City Directory

Searching out what happens between the ten year census is always a challenge. In the 1900 Census my grandfather is listed as messenger. What about after 1900. That is where the City Directory becomes important. The bad part is that not all cities published directories. Toledo did, but Charleroi did not. He is not listed in the 1901 Toledo directory and there was none published in 1902. Trying to follow my grandfather I think he was in Charleroi having been sent there by Mac Beth Evans to work in the glass factory maybe as early as 1901. There he married in 1903 and my father was born in 1906. Without a City Directory it has been difficult to follow him there. Back in Toledo from 1907 to 1915 in the City Directory he is listed as a glass worker. In 1916 his occupation changed to owning a restaurant. The city directory also provides the address for the family, important if you want to follow the homes where your family lived. The question is when was he sent to Charleroi?

Second Brick Wall

There is one other Brick Wall in the direct family line. I can not find my Grandfather's birth certificate. William Joseph Carl Sodeman was born on 22 June 1883 and we assume in Toledo, Ohio. We assume because that is where his parents lived. His mother-in-law however lived in Ida, Michigan just up the road. Could Albertine have gone up there to have the baby? A search for the birth record in Ohio and Michigan yielded no results. The family record, WWI draft record and Census documents confirm the birth date. A trip to the Probate Records in Lucas yielded no record. His sister Julia was born in 1881 and she shows up on the birth index. The next step is to search the birth index using many variants of Sodemann and hope that yields a record but with the wrong spelling. Common Sodemann spelling encountered in genealogy family research include Loderman, Sothermann, Saderman, and Sodinan. Probably born at home it maybe they never recorded the birth and he never needed one later in life. While Julia is in the index the birth certificate was done many years later.

Brick Wall

Well anyone who researches in Genealogy ultimately runs into the "Brick wall". The place where despite all the internet searches, the family records and the books you fine, you can not get the information you want. Well I have a brick wall, a transit record. To leave Mecklenburg, Germany in the 1870 you had to obtain permission. Those records are somewhere in Mecklenburg.

 The problem is where. Christian and his family would not have been an exception. Searching has not revealed where the records are kept. Clearly the documents have not been digitalized. My problem is deeper though. It appears the family may not have traveled as "Sodemann" but under the mother's name Mahnke. On the ship manifest when they traveled to the US from Hamburg they are listed as Mahnke. There are no records of why they left Falkenhagen but the ships records shows they listed their residence as Zierzow. I guess a jump off place.

Great news I now have the documents. The people in Mecklenburg who handle the records sent me a copy. They are in old German scrip but appear clear so I should be able to get them translated.