My great aunt Elaine (nee Kaski) had been married to Albert Rothbauer, bearing two children from the marriage. In adding brief pieces of lineage related to the former Albert Rothbauer, I also came across the Petition for Naturalization of Jan (americanized as John) Rothbauer, Albert's father.
I share some of the most interesting tidbits of my research here.
In the screenshot of the petition below, you will note that the place of birth is listed as something like "Kerselderf, Austria, now Poland". Keying that in to my genealogy application, no such location could be found. Google was also not helpful.
So I went back to what I originally had for John Rothbauer's place of birth, Klimiec, Galicia, Austria. I also had trouble locating that specific location, but I could find some history of Galicia. Thank you Wikipedia.
Here's a quick snippet.
From Wikipedia about Galicia
Galicia (/ɡəˈlɪʃ(i)ə/) (Ukrainian: Галичина, romanized: Halychyna [ɦɐlɪtʃɪnˈɑ]; Polish: Galicja; Yiddish: גאַליציע) is a historical and geographic region spanning what is now southeastern Poland and western Ukraine, long part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It covers much of the other historic regions of Red Ruthenia (centered on Lviv) and Lesser Poland (centered on Kraków).
The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, also known as Austrian Galicia or colloquially Austrian Poland, was a constituent possession of the Habsburg monarchy in the historical region of Galicia in Eastern Europe. The crownland was established in 1772. The lands were annexed from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as part of the First Partition of Poland. It maintained a degree of provincial autonomy. Its status remained unchanged until the dissolution of the monarchy in 1918.
[In 1774, Austrian] Empress Maria Theresa issued a settlement patent to encourage immigration to the sparsely settled region. Her successor Emperor Joseph II issued a second patent in 1781 and added a Toleranzpatent promising religious toleration for Protestants. Germans from the Palatinate (Pfalz), Wurttemberg, and Bohemia responded, as did Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and others. Galicia was annexed to Poland in 1918. In 1939, it was divided between the Provisional Government of Warsaw and Ukraine, a division drawn with the modern geographical boundaries of Poland and Ukraine.
And so, I was now surprised to realize that my quest to find a birth location in Austria was not correct, and instead the Rothbauer family came from modern day Poland or Lithuania. Fascinating! I always thought Rothbauer was an Austrian-German name, so I never thought of looking beyond those borders.
And now to find either Kerselderf or Klimiec.
Using the site above, I can locate Klimiec, but not the other. The closest I could find to Kerselderf would be Karlsdorf; a bit of a stretch it seems, but phonetically, it's fairly close.
Looking at the two locations side-by-side, you can see that they are part of the same districts and religious centers. Using Skole and Stryj, I was finally able to find both towns, and they are right next to each other.
And with some digging, I was able to find that Klimiec/Karlsdorf is now named Klymets, which is located in modern day Ukraine in the Carpathian mountains.
Klymets (Ukrainian: Климе́ць, Polish: Klimiec) is a selo (village) in Stryi Raion, Lviv Oblast, of western Ukraine. The first written record indicates that the date of foundation is considered to be 1565.
There is other information: the village was established by German colonialists, which in Austrian times founded a colony Karlsdorf (German for Karl's village). The colony existed before the Second World War.
Przemyśl Lands, including Skole District mercilessly suffered from attacks that have been from Tatar-Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' at this time. The massive flight of peasants was observed at the beginning of the 18th century.
At the beginning of the 18th century, during the Austrian Empire (since 1867 Austria-Hungary), Skole District and other regions of the Austrian-held Carpathians began to colonize German craftsmen (see Galician Germans). This led to the development of industry and trade in land.
And so, with a little hunting and pecking, the mystery is solved = Klimiec & Karlsdorf are both essentially the same place, which is now named Klymets.
