Lincoln, Nebraska

I have finally gotten the motivation to reach out to others who share my fascination with this subject and headed down a parallel path of discovery. The obvious starting point is Lincoln, Nebraska, headquarters of AHSGR and home to their museum and library. It is December in America's Midwest and the weather can deteriorate quickly. A storm is coming in, which prompts me to make the 500 mile journey from Denver to Lincoln on a Monday in order to get to Lincoln before the storm hits. I call the museum first to find out their protocol in case of severe storms. The lady on the phone tells me that they do sometimes close the museum, often in parallel with school closures. I take my chances nonetheless.

I detour off of Interstate 80 south to Hastings, then east along State Highway 6, to the town of Sutton, Nebraska (population 1,700). It is late afternoon when I arrive and already beginning to get dark. I find the cemetery on the northern outskirts and check the board which is conveniently placed behind glass panes under a small canopy. The inhabitants of the cemetery list multiple names of Ochsners, a few Kleins and a few Ulmers, all of which bear some relationship. The name I am looking for, that Jacob Ridinger, is not listed.

I proceed back into town and stop off at the local library. By chance I see a book chronicling the 125 year history of the town. The librarian, despite a frenzy of small children participating in a holiday coloring contest of some sort, finds a few minutes to spend with me and shows me a few collections of books which pertain to my subject of interest. I ask her about other cemeteries in the area, especially in Grafton, Fillmore county. She says there are other old cemeteries around.

I proceed to purchase the 125 year history of Sutton, which has plenty of old photographs of my relatives, and head back on highway 6 towards Lincoln. I soon pass through the town of Grafton, population around 400, in Filmore county. The images I have now are of the landscape, not much different from the rolling fields of Tatarstan in Russia and, from the aerial pictures of Rohrbach and Worms, not such a distant place anymore. I picture what this area may have looked like when Jacob first came here, an untamed and uncultivated region very much like his previous home in Ukraine. Such a shame, though, that he would have to leave his established home in Ukraine to begin again in this new land.

The next days in Lincoln are not productive, but I take this in stride as one of the frustrating times that us researchers must often endure. The storm arrives as predicted and I am snowbound in my room at the Days Inn, with the museum, and practically everything else in Lincoln, shut down. I do manage to call Jim Griess, the AHSGR coordinator for the village of Rohrbach. We have a lengthy conversation of how we are related, how I pronounce my last name, have I been to Rohrbach, and about the regions in France and southwest Germany where our ancestors originated. He says Jacob is buried in a smaller cemetery a few miles north of the one I was in, and he has a photo of the headstone. He has a 4-wheel drive truck and lives about 10 miles outside of Lincoln. We will try to meet at the museum tomorrow.

I am well rested and up at 6:00 am. The snow has stopped and skies are clear, but the wind is now busy re-arranging the previous day's snowfall into even deeper drifts, and the wind chill is well below zero. I take my shower and go downstairs for a breakfast of cereal and bagels. I come back to my room and write to this blog. At 9:00 am I venture out. After a bit of digging, I extricate myself out of the Days Inn parking lot and onto the main street. I see that D street has been plowed so I turn left past the AHSGR museum and see it's still covered with a foot of snow. I turn back onto 9th street and head for the University of Nebraska. Its closed. So is the book store, and the next bookstore, and the next. I'm freezing and looking for a Starbucks to warm up. The fellow ahead of me is carrying a cup of coffee, so I ask him where that coffee shop is, and Starbucks. I hit the first one and spend some time there, then over to Starbucks. Jim calls at 12:00 and says lets meet at Mill Coffee at 1:00. I have an hour to kill so I swing back by one of the bookstores to see if they are open now. To my luck, it is, and the proprietor has a good selection. Three used books and $20 later I'm on my way to Mills.

Jim shows up shortly after 1:00. We talk about family history. He knows all about the Lodi connection. Like me, he's more interested in the history than the genealogy. I get some ideas about where to go next. South Dakota has a good archive. Sutton, due to the railroad, was the starting point in the U.S. Fanned out from there to Texas, California, South Dakota - Sutton was running out of free land. There are city histories in Odessa and Kherson (Ukraine). My next stop is Ukraine! Follow it with Germany, France. I'm ready!

