Guild of One-Name Studies Webinar – May 2024

Image from Who Do You Think You Are Magazine, May 2024 Issue.

The lovely people @wdytyamagazine highlighted the Guild of One-Name Studies May 2024 webinar Where there is a will, there is a lawyer.

 The webinar will be recorded and available for a week after the event. The webinar is FREE to attend, but registration is essential. https://one-name.org/solicitorrecords/Please feel free to share the above details.

General Taddeo Orlando (1885-1950) Italian Corps Liberation – IWM Photo

ITALIAN MINISTER OF WAR VISITS ITALIAN CORPS OF LIBERATION (NA 14613) Original wartime caption: General Orlando salutes the flags of the infantry and artillery, paraded in front of the presentation platform. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205529288

Success of the Orlando search earlier this month, which I wrote here. I did another search of the Imperial War Museum material, to see if there were any other instances of the ORLANDO surname for my One-Name Study, I was not disappointed.

This image, is quite small considering the size of the card it is mounted on, nonetheless, it identifies General Orlando saluting the flag of the Italian infantry and artillery who were in front of the platform.

Here is the timeline of his Italian Military Service:

Taddeo Orlando was born in Gaeta, a city in the  province of Latina, in Lazio, Southern Italy on 23 June 1885. He died in Rome on 1 September 1950.

• 1899 November 1 – A student of the Military College of Naples 
• 1903 September 30 – A student of the Military Academy.
• 1906 July 29 – Appointed Second Lieutenant of Artillery
• 1908 – Received rank of Lieutenant in the 3rd Fortress Artillery Regiment, and subsequently assigned to the 10th Regiment and saw action in the Italian-Turkish War, which took place between 29 September 1911 and 18 October 1912.
• Orlando was promoted to the rank of Captain and saw military service in the First World War. He obtained the rank of Major with command roles in the Artillery. He was then transferred to the General Staff Corps.
• 1918 – Having been transferred to the General Staff Corp, he obtained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel following promotion.
• 1930 November 20 – Promoted to the rank of Colonel he was posted to Tripolitania (Libya)
• 1937 – Promoted to the rank of Brigadier General and remained in Libya.
• 1938 – Assigned to the General Staff position.
• 1940 March 1 – Appointed to the Commander of the “Granatieri di Sardegna” Infantry Division
• 1941 May 31 – Orlando was promoted to General of Division and saw military service in the Second World War.
• 1943 April 15 – appointed General of the Army Corps for war merit, with the role of Commander of the XX Army Corps 
• 1944 June 18 – Minister of War.
• 1944 July 21 – Appointed General Commander of the Royal Carabinieri, a post he held until 6 March 1945
• 1947 November 30 –  General Secretary for the Ministry of Defence – Army, a post he held until 20 September 1948

He received a number of military medals and honours:

• Officer’s Cross of the Order Military of Savoy which was the highest honour awarded to him 
• Silver Medal
• Bronze Medals x2 for Military Valour

The IWM image is used here under non-commercial-licence  https://www.iwm.org.uk/corporate/policies/non-commercial-licence and the direct link to the photograph is https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205529288

European Ancestors – Migration into, and out of Prussia (6)

Coat of arms of Royal Prussia. From 1772 coat of arms of West Prussia – Source Wikipedia

Not all Germans who had made their home in the newly acquired land fled into the central area of Germany. Some hoped that having land annexed to Soviet Lithuania would mean that Lithuanians would be safe. Alas, Stalin Russia did not distinguish between Germans and Lithuanians, with Stalin taking this view on the back of Lithuanian males serving with the German military. The reality was this was not a choice.

In the latter part of 1944 and the early part of 1945 there was a significant number of beggars from East Prussia in the western part of Soviet Lithuania, comprised of mainly women, children and the elderly.

Many spoke Lithuanian, but some only had a limited knowledge of the language, that was further impinged by the Russian government forbidding citizens to help, though some did. The Soviets rounded up adults which were then deported to Germany or Siberia where the majority died. Women left their children to be raised by Lithuanian families. As time has marched on, those children have grown into adulthood and are now just beginning to exploring their ancestry.

