Those of us who are related to the Wolf family of Mount Carmel know the value of Hans Hertling’s research. (So do lots of others, but I doubt they are reading this blog.) Some of us are fortunate enough to have his materials on Biblis US Immigrants (“Bibliser in Amerika"). I imagine I am not the only one to whom Hans gave a personalized ancestry of my Hertling relation, Eva Hertlling Wolf. Maybe some of you have a copy of his book, in which case this post won’t matter to you. (I have written Christel and offered to buy a copy; but whether she has one, whether she wants to go to the trouble of sending it, whether she's patient with my atrocious German, that’s all anyone’s guess. She’s pretty nice, so maybe I’ll get lucky, but meanwhile . . . . ) UPDATE: Cristel did send me a copy for which I am both grateful and intimidated. I KNEW it would be in German, but oh, wow! It shall take some time to translate.
I’m at the point in my research where I want more information about the tangle of family, and the simple 5 page descendant chart I have from Emericus Hertling to Eva isn’t sufficient. Once upon a time, I could have done my research at Hans’ Internet domain at hertling-genealogie.de. Sadly, that site is gone.
Enter www.archive.org/web, otherwise known as the Wayback Machine. Hans’ website was “captured” by the machine 67 times, most recently in 2017, but by then the site would have been defunct (Hans died in May of 2015). However, the March 3, 2007 capture is somewhat complete. There is a complete list of names; it's just that at some point the links from the name in the index to the family page don’t work. “Hertling” works; “Wolf” doesn’t. If you know which Hertling is your ancestor, you’re in good shape. For those who don’t, the site will be a challenge. But the data are there, and that’s a huge relief to me. I’m going to mine it for everything I can get. If you want to see what’s there, here’s the link: web.archive.org/20070329231433/http://www.hertling-genealogie.de.
A couple of points to keep in mind. Because I found a lot of errors in the material on Francis Joseph Wolf’s descendants, I would be reluctant to trust Hans’ work here in the US as reported in March of 2007. I imagine that the issue is the fairly early date of this particular Wayback capture. I don’t know when Hans made his first trip to the US; if it was after 2007, those errors could be explained by his research limitations in Germany. I know he loved the Willard Library, spent a lot of time there and with Bill Wolf, and I suspect those errors were corrected at a later date. But captures made after 2007 are blank, so we have to live with what we have.
One other point is worth making. Hans' research on Martin Wolf stops with him. I have been able to trace both Martin and his wife, Mary and Diemer, to their home towns in the Bas Rhin, Alsace. If you need those data, please let me know. I'll share.
In the “for what it’s worth” department, a woman named Karen Harvey had an extensive genealogy site that included the Hertling ancestry (karenharvey.50megs.com, possibly a copy of Hans’ work. That site no longer works; the index of names is there, but the links are broken. Karen Harvey’s site is not archived. A search of the Wayback Machine says it has been excluded.
I miss Hans pretty often; he became a good friend and collaborator, and his loss pains me. But I think he’d be pleased to know that his work lives on, even if it is in an obscure place like the Wayback Machine.
As an aside, this is an excellent demonstration of the need to do more than name your online source; taking a screenshot of the important data and saving it someplace safe is critical.
No comments:
Post a Comment