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Looking for Gr.father's Family: SCHOENBACH

Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 6:17 am
by Gabriella
My grandfather was born 1883 as NATHAN (Nuchem) SCHOENBACH in Galicia. Unfortunately, I know nothing of his family. His tombstone reads "ben Chaim", but I am not at all sure, that this is correct. In his prayer books he wrote 'Nuchem Schoenbach HaLevi' which can be of help to find relatives. When immigrating to Switzerland he stated "born in USTRZYKI DOLNE". His wife, of family name Hechel-Thaler, was born in this village. And there was a town counsellor and mayor in Ustrzyki Dolne, Jonas SCHEINBACH (which is probably the same name, just pronounced in Yiddish), in 1879. But I could not retrieve any connection yet. My grandfather was an Austrian soldier in WWI and POW of Russia in a Siberian camp near Khabarowsk where he survived 5 and a half years and was repatriated in 1920. He then lived until his death in Switzerland.

I have been searching since the death of my father in 2000, without clear results, but I have not yet given up hope :roll: .
Can anyone help me? Thanks for any hint.

Re: Looking for Gr.father's Family: SCHOENBACH

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 6:05 pm
by logan
If you search here for schönbach ustrzyki, with no quotes, you will find pages that contain both words (surrounding with quotes would do a phrase search, which is not what you want). Many of the results are for Schönbachs in Ustrzyki Dolne sections of directories. For example, the first match is from a 1939 Poland Telephone Directory, showing Dawid and Leon Schönbach in Ustrzyki Dolne: http://genealogyindexer.org/view/1939Ptel/784/. (The umlaut is not necessary, since o and ö are treated as equivalent by this search engine, but oe and ö are not.)

The same strategy will work with surnames Hechel and Thaler. For example, the 1939 page above also includes a Szmerl Hechel.

Logan

Re: Looking for Gr.father's Family: SCHOENBACH

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 1:52 am
by Gabriella
Thank you, Logan. That oe and ö are treated differently than o, I did not know. That's really helpful that I know now. I found David Schonbach also in other pages, but do not know his father's name. He was of the generation of my father and he was murdered by the Nazi. He was an egg-dealer. Also in the Yizkor book of Ustrzyki his name is written.... But: how are we related????
My search continues, including Scho- Schoe- and Schönbach!
Gabriella

Re: Looking for Gr.father's Family: SCHOENBACH

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 8:35 am
by logan
To clarify, ö and o are treated the same as each other, oe is treated differently. The reason is that, if a search term contains oe, I cannot automatically know whether it is German or not. If not, and I treat it the same as o, there might be false positives in the search results.

Logan

Re: Looking for Gr.father's Family: SCHOENBACH

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 9:35 am
by Gabriella
Now all is clear! Thanks again, Logan.
Gabriella :)