Thread: Help finding cities in Odessa region--PLEASE?

Hi!

I am researching my genealogy, and am having troubles finding some towns in or near the Odessa region of Ukraine. I have the names as given to me by my late grandmother's notes on her family. They are:

Cassel (Kassel),
Neudorf,
Funthal/Fonthal...
and they all seem to be in an area called Glueckstal (which I believe had many Germans living there).

These are the names they had in the late 1800's, so I am at a loss, finding them. Any help ANYBODY could give me would be highly appreciated!

Please either reply here, or email me at touchofblue@msn.com.

Many thanks,
B N Berry

BTW - The family last name was GRAMM; if anyone happens to know any Gramms from that area, I'd REALLY love to correspond. Thanks again.

Here I found an intersting website:

http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/hist ... index.html

Neudorf = Karmanovo (Moldova) http://www.glueckstal.org/id29.htm
Type "Karmanovo, Moldova" in Google Earth (download at google.com) and you can get a satellite view of the area (high resolution too!)


Kassel = Veliko-Komarovka (Ukraine) - http://nona.net/features/map/placedetai ... komarivka/ - type "velikoploskoye, ukraine" in Google Earth, then follow the road north and you see the first settlement (it isn't marked in Google Earth, sorry) that is it.

Funthal/Fonthal - from this website: http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.ex ... =&S=&P=425

""Funthal" is FONTAL, either Gross- or Klein-. These villages are located a
short distance north of Kotowsk [Kotovs'k] aka Birsula [Birzula] in the
Odessa Oblast. On today's Ukrainian maps they would be shown phonetically[not in Cyrillic] as Mal. Fontan or Vel. Fontan"

Strange, because Birzula is quite north in Ukraine, while Malyy Fontan I found south of Odessa in most other websites. Even photographs of the beach there! So type in "Malyy Fontan, Ukraine" in Google Earth, but you can't really see anything of it... but at least you know where it is. "Velikiy Fontan, Ukraine" is north of Birzula however, so I guess the villages are separated somehow. But then again, Google Earth might be wrong...

Interesting fact: Anna Akhamatova was born in Bolshoy Fontan!!! (bolshoy = velikiy I am guessing)

Anyway, I managed to do all this with no special knowledge about the Ukraine, I just used the internet!

Thank you for your help! I've been fighting with other internet sites to find those towns/villages...and obviously to no avail. Sometimes other eyes are needed to see what's right in front of you!

Thank you, again!

"Blue"