The authorities in Russia populated East Prussia with Russians, especially those from Smolensk, Voronezh and a few other locations. By December 1946 some 12,000 families had relocated and by 1988 that number had risen to 800,000 people who were mainly Russian.

The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia, published in 1953 stated that East Prussia had been a Russian or Slavic land which was inaccurate. The authorities amended the names of places, making Prussian names more Russian – Cities, Towns, Villages were frequently named after Bolshevik leaders, military personnel, even Czarist generals. Going a step further, the names of rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, swamps, marshes, seas and oceans was also changed.

Lithuanian place names, which had been Germanised, initially partially, and only completely in 1938, were now Russified. None of the old Lithuania, or the very least Baltic names were left unchanged. Cultural heritage was ignored, meaning that records relating to citizens who had lived in this region for centuries was destroyed.

Incidentally, Poland partially followed suit, by changing some of the Lithuanian or Baltic names in the Polish part of what was East Prussia.

European Ancestors – Migration into, and out of Prussia (5)

Coat of arms of Royal Prussia. From 1772 coat of arms of West Prussia – Source Wikipedia

In the last post I mentioned the Potsdam Agreement. This was an incredibly important element to the planning of post war Europe. As we have seen over recent days, the movement of people, plans of nations and restitution of countries has not been linear.

The Potsdam Agreement was the last of a series of three conferences that took place in the final two years of the war. We are going to look in more detail in a forthcoming post series, but this post will focus on this specific agreement.

The Potsdam Agreement specified that:

1. Redefined the borders of Central Europe
   1. approved the expulsion of ethnic Germans from the territories that had been taken over as German and would now be transferred to:
      1. Poland
      2. Russia
      3. Czechoslovakia
2. Approval of German Civilians that enabled them to be sent to:
   1. 1. internment and labour camps in Eastern Europe and
      2. used as forced labour as part of German repatriations to Countries in Eastern Europe

These expulsions were completed in 1950 when it was established that the total of people with German ancestry still living in central and Eastern Europe ranged from 700,000 to 2.7 million.

European Ancestors – Migration into, and out of Prussia (4)

Coat of arms of Royal Prussia. From 1772 coat of arms of West Prussia – Source Wikipedia

Today we are going to take a step back and explain how there were so many Germans in the area in the lead up to 1944.

The Nazi’s had made partial plans in terms of the occupation of the region, and by the time of the Nazi defeat in 1945, those partial plans had only been partially undertaken.

The plan was to remove all Jews and Slavic people from east Europe and settle with Germans. The death toll as a result of these population shifts is tricky to calculate, and is likely to be somewhere between 500,000 to 2.5 million.

There were three phases of these removals, all of which overlaps:

1. The organised evacuation of ethnic Germans by the Nazi’s from mid 1944 until early 1945 as the Red Army was advancing west.
2. The disorganised fleeing of ethnic Germans following the defeat of the Wehrmacht
3. The organised expulsion following the Potsdam Agreement, among the British Government, the United States and Russia.

The number of Germans that had left the area by 1950 varies –

• Russia indicated that 12 million Germans had fled or were expelled, whilst
• West Germany estimated that the figure was about 14.6 million which included
  • about a million ethnic Germans who had settled in territories claimed by Nazi Germany during the war.
  • Also included in that number was children born to expelled parents, with the largest number from eastern territories of Germany that were ceded to the Peoples Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union which totalled about 7 million
  • A further three million from Czechoslovakia
  • Included were those from the Free City of Danzig whose German inhabitants had been forcibly deported
  • Those from the Second Polish Republic which existed between 7 October 1918 – 6 October 1939
  • Those from Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

European Ancestors – Migration into, and out of Prussia (3)

Coat of arms of Royal Prussia. From 1772 coat of arms of West Prussia – Source Wikipedia

The Klaipeda region was a mandated territory of the League of Nations in 1920 as laid out in the Treaty of Versailles and was  unified with Lithuania during the period of 1923-1939.

Between 1944 and 1948 there was a steady move to expel all Germans from central and eastern Europe into Germany and Austria, both of which was under the control of the allied forces at this time.

