Re: Habels from Penna.
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In reply to:
Re: Habels from Penna.
Lara Harvill 5/08/07
We came as Habel and it appears both ways.I recently had the good fortune to meet a genealogist at the National Archives who specialized in German immigrants.
She recommended checking both Baltimore and Philadelphia, I had overlooked Baltimore.She also told me to try wild card searches as the name was a prime candidate for misspellings.
She took me one step further by telling me to look at a map of Germany and see which port of exit was closest, not necessarily in Germany.This had not occured to me.So I looked at Amsterdam, which was the geographic closest port to my folks place of origin, and then I searched Ancestry by ports of exit and found them.They came with 2 other families headed to Wilkes Barre.What I don't know is when their parents came.Since the oldest Amelia, my ggma was only 15 there had to parents some place in Wilkes Barre.I am waiting for copies of the city directories for the non census years.Amelia's death certificate appears to have errors on it so I am waiting for a copy of one of her sister's social security application which will have the names of her parents on there.
I have also joined Genealogybank.com which has a number of older newspapers online and can be searched by name and location.It is fairly reasonably priced and can be had for a monthly fee or annual depending on your need.I found some leads on that such as a marriage that had my ggma as bridesmaid to one of her sisters.I was able to contact the church and get a bit more information, but not parents.
Perhaps some of this will help you.