Months ago I posted a dilemma concerning my earliest Wiser immigrant to Texas. Records and census images show the spelling of Hannah's four young sons to be WISER. Her maiden name has yet to be discovered. This 2nd Great-Grandmother remarried an aging San Jacinto veteran (GO TEXAS!) in 1853, and the handwriting on the marriage license indicates, oh, take a look for yourself, is it WOSTA or WOSTE or what-the?
http://treepig.posthaven.com/1853-marriage-of-hannah-wosta-to-samuel-leeper
Look on the left-hand sidebar where the Galveston Court Clerk wrote "Leeper" and "Wosta?" See it? Many descendants have scratched their heads at this handwriting thankfully recorded for posterity. And many a researcher has run variations of Wosta through databases looking for immigration records, ship notes, earlier census records, etc.
Phoey, it raises more questions than answers. Is Hannah's name on this marriage certificate that of her last husband or her maiden name? And could it be that our last name is NOT "Wiser" but another name? BTW, when you boarded a ship in Bremen or Hamburg long ago (in what later became Germany) you could not do so by just paying cash. You had to show papers validating your full name and residence. Captains were required to keep logs. Thousands of these logs are preserved. Many died when crossing the Atlantic. Their deaths were recorded, too. Both the originals and transcriptions of these records are available. And many cities' newspapers published the names of the first class arrivals. MORE: http://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/passenger-arrival.html
WHICH BRINGS ME TO TODAY: A wonderful new database is available of World War I prisoners of war. Two of Hannah's Texas grandsons fought in France and Germany in 1918. I've long found it curious that two sons of a native German immigrant fought "the Huns" in a war that was to end all wars. Did they know much about their dad's ancestry? Surely it crossed their minds that they might engage in hand to hand combat in a muddy trench with a cousin or two, no? If I ever asked Grandpa this, I've since forgotten his response. And goodness knows he LOVED to talk about his time in the War. Do you know more from conversations with Elton?
http://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/ Prisoners Of The First World War
I ran a few surnames. Found several Wisers in the German Army. Found several of my husband's surnames in the French Army (let the teasing begin). But this result below REALLY interested me. Of all the combinations of WOSTE I've not thought of or seen this spelling: Woster. Do you see the similarity to the handwriting on the 1853 document? Click on both pictures:
I shall now be on the alert for all things WOSTER.