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Hello..... Can I Help You? Author(s): Richard Gray Source: North Irish Roots, Vol. 15, No. 1 (2004), pp. 28-31 Published by: North of Ireland Family History Society (NIFHS) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27697546 . Accessed: 16/06/2014 14:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . North of Ireland Family History Society (NIFHS) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to North Irish Roots. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 91.229.229.49 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:53:44 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Hello..... Can I Help You?

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Page 1: Hello..... Can I Help You?

Hello..... Can I Help You?Author(s): Richard GraySource: North Irish Roots, Vol. 15, No. 1 (2004), pp. 28-31Published by: North of Ireland Family History Society (NIFHS)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27697546 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 14:53

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

North of Ireland Family History Society (NIFHS) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to North Irish Roots.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.49 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:53:44 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Hello..... Can I Help You?

HELLO.CAN I HELP YOU? Richard Gray, Member B 0991

"Hello my name is Thorsten D scher - can I help you?" - this was the text of an e

mail I received just before Christmas 1999. It was in response to a message I had left on a message board dedicated to the different surnames around the world. One day previously I had been checking the site for all the surnames I am researching and I was unable to find a page for D scher - the maiden name of one of my Great Grandmothers before she married into the Tolliday side of the family.

How did I come to have a German Great Grandmother? The circumstances of the

Tollidays and D schers are still a mystery - all we knew at that time was that a 17

year old daughter of a "gentleman" from Cuxhaven had met and married, in 1878, a 23 year old "engine driver" from Pelton Fell, a little village in N.E. England. How they met we still have no real idea but it MIGHT have something to do with the building of the Kiel Canal. I have copies of her birth and christening and marriage certificates.

We also have a number of family "stories" - Maria D scher's belongings were lowered down a cliff at Cuxhaven in a large chest - a revered item. Also it was said that one of "our" D schers was one of Bl cher's bodyguards at the battle of Waterloo. The

family also used to have a sword from the

Napoleonic era, long since donated to the South Shields museum and my uncle remembers a muzzle loading bayonet being used as a poker in his home in the 1920s -

unfortunately now gone missing.

So back to the Surname web site. There was no

page for the surname D scher, but there was a

facility to start new pages - this I did and simply

left my name, e-mail address and said that I was Maria Augusta Wilhelmina interested in a relative named Maria D scher who

D scher 1860-1906 had lived in Cuxhaven. This, then, is the background to the e-mail which arrived "out of the blue".

Needless to say when I received the e-mail I thought it was too good to be true. However I responded carefully, giving additional information and indicating that I would be grateful for any help that could be provided. I heard nothing in response, so after about a month I sent a second carefully worded e-mail and received an immediate

response apologising and explaining that Thorsten had been very busy. He indicated that there was a book on the D schers in the local library but unfortunately it appeared that his family and mine were not related though he was able to tell me that my Great

Grandmother had 5 brothers and sisters.

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Page 3: Hello..... Can I Help You?

I asked for the ISBN number of the book on Doschers and asked if it be possible to

get it on International Loan Unfortunately the reply was that it was a privately produced book and not available for loan This appeared to be a dead end' However, 2 weeks

later, in the post I received a thick A4 envelope containing a complete photocopy of the book" Of course all of it was in German and my 'O' Level German had been long since forgotten

- but once again technology came to the rescue I scanned in the

required pages and then used Optical Character Recognition software to convert the

images to German text With the aid of Babelfish, on the Internet, I was able to obtain a reasonable translation which gave me the "gist" of the text The information gleaned

from the book allowed me to take the Doscher family back to the 1500s - however it was disappointing that Thorsten Doscher's line and my line were not directly related

Still, once I had all the relevant information entered in my "Reunion" genealogy package I thought it would be nice to send Thorsten a print out of my Doscher tree

Soon after he received my print out I received an excited e-mail of thanks - with the aid of my print out he had discovered that one of his Doschers had married into the Thork family and one of that family had married one of my Doschers - so there was a connection

- all be it not a blood connection We continued to communicate

electronically and indeed even exchanged "electronic" Christmas cards Then in one

of his e-mail Thorsten happened to mention that the ferry which had originally travelled from Hamburg to Harwich had now become based in Cuxhaven - Thorsten even

suggested that they might holiday in England some year That "dropped" comment started me thinking and I e-mailed my uncle Vic in the Lake District and asked him if he fancied a trip to Cuxhaven

- the response was immediate

- YES"

Once more back to the Internet where I soon found that DFDS was the company who operated the ferry from Harwich to Cuxhaven Better still, after the end of August the number of trips made each week was reduced and the ferry spent more than a full 24 hrs moored in Cuxhaven so we could have the round trip, 3 nights B&B, 2

evening meals and a day and a half in Cuxhaven for approx 110 each' Very soon

everything was booked and the Doschers in Cuxhaven readily agreed to take us

"under their wing"

