA micropublication M255, roll 1.