Gottscheer Public Blog

The above picture is from Herbert Otterstadt’s book, Gottschee eine Deutsche Volksinsel im Sudosten, published in 1941. If you have the book, could you please tell me what the caption is, in English. Thanks very much.

Kathy R.

Al Schmuck of Whistler, BC has passed away.  Al was the younger brother of Frank Schmuck who contributes regularly on this site.

Sincere condolences to everyone in the family.  Here is a link to the Whistler Q magazine with Al Schmuck’s obituary.

http://www.whistlerquestion.com/article/20080730/WHISTLER01/859806752

Sorry for the diversion…for those interested, this photo (taken with my cell phone) shows the site for the new Pittsburgh multi-purpose arena.

 

You may have noticed the VerveEarth logo on the sidebar of this blog.  VerveEarth is a community that adds blogs to a map, so that you can “see” blogs and authors geographically.

I have this blog situated in Kocevje, for instance.  It’s a neat site and a great idea, I think.  Enjoy browsing.

We are fortunate that Mr. Meditz continues to provide excellent videos. This installment, originally from Austrian Radio and Television (ORF), is thirty minutes long and again tells the story of Gottschee. Professionally done and excellent quality.

How about a big hand for Ted Meditz…thanks again for all you do to share the story of Gottschee.

http://hwk.best.vwh.net/binaries/schicksalswege_der_gottschee.mpg

This video is about 300 mb and about thirty minutes.

Our friend from Germany, Mr. Ted Meditz continues to amaze with his collection of videos he so graciously shares. This video is called “Die Deutsche Sprachinsel in Sudosteurope”.

Sharing from his letter to me, this video was written and produced in the early ’60’s by Joseph Rubner and was sponsored by Bund der Vertriebenen (Organization of Refugees). Ted found this 16 mm black and white film in the Sudeten Deutschen Archive in Munich in 1993. He then obtained permission from the Sudetendeutschen Landmannschaft to transfer the film to S-VHS. Ted then transferred this to DVD, sent it to me, and I further transferred to MPG format. The quality is remarkable. Some of the sequences were filmed in the 1930’s during the 600th anniversary of Gottschee.

Bravo Mr. Meditz for your hard work to maintain our heritage.

http://hwk.best.vwh.net/binaries/deutsche_sprachinsel.mpg

Once again, allow time for the download (111 mb).

Once again, we thank Mr. Ted Meditz of Germany for another great video, this one produced by local regional television (ARF), of the 2005 Gottscheer Treffen in Bad Aussee, Austria.
http://hwk.best.vwh.net/binaries/treffen.mpg

Allow time for the video to download (about 100 Mb.) Running time is slightly over ten minutes.

Mr. Ted Meditz brings us another great video in German. This one is a report from Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Broadcasting) on the last remaining Gottscheer inhabitants of the homeland. Fascinating piece and thank you once again Ted for bringing it to us.

http://hwk.best.vwh.net/binaries/Die%20Letzten%20Gottscheer%20in%20Slowenien.mpg

(Note, the video is 90mb, so it may take a while to download. Running time is about ten minutes).

Barcelona, 17th January 2008

Dear Sir, Madame,

My name is Begoña Martinez Cruz. Me and my colleagues are contacting you in our capacity as Group Leaders for the Western and Central Europe division of the Genographic Project (www.genographic.com). The Objective of the Genographic project, launched jointly by The National Geographic Society and IBM, is to collect samples representative of human population diversity from all around the world in order to describe with accuracy the movement of  humankind since their origin in addition to gathering more information on the expansion and colonisation of habitable continents. The ultimate aim in other words is to unravel our migration history as species. Within Genographic, the Western and Central European team has as its goal the collection of at least 10,000 samples from around Europe (100 male individuals per population selected) to ensure adequate coverage of the genetic diversity in our continent, with special attention given to particular populations such as the Aromums, Gottcheers or Roma.

With this aim in mind, we are interested in using genetics to answer questions related to the history of your population, the Gottscheers. At this point, and as you can read in the Genographic web page, genetic tools can help in disentangling the past demographic history of populations and ethnic groups. Our objective would be to collaborate in reconstructing that history, of course with the help of historical records or even oral tradition that would be very interesting for us. For such purpose, we would need your collaboration. In fact, what we would need is a small sample of DNA from non related males, pure Gottscheers (i.e. with Gottscheer ancestors). For this, in case you accept, we would send you a commercial kit with a swab with which you would need to scrub your mouth and keep it in the provided recipient, following the manufacturer indications. Of course, we would pay for all the fees for sending and getting the kits back to Barcelona. The results obtained from those samples would be published in specialized scientific publications, were you will be specifically acknowledged. In any case, the study would be anonymous, that is, each individual would be assigned a number and no name or personal information would be published or even kept. We would only keep each individual and its ancestors origins and sex of the individual associated with the number assigned.

If you are interested, we would be also very happy to go to give you a talk about our work about your population, and discuss on them with you, which would be undoubtedly very useful.

Of course, the sampling must be in conform with the ethical framework established in the Genographic project that includes a signed consent by every donor and the complete information about what would be done with the sample, that would never been used with a medical purpose. If you agree we would send you this ethical protocol for you to be completely informed.

We would be very grateful if you could transmit our interests and the information to any other member of the population.

