Funny Names and Ship Lists

Today, I may have gotten a little bit sidetracked. I didn't do anything with missionaries. I tracked down my family. It started out when one of the volunteers looked me up on the GRANDMA program (Genealogical Registry And Database of Mennonite Ancestry). She then printed out my family tree and handed to me. 22 pages later, I realized there were a lot of blank spaces. So, I went on a bit of a search.

Ship list records I copied.

My copies of short descriptions of parts of my family's migration to the Molotschna colony in Southern Russia in 1804. 

I found my great-great-great(?) grandfather's baptism record, and therefore found his parents' names, which we had previously not known.

The whole book. I actually had to wear white gloves, and everything, since it's falling apart.

June 2, 1850. at the bottom, you can see the two parents' names, Heinrich and Maria Nikels.

In Markswczysna, Prussia.

The register lists the place, the parents' full names, and then the new church member's name. In this case, Heinrich.

At the end is their age. Heinrich was 15.

These were in a book that were the original records for the church in Prussia. There is beautiful handwriting in this book.

That "W" is amazing.

I wish I could write my name so it looked this pretty.

"Adele Bartel." The woman who sets fire to the rain is in my family.

There were some interesting names.

Erdmann (Heinrich Bartels is not a relation of mine). 

Petronella was apparently a popular name.

In my family tree, I found several interesting names.

"Ancke." Low German version of "Anna."

I couldn't find an origin or comparison for "Trincke."

I couldn't find a comparison for this one, either. It's also gender neutral, although here, it's a woman.

"Maricke" similar to "Mary?"

I wanted to show you the interesting names of the towns themselves. 

I didn't think that we could trace our tree very far back, but we can trace all the way back to this  "Voht," who was born in 1586.

We had a great time at the office. However, tomorrow I'll probably spend a little bit more time on this, but then I'll probably have to get back to the missionaries.