Acknowledgements

My father, who took everything this world could throw at him and still came out smiling. To the memories of his brothers. One made it through the Soviet worker camps to see his children again in their ancestral homeland. The other, unfortunately, executed in a Soviet prison. My father's children live on in the comfort of the United States. His brother's children, my cousins, returned to their ancestral homeland in Germany after the breakup of the Soviet Union. All are doing quite well. I've heard there may still be a few relatives somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Maybe fate will lend a hand and this blog would somehow find its way around the world and summon them.

Familyologist, you'll never know how truly grateful I am for the inspiration you gave me so I may at last share this with the rest of the world. See "Followers" for more information.

Germans in France, late 18th Century

The American Revolution provided inspiration for the French Revolution. Let's back up just a bit and examine this connection. The American Revolution was successful THANKS to the French; they helped the colonists defeat the British. The French didn't do it out of love for the Americans, but because they couldn't afford for the British to have the prize of the American continent for themselves. As a result of this venture in aid of the Americans, France's economy was bankrupt. Now the French Revolution starts, much of the ideology based on America's constitution and Bill of Rights. Ben Franklin himself was ambassador to France, and was consulted often as to how the new democracy of France should be structured. Unfortunately the French path to democracy was more circuitous than the American version. The French people were not necessarily French and did not live in a new continent by their own choice. The people on the west side of the Rhine River were in French territory but spoke German. Germany as a country did not exist until much later. During this time there were only a number of individual kingdoms and principalities that happened to share varying versions of the Germanic language.

Why did Germans want to leave Alsace?:

July 25-30, 1789 Peasant revolt in Alsace
Reign of Terror: 1793-1794.
October 17, 1793 - Austrian army is driven out.
Dec. 16, 1797 - Austria recognizes French sovereinty.
1809 - Napolean drafts Germans to fight against the Austrians.
1812 - Napolean drafts Germans to fight against the Russians.

Why did Germans want to enter Ukraine?

Free land
Money allowance for Re-settlement
No forced military conscription
Freedom of speech, religion

Napoleon and the Danube Campaign

Several battles of Napoleon's Danube campaign were fought in 1809, which was significant in my history, since the earlier route of the German settlers to Ukraine was on the river Danube from Ulm. It is likely that the mass mobilization of troops in the area of Regensburg, northeast of Ulm, prevented my ancestors from taking the river course, but rather forced them to take a land route across central Germany to Poland, then south to the Ukraine. The land route was longer, but may have been safer, given that the earlier river people were robbed by Turkish pirates along the river, then succumbed to river-born diseases along the lower stretches of the river.

Revolutions - (the circular pattern emerges and the light shines)

If it weren't for three major revolutions I wouldn't be sitting here writing this. I would exist in a different mind, a different continent perhaps, wouldn't be named what I am, would have no knowledge of these events. My parents would not have met. My children would be someone else's. There would be another human being taking my place on this planet.

The American Revolution begat the French Revolution. Germans in France move to Ukraine. Life is good, the new American West right there in Ukraine. World War I comes along, Germany sends Lenin back to the Soviet Union on a sealed train to make trouble for the czar. Germany and Russia sign a treaty. Lenin and the Bolsheviks overthrow the czar - third revolution. Lenin/Stalin collectivize the farms in Ukraine, life in Ukraine takes a turn. WWII happens along because WWI never really settled things. This is now the big one. Some Ukrainian Germans make it back to the west. The others are scattered over Siberia and Central Asia. Western Germany is in ruins after the big one. Although they speak the language, Germany is not their homeland.

Development of Southern Ukraine

Borderland. That fitting phrase. Ukraine was in the center of intersecting cultures. The Vikings settled from the north, to conquer. The Venetians and Greeks from the South, to trade. The Mongols from the East, to conquer. The Europeans from the West, to farm.

The Ottoman Empire provided some political stability, but it was Russia that truly wanted the prize as a gateway to the Black Sea. Peter the Great made inroads but could not hold the territories. Finally Catherine the Great, after several successful wars against the Ottomans, formed the newly aquired lands into a Russian state called Novorussiia (New Russia). The Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji, signed in 1774, gave Russia the coastal lands between the Bug and Dnieper rivers. Soon after, the cities of Kherson, Mariiupil and Mykolaiv were established. Conditions were set for Russia to establish new trade routes out of her southern border. The only thing still missing was an efficient port with favorable land routes and a deep harbor. That was accomplished in 1794 with the founding of Odessa. A Dutch engineer (Franz de Voland) recommended the site and Catherine II provided her approval on May 27, 1794. Work on the harbor and the city began immediately and the city began to grow.

