On 17 Oct 1993 c.du...@GENIE.GEIS.COM posted the following query:

The place referred to is _probably_ D-17398 [formerly O-2141]
L"owitz, a village and former estate (1930 population:  134 in the
village, 134 on the estate), in the county [<<Kreis>>] of Anklam,
in the Prussian province of Pomerania.  It is 24 km south of
Anklam, midway between trunk roads [<<Bundesstrassen>>] 197 and
109.

You should be able to verify this identification by checking the
passenger lists of the vessel on which Christian and his family
arrived in the United States.  Christian Witt, aged 37 years,
coachman, his wife Sophie, aged 38 years, and their children, Maria
(9 years), Bernhard (7 years), August (5 years), Hermann (11
months), and Auguste (1 month), arrived in New York in July 1872
(passenger arrival list dated 13 July 1872) on board the
<<Vandalia>>, out of Hamburg via Havre [Ira A. Glazier and P.
William Filby, ed., _Germans to America_;  Lists of Passengers
Arriving at U.S. Ports, 27 (Wilmington, Delaware:  Scholarly
Resources, 1992), 375].  The New York passenger _arrival_ list, at
least as published, states only that the family came from Germany.
However, the Hamburg passenger _departure_ list for the
<<Vandalia>> should give the family's place of last residence.  The
Family History Library in Salt Lake City has microfilm copies of
the Hamburg passenger departure lists, and you can borrow copies of
these microfilms through any LDS (Mormon) Family History Center.

If the Hamburg passenger departure lists confirm that Christian and
his family did indeed originate in L"owitz, you can then proceed to
obtain extracts concerning the family from the appropriate church
baptismal, marriage, and burial registers.  Although there is a
Protestant church in L"owitz the baptisms, marriages, and burials
are all entered in the registers of the church in the neighboring
village of Rathebur;  these registers begin in 1645 (baptisms) /
1688 (marriages and burials).  The Rathebur registers have not been
microfilmed, so to obtain information from the registers it shall
be necessary for you to contact the church directly, at the
following address:

     Ev. Luth. Pfarramt
     Dorfstrasse 36
     D-17398 Rathebur
     Germany

Your letter should be in German.  If you do not know German you can
obtain a suitable German form letter from the

     German Genealogical Society of America
     P.O. Box 291818
     Los Angeles, CA 90029

Please enclose with your letter at least _4_ International Reply
Coupons (available at any U.S. Post Office for 95  each) to cover
the cost of return postage, as well as a copy, preferably on
ancestral charts, of all the information you already have on
Christian and Sophia and their family.  Many German ministers
actively oppose the activities of the Mormons, so if you use
ancestral charts published by the LDS, or printed in Utah, please
be certain to "white out" this information on your "masters" before
you copy them to send to Germany.

Although L"owitz was apparently a large estate, I do not know to
whom it belonged in the 19th century.  However, if Christian and
his family did originate in L"owitz, you can obtain the name of the
family that owned the estate from the German state archive for the
region, the

     Vorpommersches Landesarchiv Greifswald
     Martin-Andersen-Nexoe-Platz 1
     D-17489 Greifswald
     Germany

You can write to the <<Landesarchiv>> in English, but please
remember to enclose at least 4 International Reply Coupons to cover
the cost of return postage.

Michael Palmer

=================================================================
Beatrice M. Beck        Michael P. Palmer, Research Director
1028 Oxford Ave.        German Genealogical Society of America
Claremont, CA 91711     P.O. Box 765
Tel:  909-621-1692      Claremont, CA 91711
                        Tel:  909-626-1362

              Internet:  be...@cgsvax.claremont.edu
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