Your Surname

Your Surname

Y

Our immigrant ancestor was born on 00 Month Year in Hesse, Germany. He was married to Margaretha Schmidt on 00 Month Year at the Blank Church in Anywhere, Germany.

The Schmidt’s immigrated to the United States with their three children. They emigrated from the port of Hamburg, Germany and arrived in New Orleans on 00 Month Year on the ship, “Yahoo.”[1]

So, here are the instructions for creating your immigrant ancestor story for this type of layout. First, I opened up Word and created a new document. Second, select from the tab, Page Layout, Columns, and then two.

I like some kind of a header, but decided to create my own. So, I did Google Images and searched for a graphic of the Germany Flag and the United States Flag.

Download them to a file, like your download file or perhaps create a new file called Immigrant Stories or Germans in St. Louis.

Now, go to the insert tab and click on the picture icon. On the left hand side, scroll down until you find the file where you put the flag images. Open it and then click on the image and click insert. When it appears on your Word Document, you will need to resize it from one of the corners to make it smaller. Now put your curser next to the bottom right corner of the flag and hit the space bar a couple of times. Now, repeat this for the U.S. Flag image.

You are ready to type in the German Fraktur type font now. So, go to the type font selection bar and click on Fraktur. Type the name in about 18 point type, or what looks like a good title size. Highlight the name and then click on the underline tab.

Now, change the type face to Times Roman and retype the name again in the same size as the Fraktur.

OK, ready, set, go……… begin typing your ancestor’s immigrant story experience. You are just typing the facts, preferably in chronological order. So you will have a paragraph about immigrating, then a paragraph about the places where they lived. Perhaps, if there is enough information about the church, you could have a paragraph about the church. You will also want to talk about the occupation and where they worked.

Be sure to have all your research copies and notes with you, because you will be re-reading all of it for the details.

Footnotes can either be done as you go along, or after you get all your ideas written down. So, after the sentence about arriving on the Yahoo Ship, click on the Reference tab, then the Insert Footnote tab.[2] Type in the name of the Source, then return the curser to where you left off writing.

Now, you want to insert an image or photograph of your ancestor. Click on the Insert tab, then Picture, now locate where the file is for your photo and click on it, then click insert. Resize the photo to fit within the column.

Figure 1 Anna Elizabeth, Anna Marie, & Heinrich Robert Bohler

Click on the References tab and click on Insert Caption. Type in the photo description and click OK.

What worked for me was to just get the entire story written up first. Then go back and add in the photos where you want them. Sometimes you have to play around with where you want the photos to go.

If you feel it is necessary to add a personal comment, then change the type face to Italic. I did this when I had a theory about a residence change due to the 1896 Great Cyclone Tornado.

At the end of the story, if space allows, be sure to include:

Written by Bertha Schmidt, great granddaughter, 2014.

And, if there is still a little bit more space left, include what you are still searching for, like I did in my Schneider story.

I hope this helps. Let me know what parts are confusing.

Jan Wenk

[1] Ship Passenger List, on Ancestry

[2] You Name It Source