If you have information relating to the family that you'd like to share, please e-mail it to me at jbsphx@cox.net. I'm interested in obtaining family photos, especially of John Henry and Maria and their children. I am able to receive scans as e-mail attachments and prefer sharp, detailed images in JPEG or TIFF format. I have no problem with receiving and handling large files. If you have printed materials or old photos you'd like me to scan, please mail them to me and I will return them to you within one week of receiving them. Contact me at the e-mail address above for mailing instructions.
I'd also like to find information pertaining to John Henry and Maria's emigration from Germany that may shed more light on their reasons for coming to the United States. Documents that may be in someone's possession include their "exit visa" and their declarations of intent to become American citizens. The "exit visa" (in German, "Entlassungs-Urkunde") will be about the size of an American letter-size sheet of paper and will show John Henry's name (in German script, of course), his wife's maiden name, and the names and birthdates of their children. There may be a Prussian eagle, wearing a crown and holding a sceptre and orb in its talons, between the words "Entlassungs" and "Urkunde." (These words literally mean "departure document," by the way.) At the bottom of the document will be an official seal with the words "Königlich Preußische Regierung" (Royal Prussian Government). This document was required of anyone wanting to permanently leave the country through one of the German ports, and the head of the household had to attest that he was permanently renouncing his loyalty to the King of Prussia and giving up all his rights as a royal subject. Serious stuff!
The document will use the German "Fraktur" style of printing and will have blanks with handwritten entries. If this sounds like anything one of you may have, I'd love to have a photocopy of it. John Henry may have discarded it after he arrived in the United States, of course, but it is a German trait to be respectful of government documents and to hang on to them for years. (Which is probably why I still have copies of my dad's income tax returns from the 1940s!)
The significance of the Entlassungs-Urkunde
is that it indicates the exact village or town of origin and lists children and
their birthdates. The information was probably obtained as the
result of a direct interview by a Prussian official with the emigrant,
in our case Johny Henry (Große-) Schallau.
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Last updated on April 24, 2004