I am searching for any information regarding Valentine Peternell of Leoben Austria, born about 1850 (date not confirmed) and married to Maria Berktold b. 1854 in Innsbruck Austria (daughter of Joseph Berktold). Valentine worked in the mines and died/was killed in Austria in 1889, most probably in a mine accident.

Valentine and Maria had several children: Ameila Peternell (married Ignatz Pauschitz), Anton Peternell (married to Anna Muth), Joseph Peternell (died on the Eastland disaster in Chicago IL) , Edward Peternell (married Susan Jourdan), and possibly other children not confirmed.

All the children and the mother came to the United States before 1910.

Searching specifically for parents, siblings etc.

Hello Carole,

some of the names you mention could've become distorted during transcription and/or americanization.

Valentine in Austria was/is a female first name, his name probably was Valentin (quite common).

Berktold (to my surprise) is a common Austrian surname still today, frequently in Tyrol (and therefore also Innsbruck). More common btw is Berchtold, which could get changed into Berktold by way of a phonetical transription. But you better stick with Berktold first which might indeed be the original name.

For Valentin(e) Peternell's family I would email the diocesan archives in Graz, that hold duplicates of the parish records starting with about 1835.

Dr. Norbert Allmer
archiv@kath-kirche-graz.at

The Tyrolian churchbook records are kept on microfilm at the Tyrol Provincial Archives. Problem with Innsbruck could be - there are/were several different parishes, and I have no idea how the materials are ordered, indexed etc.

You may want to email them at landesarchiv@tirol.gv.at and ask how you may gain access to your data. Either they'll have a look themselves and copy the records you need, or they can specify a local genealogist who does such research.


Hope this helps
Tilman

Thank you for your information. This will be a valuable start to my Austrian research. As for the name Valentine - I believe you are correct in the Americanization of the spelling.

Do you have a working email address? If so, please email me. Thank you again.

Hello Carole,

>Thank you for your information. This will be a valuable start to my Austrian research. As for the name Valentine - I believe you are correct in the Americanization of the spelling. <

You're welcome.

As to the email address, I'll email you. But it's easy to find out on the messageboard too: Simply click at the underlined name after "Author:" in any of my postings. This will show my address like that of anybody else posting here. Sometimes this text-picture can be difficult to read, it'll normally help then to refresh the page (inside Internet-Explorer: press F5 ).

Regards
Tilman

Contact the church or Burgermeister in Berwang Tirol Austria, all of us BERKTOLDS originated in Berwang. I was there in 1975 and found all kinds of Berktolds

Good Luck Maximilian Berktold