We expect you would be happy to join our project and please feel free to ask us about any doubt you can have. We expect your answer to your earliest convenience. Please, send your answers to my mail addres and the one of my colleagues’, written below in the signature.

Sincerely,

The Western-Central European Genographic team
Dr. Jaume Bertranpetit     e-mail: jaume.bertranpetit@upf.edu
Dr. David Comas  e-mail: david.comas@upf.edu
Dr. Begoña Martinez-Cruz  e-mail: begonya.martinez@upf.edu

Evolutionary Biology Unit
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Doctor Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain

Hopefully you will find this layout easy to read and use.

There are some new features on the sidebar like Recent Posts and Recent Comments.  As always, if you have any problems or questions, feel free to email me or leave a comment.

I just recently found the Gottscheer Bulletin Board.

My name is Brittany Keyak, from Pennsylvania
I am the great great granddaughter of a Johann Jeschelnig (1869-1941) and Maria (Lakota) Jeschelnig (1877-1904)

Maria’s parents were Stefan Lakota and Katharina Mallner.
Johann’s parents were Mathias Jeschelnig and Katharina Weber

Johann and Maria had 3 daughters, Anna Jeschelnig, Josefa Jeschelnig, and Maria Jeschelnig, and a son Hans Jeschelnig.

Anna married a Heinrich Johann Paulussen (from Dorfbroich, Germany) . They emmigrated to the US and are laid to rest in Pennsylvania
They have 3 sons, Edward Bruce, Franklin D.R., and Heinrich “Harry” Johann III, and 1 daughter, Barbara Ann

Josefa married a Joe Dosch.
They have 2 sons.

Maria “Minnie” married a Karl Erich Roller (from Germany)
They have a daughter Barbara Roller

Hans last known residence was in Russia, and we assume he married a Russian girl.

Looking for more info and possible relatives.

This was sent to me by Herr Theobald Meditz, a longtime friend of this web site. According to him this was professionally made on German TV in 1993. The title, “Film Richard Lackner Pflegt das Gottscheer Kulturerbe auf Schloss”, translates to “Richard Lackner maintains and secures the Gottscheer cultural heritage.”

Here’s the link to the movie.
http://hwk.best.vwh.net/binaries/Film Richard Lackner Pflegt das Gottscheer Kulturerbe auf Schloss.wmv

Hello,

Are there any Klupars still posting to this blog? I am the granddaughter of John Klupar of Chicago (so the great great granddaughter of Jakob Hlupar) and stumbled across some old posts on this site. I am curious as to where in the world people currently reside, and am eager to touch base and share information (although my grandfather and I are still trying to cobble things together as best we can).

Hope to hear from you soon!
Shannon

Happy New Year, Gottscheers! I love the new Wordpress blog – nice addition to the site.

I’m making headway with our family tree and have started an online version which can be accessed here: http://www.andrewsgenealogy.com

Some of our Gottscheers:

Erker, Josef born 10 Mar 1797 in Windischdorf
Erker, Ursula born Before 1787
Fitz, Franz Joseph born 07 Apr 1896
Fitz, Johann born Jan 1869 in Gottschee
Fitz, Matthias N. born 1894
Fitz, Stefan born Abt. 1807 in Koflern #25
Honigmann, Josef born 01 Feb 1839 in Tiefenthal #8
Honigmann, Magdalena born 25 Apr 1806 in Kerndorf #11
Honigmann, Maria born Abt. 1812 in Kerndorf #11
Honigmann, Valentin born 04 Feb 1765 in Kerndorf
Jaklitsch, Maria born Abt. 1809 in Niederloschin #3
Jaklitsch, Mathias born Abt. 1801 in Koflern #6
Plesche, Andreas born Abt. 1803 in Koflern #12
Plesche, Elisabeth born Abt. 1845 in Mitterdorf #16
Plesche, Georg born Before 1788
Plesche, Gertrud born Abt. 1847 in Mitterdorf #16
Plesche, Johann born Abt. 1801 in Koflern #23
Plesche, Josefa born Abt. 1852 in Mitterdorf #16
Plesche, Lucia born Abt. 1850 in Mitterdorf #16
Plesche, Magdalena born Abt. 1797 in Koflern #13
Plesche, Maria born Abt. 1839 in Mitterdorf #16
Verderber, Franz born Abt. 1894 in Kerndorf #32
Verderber, Georg
Verderber, Helena born Abt. 1881 in Kerndorf #32
Verderber, Jacob born Abt. 1849 in Kerndorf #11
Verderber, Magdalena born 06 Jan 1886 in Kerndorf #32
Verderber, Maria born Before 1830

We’ve found two Fitz-Verderber marriages, and I suspect there are more. If anyone spots a connection to our tree please let me know.

Hi All!!!

The new Gottschee Tree -Dec 2007 is wonderful. I especially loved the map on page 14. My grandmother, Anna Agnes Poreber is from Kleinriegel. Her father was Martin Poreber( Semitsch) and Agnes Maichin- at least so says the marriage license of her sister Ursula Schoedler. Can anyone out there help me to prove this?? Martin Poreber first married Barbara Honingmann- children, then married Agnes Maicihin( I think) children Ursula 1875, Anna Agnes 1879, Martin.

Thanks,

Carla Ratcliff