Thursday, September 2, 2010

Germans in Schenectady

I enjoyed reading Bill Buell’s feature story in today's Daily Gazette, “German-American Club celebrates rich heritage.” (Sept. 2, 2010)

I’ve heard it said that German ethnicity is one of the most common in the United States, but that it is also one of the most hidden, for various reasons.

Buell mentioned the ethnic German societies in Albany and Schenectady. Newspapers were published by a number of ethnic communities, including the German-American societies. News items told a good deal about the community’s people and included information linking the local German community with families and friends left behind in Germany.

For a genealogy client research project not long ago, Robert Sullivan, reference librarian at the Schenectady County Public Library, led me to a rich source of information, an Index to the Local Obituaries and Deaths Reported in Schenectady in Das Deutsche Journal 1900-1909, R90 Rei, by Thomas Reimer, Albany, N.Y., 1993.

The index is in the holdings of the Schenectady County Public Library, and the newspapers themselves are in the holdings of the State University of New York at Albany. The time frame I targeted could be studied in the weekly newspapers, Das Deutsche Journal 1900-1909 and the Schenectady Herold 1911-1917. In 1917 the two weeklies merged to become the Schenectady Herold-Journal, 1917-1974.

In Schenectady, in 2004 the Schenectady German Turnverein opened its time capsule in a ceremony at the Efner Center/City Archives, located on the top floor of the Schenectady City Hall. One document was the membership roster from August 1, 1903, listing a well known name, Steinmetz, and many names still found in the local telephone directory,

Those who are curious about German ancestry in the capital district just might learn more about their families in sources like these.

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