 Family Log Houses
Top left: Lehner/Sturm/Prem home in Franklin Township, Sauk County, Wisconsin.
Top right: Ringelstetter/Pfeiffer home in Sec13 T9N R3E in Franklin Township.
Bottom: Fastner/Niga home in Johnson Township, Marathon County, Wisconsin.
Attention Genealogists!
Have you backed up your computer files?If the answer is "no" - please do so today. When your computer crashes (and it will eventually), you will lose all your pictures and files. If you have a backup, you can recover those files. Make backups daily. Don't wait until it is too late.
~db
Please sign my Guest Book Contact   Please feel free to download any pictures. However, the pictures on this site have been made smaller. For larger pictures (which are better for printing), contact me. Ruskauff-Freker website,
designed by earlydues in 2002, had a visitor count of 3,263 when the
site was discontinued in April 2010. The reason for closing the
Ruskauff-Freker website was it was too much work to keep it updated. On
March 4, 2006, I began a new site called "Auswanderer - from Bavaria, Bohemia and Bukovina" hosted at Google Pages. In 2008, Google Pages announced it would discontinue their free web page
service. The visitor count was 1,382 when I moved my pages to Google Sites in August 2008.
This "Auswanderer - from Bavaria, Bohemia and Bukovina" website, hosted at Google Sites, was created August 11, 2008. Current visitor count: Website maintained by Debbie Blau | DVD of emigrants from the Waldmuenchen, Bavaria, Germany, area Title: Genealogies of families that immigrated to Sauk County, Wisconsin, from Bavaria, Germany. The collected works of Georg Ederer, Otto Horz, and Hansjörg Schneider. Authors of the DVD: Debra A. Blau and Kenneth L. Kraemer. Year published: 2011 The DVD contains thousands of
digitized pages including pedigrees from the Waldmünchen area prepared
by Georg Ederer, Otto Horz's doctoral
dissertation from 1939, Hansjörg Schneider's emigration works and other nifty research data
sources. For ordering information, see the Old Franklin Township Historical Society website: Order form for residents of USA and Canada: Click here To see a list of surnames and town names that appear on the DVD, see Gary Haas' website: To learn more about the DVD and how to use it, please attend a meeting of the Plain History Genealogy Group in Plain, Wisconsin. The files on the DVD are meant to be used on a computer; it is not a DVD that one can play on a television. Press release (October 2011) . . . . NEW GENEALOGY RESOURCE AVAILABLE FOR SAUK COUNTY FAMILIES Announced by the Old Franklin Township Historical Society in Plain, Wisconsin The Old Franklin Township Historical Society (OFTHS) of Plain announced a new genealogy resource available on DVD, entitled, "Genealogies of Families that Immigrated to Sauk County, Wisconsin from Bavaria, Germany: the collected works of Georg Ederer, Otto Horz, and Hansjoerg Schneider." The works contain information about the ancestors and early settlers of many Plain and Spring Green area families who emigrated from villages in and around the county of Waldmuenchen in Bavaria, Germany. Gene Hausner, Village President of Spring Green, and President of OFTHS, said, "OFTHS is proud to be part of this important project. It will mean a lot to families in Sauk County and elsewhere. Hopefully, it will also bring family history and other local history projects into our schools. We are grateful to the many people who contributed to creating this important community resource." The DVD, containing a large collection of genealogy material, marks the culmination of several years of work by a team of people in the United States and Germany. The centerpiece of the DVD collection are family pedigrees created by Georg Ederer from Waldmuenchen. These pedigrees, also known as family trees, typically cover an entire Bavarian family line, including people born in America. Ederer, who researches in parish archives in Bavaria, Germany, and in the Czech Republic, has been working on family pedigrees for over thirty years. Ederer's work has been indexed and contains over 18,000 entries. The work of scanning these pedigrees was done by Waldmünchen residents, Willi and Christa Senft. Also included is the 1939 doctoral dissertation by Otto Horz at the University of Marburg in Germany. Horz' dissertation on the subject of emigration contains over 300 pages and includes a listing of over 400 individuals which shows the emigrant's name, home town in Germany, and the date and reason for emigration. Horz' work has been indexed and includes over 3,800 entries. Another collection on the DVD is the emigration works of Hansjoerg Schneider, a local historian from Waldmuenchen, Bavaria. Included is an emigration booklet written in 1992, a 98-page research essay which expands on the work of Otto Horz, and a six-page essay about emigrants written in 2010. A miscellaneous section on the DVD includes indexes of cemetery grave markers of the Plain area (including Spring Green and Loreto), and indexes of Joseph Nachreiner's funeral ledgers covering the years 1903 through 1931. These indexes were created by Gary Haas of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A translation of statistics of residents from villages in and around the county of Waldmuenchen in the year 1867 was created by Georg Blau of Hoechstaedt-Donau, Bavaria, Germany. The
