My last name is German: Koch. So, it’s been fun for everyone to mispronounce. I typically spell it if I pick up orders or have to verify my identity. Koch is translated to Cook in English- so it’s ironic that I love to cook. I know the Koch brothers and Ed Koch tend to pronounce the last name as Kotch, but my family goes by Cook.

I’ve known for a long time that I’m pretty German on both sides, but I didn’t know from where in Germany. So for this month I paid for the big subscription to Ancestry.com to access Global records and here’s my findings:

My German ancestors

My Paternal Great-Great- Great Grandmother (Raabe) was born in Aschersleben, Germany and arrived in the US when she was 35 in 1876.

My Paternal Great- Great- Great Grandfather (Koch) was born in Gerbstedt, Germany and arrived in the US in 1876 when he was 34.

I’m familiar with performing genealogy research and have been trained a bit on it for my profession. However, doing my own research reveals some challenges.

1. The census is great for research but the handwritten answers tend to through off results. There could be a myriad of reasons why. Handwriting being misread by transcriber. Handwriting being misread by transcription software. (ie Koch showing up as Hach with the census taker’s cursive)The census taker mishearing thick German accents (Koch showing up as Kott) Or purposely hiding German roots in a publication (Koch published as Kosh in a newspaper obituary)
2. Also Germany is a new country for modern times. My family came over in 1876 but Germany wasn’t modern Germany until 1871. So on different censuses my family is either from Germany or Prussia, as their town was in the Prussian Province in 1815.
3. I don’t speak or read German, so I really have to rely on the translations on the documents as well as matching birth dates and names to figure out if the person is my relative.