Maria & Sophia Hart & Abigail Cardoza

I was picking around at Ancestry.com yesterday and I came across the New York Passenger lists with some of my family listed. This confirmed that the Hart women did not all come over together. Maria, Sophia and their aunt Abigail come over separate from the Rose and Julia. The ladies arrived October 16, 1866 on the William Penn. I added the document to my Geni.com tree.

Dörrmoschel Book

As I have been translating the documents from Rockenhausen, I was putting the information into a family tree. When the parents or other individuals are listed, they only give their approximate age. Since I am only translating the 1870’s right now, in order to get the other individuals correct dates, I kept searching through the older records.

In order to speed up the process, I decided to label all the records for the whole town. Now when "John Doe age sixty-six" is mentioned, I can just search the documents to see if I have his records also.  It has taken me longer than I thought to label them, but this should save me time in the long run. I am also doing Bisterschied immediately as many people in the Dörrmoschel books are actually from Bisterschied.

Ups and Downs

As I was finishing up the labeling all the birth records, I was surprised to find the very first “written-out” birth record for Dörrmoschel was for a set of twins on one record. It is the only such "double record" I have found so far.  Barbara & Catherine Siegel were born in December 31, 1817 and records began in 1818. Unfortunately when labeling the mortality records I found they both passed away not too long afterward.

It amazes me sometimes how even though this happened so long ago that I can be saddened by some of the hardships the families had.