idea to produce the DVD came from Ken Kraemer, a native of Plain and
a professor in the business school at the University of California in
Irvine, California. Debbie Blau, a Wisconsin native with ancestral roots in the Plain/Spring Green area, organized the files on the DVD, indexed the Ederer pedigrees, and along with Ken, wrote the introduction booklet. The booklet describes in detail how the project began and includes information on how to use the DVD. The cost of production was paid for by a grant from the Sauk County UW Extension Arts and Culture Committee, and donations from Kraemer Brothers, LLC, Norine F. Kraemer, and Gary Haas. A San Diego company produced the DVDs. To learn more about the DVD and how to use it for your genealogy research, help is available at the Plain History Genealogy Group (PHGG) meetings held at the Kraemer Library in Plain. The meetings, led by Gary Haas, are open to the public, and are held every other month on the second Saturday from 9:30 am to noon. More information about genealogy meetings can be found at the PHGG website: http://garylhaas.site.aplus.net The Old Franklin Township Historical Society is handling the distribution, marketing, and sales of the DVD. For more information you can visit the OFTHS website http://www.townoffranklinhistoricalsociety.com ----------------------------------------------------- DVD available for purchase in Germany The DVD is available for purchase in Germany. If you reside in Europe and wish to purchase the DVD from Germany, please contact the tourist office in Waldmuenchen, Oberpfalz, Bavaria, for further information. ----------------------------------------------------- DVD announcements in newspapers Home News (Spring Green, Wisconsin), September 7, 2011, page 14 Reedsburg Times Press (Reedsburg, Wisconsin), October 15, 2011 Baraboo News Republic (Baraboo, Wisconsin), October 17, 2011 Sauk Prairie Eagle (Wisconsin), October 19, 2011 Reedsburg Independent (Reedsburg, Wisconsin), October 27, 2011 Richland Observer (Richland Center, Wisconsin), October 27, 2011 Home News (Spring Green, Wisconsin), November 2, 2011 Bayerwald Echo (Cham, Bavaria, Germany), December 1, 2011, page 35 Chamer Zeitung (Cham, Bavaria, Germany), December 1, 2011, page 38 Bayerwald Echo (Cham, Bavaria, Germany), December 3, 2011, page 37 Bayerwald Echo (Cham, Bavaria, Germany), December 5, 2011, page 36 Bayerwald Echo (Cham, Bavaria, Germany), December 7, 2011, page 34 Bayerwald Echo (Cham, Bavaria, Germany), December 10, 2011, page 38 Voice of the River Valley (Lone Rock, Wisconsin), December 2011, page 10 Bayerwald Echo (Cham, Bavaria, Germany), December 21, 2011, page 32 ----------------------------------------------------- Radio interviews WRCO AM 1450 & FM 100.9 (Richland Center, Wisconsin), December 13, 2011. Ron Fruit of The Morning Show interviewed Eugene Hausner and Mary Jayne Liegel about the DVD. The 40-minute interview was available for downloading from the WRCO website. ----------------------------------------------------- DVD announced in newsletters PHGG (Plain History Genealogy Group, Plain, Wisconsin), August 2011 issue, page 1. PHGG (Plain History Genealogy Group, Plain, Wisconsin), October 2011 issue, page 1. OFTHS (Old Franklin Township Historical Society, Plain, Wisconsin), December 2011 issue, page 1. DVD donated to historical societies and libraries Sauk County Historical Society (Baraboo, Wisconsin) Wisconsin Historical Society (Madison, Wisconsin). The DVD is non-circulating and can only be viewed at the library. Or, you can request the library to find material on the DVD, they will print the material and mail/email information to you for a fee. Call number F587 S2 B52 2011. Staatsarchiv Amberg, Archivstr. 3, 92224 Amberg Bistumsarchiv der Diözese Regensburg, Bischöfliches Zentralarchiv, St. Petersweg 11-13, 93047 Regensburg Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in Frankfurt , Adickesallee 1, 60322 Frankfurt am Main Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Deutscher Platz 1, 04103 Leipzig Deutsche Zentralstelle für Genealogie in Leipzig, Schongauer Straße 1, 04328 Leipzig Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Ludwigstr. 16, 80539 München Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg, 93042 Regensburg Bayerischer Landesverein für Familienkunde e.V. in Augsburg (86660 Tapfheim-Donaumünster) ---------------------------------------------------- Sales events and demos in Waldmuenchen, Bavaria, Germany November 29, 2011, the DVD was presented at a meeting with the mayor of Waldmuenchen, Markus Ackermann, and the Waldmuenchen tourist office manager, Tanja Lampl. Demonstrating the DVD were Georg Ederer (author of the pedigrees), and Christa and Willi Senft. December 3, 2011, DVDs were offered for sale at the Waldmuenchen Christmas Market. December 12, 2011, a demonstration of the DVD was given by the Senfts to approximately 40 interested people. The meeting was held in the Mehrgenerationenhaus at 7 pm in Waldmuenchen. ---------------------------------------------------- DVD training in Plain, Wisconsin April 28, 2012, 10 am to noon, at the Kraemer Library & Community Center. Sponsored by the Old Franklin Township Historical Society |