Major Rathbone's accomodation in Hannover

[Eva Elisabeth]

(06-16-2013 10:53 PM)chrishunter Wrote:  So how did this mistake get into the record?

Chris, it obviously didn't get into the record and I stated this in post #36.
To find out about the Major's position, I first contacted two archives, both in charge of preserving the city's historic documents, by email. The information I shared in the first post refering to this (post#31) was the exact and entire reply by email from the "Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv", but they did not refer to documents. (Nevertheless, at that point of time I had no reason to doubt this statement's credibility, so I shared it.) The "Stadtarchiv Hannover" replied they generally filed assignments but I would have to come myself for specific research or to copy documents. So I did, and afterwards doubted my first statement myself:

(06-05-2013 01:48 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  It remains strange that in none of the documents Rathbone is referred to as a consul, but always as a retired Major. The archive had a register for consuls assigned but the documents of 1881+1882 were missing.The only confirmation he should have held this position was in an email from the State Archive of the State of Lower Saxony (“Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv”), but it’s like with the creation of secret service on April 14, by now no documents came up to prove.

After returning from Hannover I emailed the "Niedersãchsisches Landesarchiv" again, casting my doubts on their former statement and asking for documented evidence. By now I just got the formal answer they will double-check.

I'm neither a professional historian nor had ever done anything similar before. I shared the outcome in the order I came to it myself and I'm generally careful with statemens and judgements and try to prove them by facts and evidence as far as possible. Still I learned a lot, espechially from the research in Hannover. I didn't doubt the first email due to the assumption the archivists were the experts.
If there are any further doubts or questions, please tell, I'll be pleased to comment as far as I can. About the other outcome regarding the air raid and the handling of the remains I'd like to add: I commented and reasoned the consequences of the air raid in detail, but this is also documented in an official brochure published by the cemetery administration. The Rathbones definitely had been buried in plot 30D16 and this is definitely the one I photographed, as I reasoned in detail, too. The way of dealing with the remains is "just" a (written) statement by the cemetery administration, too, but here IMO the credibility is a much different one and most likely given compared to the "consul issue", it is their daily and only business and they practise it day by day. I also asked two gardeners, one of them has been working there for over 30 years and they didn't know of any other handling.