My family came from Pomerania, Germany. How do I go about tracking down relative

Question:

My family came from Pomerania, Germany. How do I go about tracking down relatives there. I have few names only

Zietlow is the name and my great grandpa came here in aprox. 1881. All I know is the place of Pomerania. Any help I would love it!!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Pomerania was then part of Prussia and is now part of Poland. Poland was partitioned at the time and the western parts were under the control of Prussia. When Prussia unified with the other duchies and principalities in the region they formed Germany.

Some of the databases are down (it's Saturday night in Europe already so they're down for maintenance) so I can't pull up the Bremen and Hamburg lists or the Prussian Archives right now. But I'll venture to guess from the American census and birth records that most of these families settled in the Midwest, particularly Wisconsin.

Prussians were primarily Poles, though some were from as far west as Berlin. Yet most Prussians we find in records will be recorded as "German Poles". They were primarily Catholic, though some were Lutheran. A few were also evangelical, but it wasn't common. Most evangelicals were from southern Germany near Switzerland. Catholics were extremely clannish when they arrived in the US. They tended to settle in towns where other Poles from their town had already settled. They brought over generation after generation to the same town. Most of these towns would have been considered "labor centers", whether they were in the lumber or mining industries. Prussia was primarily agricultural and lumber-centered in the late 1800s. These people weren't fishermen or skilled tradesmen on the most part. They were from tiny parcels of land that shrunk with divisions among every generation of children (think of it as a patchwork quilt and every child got an equal percentage...then their kids divided each of their pieces until everyone had a tiny square of grandpa's farm). They wanted land and were willing to work hard to get it. The Midwest was heavily involved in lumbering at the time and were clear-cutting lands. If you were willing to buy 50 acres for $20 and clear out all the stumps and stones yourself you had 500x more land than you ever could have hoped for back in Prussia.

As a result, the first place to search for your immigrant ancestor is in land records where he settled. Find out where he lived, how much land he bought and to whom he left it all. Look for his probate records.

If you know he arrived ca. 1881 it was at the height of Prussian emigration. He probably left from Bremen. You can either search the Bremen files when they come back up or visit your local library to find a series of books called "Germans to America". They're indexes of German passenger records and are broken down by day, month and year.

I don't know if he left from Hamburg because he probably lived much closer to Szczezin (Stettin) which wasn't that far from Bremen, but you also don't give his first name, so I can only guess. Here are all of the Zietlows who left from Hamburg (they just came back up)

Name: Alb.E Zietlow
Alb.E Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1869
Abfahrt: 4. Nov 1896 - Hamburg
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Name: Bertha Zietlow
Bertha Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1877
Abfahrt: 22. Jun 1905 - Hamburg
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Name: Bertha Zietlow
Bertha Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1877
Abfahrt: 23. Mrz 1910 - Hamburg
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Name: Emilie Zietlow
Emilie Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1877
Abfahrt: 23. Jul 1908 - Hamburg
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Name: Ewald Zietlow
Ewald Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1874
Abfahrt: 30. Aug 1904 - Hamburg
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Name: Georg Zietlow
Georg Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1878
Abfahrt: 20. Okt 1910 - Hamburg
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Name: Georg Zietlow
Georg Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1878
Abfahrt: 31. Mrz 1906 - Hamburg
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Name: Herbert Zietlow
Herbert Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1905
Abfahrt: 22. Jun 1905 - Hamburg
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Name: Herbert Zietlow
Herbert Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1905
Abfahrt: 23. Mrz 1910 - Hamburg
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Name: Hildegard Zietlow
Hildegard Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1907
Abfahrt: 23. Mrz 1910 - Hamburg
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Name: Ida Zietlow
Ida Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1875
Abfahrt: 30. Aug 1902 - Hamburg
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Name: Joh.A Zietlow
Joh.A Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1902
Abfahrt: 30. Aug 1902 - Hamburg
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Name: Marta Zietlow
Marta Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1882
Abfahrt: 20. Okt 1910 - Hamburg
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Name: Martha Zietlow
Martha Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1882
Abfahrt: 31. Mrz 1906 - Hamburg
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Name: Nina Zietlow
Nina Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1886
Abfahrt: 3. Jun 1909 - Hamburg
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Name: Paul Zietlow
Paul Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1876
Abfahrt: 6. Mai 1900 - Hamburg
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Name: Robert Zietlow
Robert Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1875
Abfahrt: 30. Aug 1902 - Hamburg
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Name: Willy Zietlow
Willy Zietlow
Geburt: ca. 1898
Abfahrt: 30. Aug 1902 - Hamburg