The term German defined as:

• Ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche)
• German Citizens (Reichsdeutsche)

Since 1945 a small area of Lithuania Minor has been retained in the border of Lithuania and Poland, with the majority of the territory being part of the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, which became part of the Soviet Union until December 1991.

 

European Ancestors – Migration into, and out of Prussia (2)

Coat of arms of Royal Prussia. From 1772 coat of arms of West Prussia – Source Wikipedia

Where is Lithuania Minor?

It is a historical ethnographical region of Prussia. The name acquired due to the majority of the population in the region speaking Lithuanian.

Until 1945 the land was part of Prussia which was held, at various times under Sovereignty of:

• Kingdom of Poland
• Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
• Germany

Today, the area is located in Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia.

European Ancestors – Migration into, and out of Prussia (1)

Coat of arms of Royal Prussia. From 1772 coat of arms of West Prussia – Source Wikipedia

After the last significant plague epidemic that took place in East Prussia in 1709-10, and following religious disturbances in south west Germany, Austria, and France, King Fredrick I devised a way to attract Lutheran settlers to the region. Many accepted his offer, but where did they settle?

1. The majority of the French, with a Huguenot background settled in the Gumbinnen-Judtschen area.
2. The German speaking protestant refugees expelled from Salzburg in a series of waves, ending in 1731 settled in Lithuanian Minor, in the Kingdom of Prussia.
3. The remaining Salzburg Protestants scattered to other protestant states across Europe and the British colonies in America – (Georgia Colony, which became known as Ebenezer). 

In 1732 the Archbishop of Salzburg expelled 16,000 protestants who had been practicing their religious practices in secret. A group of 25 miners and peasants from the Gastein Valley emigrated to the British colony of Georgia in the American colonies, arriving at Savannah in 1734. This group of migrants started the first community and consequently were given the broad term of “Austrians”. 

Two more groups, totalling about 150 people arrived in the area, settling in Georgia, whilst a larger group, of about 16,000 settled in East Prussia.

Jack Orlando in WAAF Volunteer Medical Service Photo – Imperial War Museum

W.A.A.F. VOLUNTEER MEDICAL SERVICE (CH 14195) Original wartime caption: For story see CH.14194 Picture (issued 1944) shows – 20 year old Joyce Beresford, a clerk of 24 Spenser Road, herne Hill, London and Flight Officer Eva Robson of The Vicarage, Spittal, Berwick- on-Tweed, helping Sergeant Jack Orlando to compose a telegram to his home in the United States. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205453504

I came across this photograph on the Imperial War Museum website having done a search for the key word of Orlando for my One-Name Study. To be honest, I did not expect any results, and therefore I was happily surprised to see this.

From a genealogical perspective there is little data to here, but a photograph is an excellent addition to the study. I hopefully will, with some patience and perseverance, establish who Sergeant Jack Orlando was, whereabout his family was located in the United States, and what happened to him after 1944.

The image is used here under non-commercial-licence https://www.iwm.org.uk/corporate/policies/non-commercial-licence and the direct link to the photograph is https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205453504.

Liddiard Family Gathering

I promised Karen who runs the Liddiard One-Name Study that I would share news of the 2024 Liddiard gathering. I wrote a similar post on the Guild of One-Name Studies website a couple of days ago. 

Liddiard Family Gathering 20-22 September 2024

The Liddiard study has several webinars available on the Guild website – these are still available to the public:

Courtesy of Karen Rogers

First is this presentation which shines the spotlight on the study, with its whopping 27 surname variants!

Here is the original post that I wrote, which contains some links relating to earlier gatherings.

Courtesy of Karen Rogers

The second presentation focuses on a specific collection of material, the Strat Liddiard Papers, which focuses on the family from about 1880 until 1960 and comprises of material from three generations.

There will be two gatherings for 2024, the first in Wiltshire (you can download the flyer HERE) on 20-22 September 2024. The second gathering will be in Salt Lake City, Utah on 27-28 September 2024.

As luck would have it, Karen will be presenting a webinar to the Guild of One-Name Studies in July about organising the gatherings, and registration will be opening shortly (pop back to this page as I will be adding the link here).