The steppe regions north of the Black Sea coast are the areas of most interest to me. Unsettled, rich and fertile, now with access to a deep harbor for export of agricultural products, Russia's rulers had the foresight to know that the lands needed to be settled quickly or someday be lost again.

The other side of the family - another digression

I am still keeping in mind that there are two sides of the family. My mother's maiden name is Riss. Her mother's maiden name was Gaul - as in the Gaul region of France. Yes, there is French heritage on that side as well, which I intend to pursue in due time, even though my immediate interest is in the Ukraine/Russian migration of the Ridingers.

What has intrigued on the Riss side is the deep Bavarian tradition and the possible tendency towards Nazi sympathy during those war years. I have heard my mother's stories about the resentment and sense of betrayal after World War I, both towards the French people in exacting unfair retribution from the Germans and towards the German government in caving in to world pressure - sentiments shared by the German masses and my theory for saying to you that the unsatisfactory arrangements which followed WWI led to the rise of the Nazi movement and the atrocities committed during WWII.

So when I see pictures of my great uncle Albert in his German uniform or my uncle Otto in his side-car military motorcycle, I wonder about their sentiments towards the German military cause. There was some prejudice among my older relatives, subsided now with the younger generations, but no doubt some lingering innuendos from even my generational peers that the German way, and perhaps the Bavarian traditions, work better than the ways of other cultures. Can repression in the Nazi tradition ever return? Absolutely, and not necessarily in Germany! The United States is still teeming with neo-Nazi or other "purist" movements, who believe that the human race is in need of some improvement, and the methodology to that end can be only a cleansing, and not a re-habilitation, process. Holocausts still happen. Look at Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda. It is an ever-present danger!

Breakthrough in Karlsruhe

My cousin, who lives near Karlsruhe, turned me on to geneological research done by Dr. Karl Stumpp. Together we scanned the names of Germans who migrated from there to Ukraine or Russia. One of the names is a Georg Reidinger born in the Alcase region, presumably in Rohrbach, who moved to Rohrbach, Odessa oblast. Other Reidingers also came from Alsace, moving to places such as Landau, Munchen, Liebenthal. The settlers named the new villages after German villages they knew. I now have a place to start.

Lodi, California

I happen to be living in the Bay Area right now when I come across some old correspondence from a distant cousin in Texas. He referred to the daughter of some Ridinger who moved from Nebraska to Lodi, California. With help from the Familyologist, I checked the California death records and found Emma Ochsner, born 10 April, 1905, died 8 Nov 2000. She is the daughter of Jacob Ridinger, who immigrated in 1910 (Ellis Island). Could it be Jacob was Johann the mayor's brother, my dad's uncle? I am finding many references to Germans who settled in the Lodi/Stockton area through the AHSGR. Seems a number of the Rohrbach and Worms families ended up there.

Rohrbach and Worms Now

In circa 1929 the names of these villages were changed to Russian names. Rohrbach became Novosvetlivka. Worms became Vynogradne. When looking from Google Earth, the latter is located close to the highway, the road to Novosvetlovka is little more than a dirt path. The place is still very rural, but one can somewhat see the same land divisions that showed in the earlier aerial photos I saw which were taken during World War II.

Rohrbach - The Early Years

The first German families began to arrive in the fall of 1809 following land grants under the reign of Czar Alexander I. They built houses and planted vineyards and orchards. Apple, pear, plum, cherry and apricot trees. Wells were dug which provided plentiful water. The villagers were generally poor and indebted, but money allowances were provided by the local administration. Aside from occassional outbreaks of German measles and similar children's diseases, the village was generally spared of catostrophic events such as floods, epidemics and earthquakes. Illiteracy, graft and alcoholism was reported since schools, churches and law enforcement was a bit slower to follow the settlements. A minister was received in 1812, but died after two years. Not until 1820 did a significant improvement begin to occur when a firm commissioner was appointed to enforce the law, followed in 1824 by a respected minister and in 1826 by a schoolmaster.