Chapter 3: Reconnecting & Finding Hidden Treasures

I'm back in Vancouver after a great visit with family and friends in Winnipeg & Belair.  It was really nice to re-connect and catch up with everyone.  Vancouver may be where my life is now, but I think Winnipeg will always be home.

Toasting Dad with Tara, Aunty Ellie, and Aunty Hedy at the 8th tee - 2014 Al Niemar Memorial Golf Tournament, Grand Pines Golf Course

On the fairway at Grand Pines with Tara & Derek

With Mum & Tara at The Forks in Winnipeg

Sharing some laughs with Tara and my beautiful niece, Holly, in Winnipeg

While we were out at the cabin in Belair, Tara and I had a chance to sort through some papers in an old chest of drawers of Dad's that we hadn't really looked at yet.  We like to do this together, and since I'm typically only in Winnipeg once a year, it's taken some time to sort through it all...Dad liked his stuff.

One thing that really struck me as we were looking through everything was how many photos and keepsakes (cards, invitations etc.) that Dad had kept.  I think it's a real testament to how important his friends and family were to him.  Looking through all of those old photos was also good for a laugh...there was a lot of big hair in the 80's!

There were also some real treasures tucked away in those drawers...

• I found a photo of my Oma's father, Karl.  I still don't have information on the birth dates & places of either of her parents, and I think this will be the next piece of the puzzle that I try to figure out.
  
• A copy of the Neimor family tree that was put together for the 1992 family reunion.  I'm sure I had my own copy of this at some point, but I'm guessing that my 14 year-old self didn't really see the value in hanging on to it.
• Several documents relating to Opa Charlie's service in WWII, including:
• His St. John's Ambulance Certificate from the Canadian Army along with his Identity Certificate from the Field Ambulance unit of the RCAMC.
• His Canadian Army Soldier's Service Book.  The service book was a part of his Army identification, and had to be carried with him at all times.  There is some interesting information in here that's given me a bit of insight into his time in the war.  There's a very long list of all the "protective inoculations" he received (mainly for typhus & diphtheria); so many, in fact, that an extra page had to be stapled into the book.  There's also a section in the book for information about bank accounts and personal effects.  There are many abbreviations in this section that I don't understand, but I can make out some of the service medals Opa Charlie earned during the war, including a badge for good conduct, 5 red service chevrons, his Italy Star, France Star, and Germany Star.  
• Receipts - one from the Dept. of Veterans Affairs in 1948 in the amount of $728.69 for "household equipment" purchased the house at 772 Talbot Ave. in Winnipeg (that works out to about $7,600.00 in 2014).  The second is from the Dept. of National Defence, and is a "Statement of War Service Gratuity" which was paid out to Opa upon discharge (his discharge date was Nov. 13, 1946...my birthday is Nov. 13...kinda cool!).  According to the statement, Opa served 1772 days in the army, of which 1579 were overseas.  For all of this, he received $485.20 (about $5,800.00 today...according to the Canadian Inflation Calculator).
  

Thanks again for reading, my plan of attack, for now, is to try and find out more about Oma's parents.
Christine

Chapter 2: Arrrghhhh! (aka excitement, frustration & patience)

Thanks to everyone who read my last post!  I know it was a lot to read...I really did try to keep this post shorter...promise!

Also, a shout out to Aunty Ellie for connecting me with her (and dad's cousin), Sharon Shultz, on Facebook.  Sharon's done a lot of work already on exploring her own family tree, and very kindly sent me a couple of documents related to my own search (more on that later).  There's a Neimor family group on FB with some pretty interesting reading. Through the hard work & research of others, I've managed to trace my 5x great-grandfather from my dad's side all the back to Jacob (or Jakob) Neumaier, born in 1721 in Seewiesen, Bohmerwald (Bohemian Forest).  In trying to figure where exactly Seewiesen is, I stumbled across a couple of other blogs & web sites written by people in Germany who had traced their own family's move from Bohemia to Bukovina, where, coincidently (???) my great-great-grandfather, Christian Neumohr, was born in 1851.  I have no idea if I am distantly related to those people or not, but it seems like there were many families that made that move.  I need to learn to read German ASAP!

As I mentioned above, Sharon was kind enough to send me the following three documents (which she got through Ancestry.com):

1. Manifest of "Alien Passengers for the United States" on board the SS Marine Marlin, sailing from Southampton on 28 Feb., 1948, destined for NY.

2. The British version of the ship manifest.  This has similar information, but also lists an address in the UK.

Here's what I find interesting...on the American version of the ship's manifest, Oma's nationality/country of citizenship is listed as Great Britain.  On the British manifest, there's nothing listed about citizenship, though it does indicate that the country of last permanent residence for my Opa, Oma, and Uncle Len (who was actually born in Oldenberg, NOT England as I had previously posted), is Canada.  I don't know if I'm reading more into this than I ought to, and this is just how it was in order to make passage to Canada easier, or if Oma actually had to become a British citizen in order to get into Canada.  

3. A copy of the index page for marriages registered un England and Wales in Jan-March of 1948.  The only info I can really get from this is that Oma and Opa were married in Paddington district.  The volume and page numbers listed are required to get an actual copy of the marriage certificate itself.  This may be useful info to have down the line if Aunty Ellie or Aunty Hedy don't have a copy of the marriage certificate itself.

And now for the frustration and patience...

After reading the documents that Sharon sent to me, I was super excited to see what I could find on my own.  Specifically, I was hoping to find some record of my Oma's birth, maybe in immigration document with some info about where my grand-parents entered Canada after landing in NY, and possibly something from the war records about my Opa's involvement in WWII.  After about 4 hours of searching, and $35.00 worth of "free trials" on Ancestry.com, I have yet to find anything new...no birth certificates, no obituaries, no military records...it's like Opa and Oma barely existed!  It was NOTHING at all like on "Who Do You Think You Are"?...after today I'm on the verge of thinking that that whole show is just a glorified pro-mo for the website.  

One interesting thing I learned is that there was another Hedwig Wachowiak married in the UK.  This Hedwig, was married in 1949, after Oma was already in Canada, and her married was Wachowiak, so no family scandal there!

Anyway...I know Uncle Jack has used Ancestry for his Fraser research, I'll have to pick his brain about search tips.  The Ancestry site also suggested contacting geneology societies, so I guess I can try that in the mean time.  Also looking forward to chatting more with Aunty Ellie and Aunty Hedy in Winnipeg next week.  

Thanks for reading. Wish me luck on my search.