On the 8th September 2002 we set off for Harwich where we were to board the ferry for Cuxhaven It rained almost all the way to Harwich but as we came in sight of the dock area the sun made a valiant attempt to show its face

- and with its face came

the end of the rain for the remainder of our holiday

Our ship was "The Admiral of Scandinavia" Our cabins were very comfortable, the

ship was spotlessly clean and the staff very helpful We made our way to the stern

where we found chairs and watched the world go by after we cast-off, making our

way out of the port and into the North Sea Dinner that evening was excellent with a

buffet comprising a great variety of dishes

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Page 4: Hello..... Can I Help You?

After breakfast on the morning of Monday the 9th September we went on deck to watch our arrival in Germany Slowly, it seemed, land appeared out of the haze and

gradually it became possible to pick out features such as houses and buildings as well as people on the shore As we approached the entrance to Cuxhaven I saw a familiar sight, a jetty with a wooden structure at its seaward end Many years ago I

was given a bundle of postcards and letters, which had been in the possession of my

Uncle, the brother of my father As I have already explained, my Grandfather Tolliday had married a young girl, Augusta Doescher, from Cuxhaven though how Grandfather had met Grandmother is something of a mystery and one which I imagine we will

never solve At the turn of the 20th century Grandmother had returned to Cuxhaven where she later died and was buried The postcards and letters were between her son Richard and various relatives of Grandmother, one postcard of which was a

picture of the jetty and the wooden structure, which, later in the day was, we were

informed, was a type of guidepost for shipping

Cuxhaven is at the mouth of the River Elbe, the estuary of which is so wide it is not

possible to see the opposite bank

Naturally enough we were anxious to catch sight of our young hosts, Thorsten and

Ulrike D scher, and though we had never met them we soon picked them out standing waiting for us on the quayside We were very quickly ashore, met our hosts and their very new baby son, Tjark In

no time at all felt we had known them for years and soon we were all chatting to one another, for both our hosts spoke very good English Thoughtfully a car big enough to easily carry all seven of us had been hired for the day so within minutes of meeting we were heading for our first "port-of-call" This was the church at

Groden where Grandmother was buried Thorsten and Ulrike had obviously put in much preparatory work in advance of our visit and we were grateful to them for otherwise we might well have accomplished next to nothing in our search for family records

As we drove through Cuxhaven to Groden I was very impressed by its cleanliness and colourfulness for there was no litter to be seen and in the suburbs many of the houses were painted in bright and varied colours Perhaps the most striking aspect of the city was, compared to home, the lack of traffic When I mentioned this to Thorsten he expressed surprise for he thought the roads were busy that morning By the time we reached Groden the sun was shining from a cloudless sky and it was

decidedly warm- a really glorious morning First we called at the pastor's house

where we met Pastor Wesselmann-Mahler who made us very welcome and arranged for us to inspect church records After producing several old church record books and answering our questions for some time the Pastor had to leave as he had an

urgent appointment elsewhere but he suggested we returned later in the day when

he would have more time In a way this was good for it enabled us to spend time in

the church grounds just across the road

The church was surrounded by extremely well-kept grounds and though we could not enter the church it was possible to see where the remains of the old building had

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Page 5: Hello..... Can I Help You?

been, for fire and other works had resulted in the original church being altered over the

years.

There were many old headstones in being but none that marked Grandmother's

resting place : thanks, however, to the old records that had been produced earlier we

were able to discover the exact spot where she had been buried. This made the whole

trip well worthwhile. We were then taken through the town to

the seashore and had a walk along the

promenade where the beach was covered with wickerwork two-seater windbreak.

The next morning, Tuesday 10th September, Thorsten took my uncle and me to the

city archives in search of further information. We were made welcome at the archives where it was obvious Thorsten knew his

way about for within minutes we were seated in one of the records room and surrounded by files and tomes. The morning passed very quickly and it seemed

only a few minutes before Thorsten announced it was time to meet the ladies who had gone shopping.

Our time in Cuxhaven was nearing its end for we could not afford to miss our ship's departure time. Back to the quayside where we said our thanks and farewells to our

charming and very helpful hosts and they departed.

Since then my connections with the Masonic Order have put me in touch with a

Napoleonic historian in Brussels and I have passed him all the dates of birth etc. of

my relevant Doschers to see what he can discover from the many records to which he has access - I wait with bated breath.

And the moral of my story? - Don't give up for you don't know what is round the next

corner or in the next e-mail.

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Groden Church ca.1900

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