Looking for someone who reads German
 

I am of German descent and I've recently acquired a wooden food chest that my great-great-grandfather brought from Germany to Chicago in 1856. The wooden chest has hand writing in paint on the front which reads "Dietrich ????? aus Beckedorf uber New York nach Schicago Speise Kiste" . We suspect the translation for this is "Dietrich ??? from Beckedorf by way of New York to Chicago - Food Chest" But the paint is fading and there is one word we can not read or figure out what it means. I wonder if there are someone on the TOTV forum than can help me translate. I can send a photo of the words on the chest, including the word we can not identify.

You can use google translate, just google "translate from german to english" and type in any german wording

aus Beckedorf uber New York nach Schicago Speise Kiste translates as


from Beckedorf over New York to Chicago food box

the word you cannot Identify I would guess is a last name

German
 

My wife is recovering but she may do it. Also on the net you can do a search with yahoo,,,,,,,,,,,,, NOT GOOGLE and search under translations and do it that way. Email us
tedfloren35@yahoo.com :bigbow:

I've tried using Google Translate, but I can't figure out what the word is in order to type it in for the translation. It was hand painted, I assume by my great-great-grandfather - almost like a luggage tag by today's standard. And the paint is fading, so it makes it even more difficult. And since it was hand lettered in 1854, we've even looked at google "old german" writing style to try and figure out what the letters are. Once I know that, then using Google to translate will be easy.

...

Dieterich is the persons name you have the rest correct.

I guess I wasn't clear in my original post. There is a word between "Dietrich and "aus" that I can't decipher. I can decipher and translate all the rest of the writing, but not that one word. Since the words are hand written in paint, I've even looked at old German writing styles but still can't figure out what the letters are. I've taken a photo of the mystery word, but can't figure out how to attach a photograph to this post. (If anyone can help me with that process, I'll add the photo of the word and see if anyone can help.) One of the problems is that the paint is starting to fade (after 162 years I'm not surprised) so it is very difficult to determine what the letters are in the mystery word. I can email the photo of the mystery word to anyone who wants to try to solve this.

SIRE1,
When you get ready to take photos, try different lighting, LED, florescent, and ultraviolet for example, you might be surprised what shows up. I have 2 UV lights if you want to try these. Infrared might also be useful. Cell phone cameras tend to be wider range then typical cameras, I had one that actually worked well as a night scope (infrared) capability. Also, colored lights might prove to be useful to "see" the old paint. You might check with the photography club to see if someone has equipment to do this.
Hope this helps.

I speak and read fluent German. Take a pic and text it to me. I will see if I can decipher it. Or PM me your email address and we can go from there...
Rae 920-265-8425

Sent from my SM-N920R4 using Tapatalk

That sounds logical to me. That the missing word would be the last name. Kind of an old luggage tag.

Missypie is fluent in German also. She just said your interpretation is correct. The second word is probably the person's last name.

That is what I thought, but the letters don't look anything like our family's last name. Not even close. And I have a copy of my family's family tree going back to the 1600's and the spelling isn't close to what is written on the box. I'll try to attach a photo of the box and the mystery word which is on the top line between "Diedrich" and "aus".

To all of you who have responded to my post, I say thank you. I just received an email from Fraugoofy with a translation of the mystery word - HAKK. Our last name is spelled HAAKE, but the german pronunciation is more like Hack. That makes sense. We couldn't imagine the chest would only be identified by a first name only. And come to think about it, we don't know if our relative actually wrote the info on the chest or if someone else might have written it when they boarded the ship. So they might have spelled it like it was pronounced. So thanks to all on the forum. You've solved a mystery.

Hak Name Meaning, Family History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms, German

That's good that you got the help and solved the mystery.