Finding Adam Trautvetter and Kalten-Sundheim-Using German Maps

Even locating people with unusual last names is occasionally problematic. It took me a little digging to determine that this John Adam Trautvetter was actually my Adam Trautvetter--and this post really only looks at how the name of the village was determined. We're writing up a complete analysis of this entry for an upcoming issue of the newsletter.

This is part of the manifest entry containing the entry for Joh. Adam Trautvetter who arrived on 9 July 1850 on the Marianne (obtained digitally on 20 March at Ancestry.com, citing National Archives M255, roll 8).

I was not certain the exact name of the village, but I was certain that I was not going to rely on Ancestry.com's transcription of the village as shown below. I was not certain how "correct" the interpretation of the last residence of "Kaltehsuordheim" was.

A contemporary map was needed. I am hesitant to rely initially on modern maps when using nineteenth century materials.

A favorite reference of mine is this 1883 atlas which has been digitized by the University of Wisconsin:

Author:	Ravenstein, Ludwig.
Title:	Atlas des Deutschen Reichs / bearb. von Ludwig Ravenstein.
Publisher:	Leipzig : Bibliographisches Institut, 1883.
Description:	Book xxxv p., [14] p. of maps : col. maps ; 42 cm.
Internet Links:	http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/ravenstein/

The index pages to the atlas are downloadable via a link on the site (pages 10-14 shown for illustration):

10	800K	Hagenthal, Nieder- - Hnitetz, Klein-
11	928K	Hoblik, Berg - Jännersdorf
12	765K	Jannowitz in Schles. - Kinzig, Fluß (Baden)
13	827K	Kinzig, Fluß (Hessen-Nassau) - Kralovan
14	755K	Kralowitz - Laufen in Bayern

Page 12 is the page I needed as it contained the range of letters needed--I was fairly certain the word started with "Kal." Looking at the index, I decided that the reference most likely was to Kalten-Sundheim as shown below.

The village of interest was in region IV, part M7.

Kalten-Sundheim was easily located:

I need to obtain the scale of the map so that am actually certain how close (or far apart) various villages on this map actually are.

It is believed that John. Adam Trautvetter as shown on this manifest is a brother to John George Trautvetter who settled in Hancock County, Illinois, in 1853. Strengthening the connection is the fact that Helmershausen --shown to the south of the village of interest--is where John George's wife Sophia was born in 1808.

But we'll save that for another blog post.

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Citation reminder: We are a strong believe in citing genealogical source material in the spirit of Evidence Explained. However, we choose not to include properly formatted citations in these blog posts. There's always enough information in the post to create a citation and full citations are included in my how-to newsletter Casefile Clues.