where is walschstein?

[kylejustin]

hi everyone,

have been looking into my german ancestry recently, and my ancestor john sigismund dittmann. he was born 1817-20, in poznan, a city and state. my ancestors birth cert says he was born poznan, prussian poland. his siblings have said walschstein, prussia, and belgium! well i would like to know where walschstein is, and what it is called today. i have googled and have not found anything so far.

i have also learned that this family used prussian royal names. my 2nd great grandfather was frederick william, his father johann sigismund, and grandfather christian sigismund. these names crop up in the prussian royal family, and my family must have been named for some of them. it is uncanny to see the same combo of names though.

if anyone can help with walschstein, it would be great. thanx!

[Christine in Herts]

There's a place called Walstein in the Netherlands. I could imagine that the pronunciation would be very similar.

Using http://maps.google.co.uk/ it appears to be due East of Amsterdam.

Christine

[kylejustin]

interesting. my 1st thought was the village of kozmin was called walschstein. kozmin was his place of residence at marriage. but when i looked it up on wikipedia, it didnt mention what the germans called it.

[Cloggie]

I don't think Walstein is very likely. The only Walstein I can find in the Netherlands is a neighbourhood in Harderwijk, on which construction appears to have begun in the 1980s: http://www.harderwijk.nl/Gemeente/Wo...k/Walstein.htm

How certain are you about the spelling? Could it be Waldstein in Germany? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldstein
A German pronunciation is more likely to have a "sch" sound than a Dutch pronunciation.

This site might be of use: http://www.fallingrain.com/world/index.html

[Christine in Herts]

I thought I'd heard of a place phonetically similar, but couldn't thnk what it would be. Waldstein seems much more likely.

Christine

[ozgirl]

Have a look at this website , it gives the old names of towns in Prussia http://www.progenealogists.com/germany/prussia/.

The closest I could see was Waldchen, but I didn't go through all the W's.

Linda

[naomiatt]

Hi - there is a place called Wolsztyn, now Poland, 41 miles from Posen/Poznan. In 1900, it came under Germany and was called Wollstein.
http://data.jewishgen.org/wconnect/w...sys~shtetlexp5 Although this a Jewish site, they have a town search function.
This shows you places in a 10m radius of Kozmin - called Koschmin in Germany, 1900.

http://data.jewishgen.org/wconnect/wc.dll?jg~jgsys~shtetlrexp2~10~MILES~51~49~17~27~~

[kylejustin]

i think naomi has found the most likely place, wolsztyn, 2 hours from kozmin, but still around poznan city. i think if it was pronounced, it would be more like walschstein. the germans say 'wollstein' for this town, so i think it is the right one.