Marie Kasten from Friedeberg/Neumark

I began this search with great expectations - I had a full name - Marie Kasten - and a location - Friedeberg in Neumark, a date (April 22nd, 1904) and a hint that she had at least one brother, as this photo was dedicated to her sister-in-law, Gretel.

I found one record on Ancestry for a possible match: Marie Hedwig Kasten was born on January 3rd, 1882, in Friedeberg/Neumark - the same location where the photo studio was located - and she passed away in a hospital in Berlin, Germany, on February 5th, 1962. She was unmarried, and the death record does not list any relatives. And that is where the trail initially ran cold.

But. You know me by now - I love a puzzle. And I couldn't let go so easily. What was Marie's life like during the 80 years she walked this Earth?

I took a closer look at the birthplace of our Marie: Friedeberg/Neumark in Prussia (Strzelce Krajeńskie in today's Poland).

When Marie was born in Friedeberg in January 1882, the town was a small but lively place in the Neumark, then part of the Prussian province of Brandenburg. Around 6,400 people lived there in the 1880s - large enough to have schools, shops, businesses and a railway connection, but still very much a small town where families and neighbours would have known one another. In 1885, Meyer's Gazetteer recorded 6,303 inhabitants. Today, Friedeberg is Strzelce Krajeńskie, in western Poland. The historic town itself has about 10,000 inhabitants.

The 1866 trade directory for Friedeberg lists A. Kasten and H. Kasten, both selling colonial goods in Friedeberg District/Neumark. At the time, “colonial goods” referred to groceries and other imported goods such as coffee, tea, sugar, spices, tobacco, etc. So these were presumably merchants or business owners. This could very well point to a Kasten family of merchants.

I was then able to locate the Friedeberg birth records from the 1880s with the help of AI - and I found Marie's birth record!

Her father was Albert Kasten, a merchant from Friedeberg, and her mother was Adelheid Bertha née Eyshner (or Eyssner?). Curiously, the parents didn't name their daughter when the birth was first registered. Instead, Albert showed up at the Registrar's Office on February 9th to name his daughter Marie Hedwig. I've never seen this in a birth record before.

I wonder if A. Kasten from the 1866 trade directory was the merchant Albert Kasten, Marie's father?

I was now curious if I can find a sibling or two. I could not find any in either the 1881 or the 1883 birth book of Friedeberg. The birth books of 1878–1880 have not been scanned, so perhape the brother was older than Marie. I also wasn't successful when combing through the birth records of Friedeberg from 1884–1886.

But then sadly, I found the death record of one Franz Hermann Kasten, who was our Marie's older brother. He died in October 1915, aged 34, in Stettin in the midst of WWI. He was a Lieutenant in the local regiment and Senior Customs Official. The document does not list his cause of death. And since he was listed as unmarried, he did not have a wife called Gretel.

Franz Hermann's death record reveals another detail about his father, Albert Kasten of Friedeberg/Neumark: his profession is listed as a combination of Kaufmann and Königlicher Lotterie-Einnehmer (a licensed agent for the Prussian state lottery). These were formal, recognized positions rather than simply people selling lottery tickets informally; there was even an organization specifically for Königlich Preußische Lotterie-Einnehmer.

I then looked at Marie's mother's maiden name, Eyssner (or Eyshner). Interestingly, I found a Franziska Marie Hedwig Eyssner who married master butcher Carl Heinrich Kuhbieter in Danzig (today's Gdańsk) in 1877. This could possibly be Marie's aunt, after whom she was named - they both share the first names Marie Hedwig. If that's true, then Marie had cousins around her own age: Pauline, who sadly died in 1900 at the age of 18, and Bruno Heinrich Kuhbieter, born in 1880.

And this is where my search unfortunately ends.

On January 29th, 1945, the Red Army entered Friedeberg. The town was heavily destroyed; around 80% of the buildings were burned. Many German inhabitants had already fled westward as the Soviet Army approached. Others remained in the town after the occupation. From June 1945 onward, the remaining German population was progressively expelled by the Polish authorities. In June 1945, approximately 20,000 Germans still lived in the wider Landkreis Friedeberg, while only a few hundred Polish inhabitants were estimated there at that point. The town was placed under Polish administration and renamed Strzelce in 1945, becoming Strzelce Krajeńskie in 1946. Polish settlers, many themselves displaced from territories annexed by the Soviet Union, gradually replaced the German population.

Marie was 63 years old when WWII ended. I don't know if this was the reason she relocated to Berlin, or if she had come to Berlin earlier. In July 1904, when she was 22 years old, she was still living in Friedeberg.

She apparently never married. There could have been many reasons for that. Women at the time were expected to choose between getting married and giving up any career pursuits, or choosing an occupation but remaining a “spinster”. Perhaps this was also a choice Marie had to make. Perhaps she worked as a teacher or a secretary. Who knows!

I initially thought this was going to be a brief encounter, but this is what I love about genealogy - it took me down another rabbit hole, and I always come out on the other side a little bit wiser.

So thank you, Marie, for telling me about your city and family! Perhaps one day I will be able to return this photo to your family!