POSEN-L Archives

From: =James Birkholz= <>
Subject: [POSEN] 1793 land records project needs more $$$$
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 00:00:03 -0500

Four months ago, I supported Reuben Drefs in soliciting funds for a project
that
he is spearheading. Photocopying has begun and is in process now. Those who
have
not yet contributed to the effort, please send in a few extra dollars. In the
first go-around, the average contribution per subscriber was about $2,
which is
not a bad showing, but since we are a small group the total is only about
3% of
the need. Non-Posen-L subscribers have probably also contributed, but these
records are from the area that Posen-L deals with. There were a couple of $100
contributors and about a dozen who sent in between $5 and $15. The project,
however, was expected to cost about $7000 and some extra material being copied
is going to add another $3000. So the need is great for additional support.
The
average copying cost per town is about $3, so even small contributions will
add
several communities to the pool of data.

This project will especially benefit those of us who only know that their
ancestors came from "somewhere in the province of Posen". When it is finished,
volunteers will have extracted the names for each town into a database, and it
will be possible to search much of the Posen / Poznan province by surname. It
won't be complete, but it will certainly help hundreds of researchers with a
collection of data rarely found.

Note that Reuben was a principle party in the 1772 West Prussian land records
extraction project, which are searchable online at...

http://pixel.cs.vt.edu/library/land/wprussia/

Remember that the Netze District portion of the 1772 West Prussian land
records
is not online, but Reuben will do lookups on request. (Please send him a
little
money though, to help with the finances involved)

James Birkholz, list manager, Posen-L

Rootsweb supporter


Below is the info from the original posting...
=================================================
I want to invite you to contribute to a fund for obtaining an important
research document. Specifically, it is the 1793 land registry of South
Prussia. I have known about this document for about a year now and have
worked with a researcher in Poland in its discovery. I have learned that
it is possible to make paper copies of these 200 year old documents.

Land records, as you may know, provides only the name of the owner, usually
the
father. Other family members are listed statisically. However, this
allows the
surnames to be used as a kind of census because it gives all the names of the
fathers in the towns in which the registry was conducted. In this case it was
the area known as South Prussia as it existed after the second partition of
Poland in 1793. After annexing this central part of Poland, the Prussians
then
conducted a tax registration which took place 1793/4. More information on the
area of South Prussia is described in the following paragraph.

South Prussia is the territory created by the second partition of Poland
and covered the area south of the Netze District on the north, continuing
to the east on the southern side of the Vistula river to the 20th degree.
On the southwestern border it proceeded from the Brandenburg border to the
Silesian border and continued east to the Pilica river until it meets the
Vistula river south of Warsaw at about the 20th degree.

The South Prussian land registry of 1793 will cost us $6,000.00-$8,000.00 .
It has over 3,000 towns and each town will average 4-6 pages. So if you
want to see a document from a later time than the 1772 land registry than
this is an opportunity that comes once in a research life time. It has
possibilities for many of us who cannot locate our ancestors in the Netze
and South Prussian area. We know many of our families moved from West
Prussia into Poland by 1790.

It should be noted that the 1793 land registry is a restricted file in
Warsaw and you and I would be not be able to view it. Neither should
anyone contact the archive because it might disrupt the rapport our
researcher has established. Our researcher has developed connections in the
archive, is a Polish citizen, and has Ph. D. in History which assists him
professionally in gaining research access to the ancient archive in Warsaw.

To contribute to this project please send check or money order to me at my
home address. Any questions you may have can be e-mailed to me at:


Reuben Drefs
2053 Woonsocket
Toledo, OH 43615
Tele.:419 539-9378

Reuben Drefs

Researching:Drews(Drefs),Wenzlaff,Jungling,Hiller,
Semmler,Dux,Isaak,Tschritter,Schulz,Kuhn,Rauter
=================================================

This thread:

• [POSEN] 1793 land records project needs more $$$$ by =James Birkholz= <>