This is a set of documents obtained by Robert and Lorraine vom Saal while they were traveling in Germany in May and June of 2008. They are copies of various documents, obtained with the generous help of Rolf Becker, the town historian for Gau-Heppenheim. The documents are all in German. They are contained in two pdf files:

2008 documents Part 1
2008 documents Part 2
NOTE: These are quite large files and may take some time to open.

This album contains 29 scans or photographs of documents we believe were gathered in Germany in the late 1800's by a person hired by Dr. F. C. von Heppenheim vom Saal. The documents shown in this album are all ones that have church seals on them. Dates on the documents are in the 1700's and 1800's. We believe they may be copies of church records, certified by the appropriate church seal.

Also see the translation of these records and some observations and conclusions based on the translations.

Album contains:
- large thumbnails with annotations
- links to a high resolution photo of each document that is typically 3060 x 4204 pixels.
- links available for translations when and if we get them.

Album posted 1/15/2009

Revision of the above album to use high resolution files that are smaller and will download faster. Height and width of each original high resolution files were reduced 50%.

[Technical note: Photo dimensions of the full size photos in the album above were mostly 8-1/2" by 11" letter size at 360 ppi = 3060 x 4204 pixels; reduced size photos in this album are mostly 1530 x 2102 pixels. File sizes of the full size photos in the album above were typically 3,300 KB to 3,800 KB, and in the reduced album typically 1,000 KB to 1,217 KB. The reduced size photos typically had file sizes 32%-34% of the originals. File sizes do not come out to be exactly 25% of originals because the JPG file compression is less efficient with smaller file sizes.]

Album contains:
- large thumbnails with annotations
- links to a high resolution photo of each document that is typically 1530 x 2102 pixels.
- links available for translations when and if we get them.

Album posted 1/15/2009

Album contains:
- large thumbnails with annotations.
- links to a high resolution photos.
- links available for translations when and if we get them.

Album posted 1/16/2009

Booklet published after the death of Friedrich Heppenheimer on April 20, 1878. Includes testimonials in German and in English.

Available as:
Single document as PDF file
or
Photos of individual pages as photo album.

The frontspiece engraving of Friedrich Heppenheimer from this book is available as it appears in the photo album as a lower resolution file and also as a separate high resolution file.

Translation of the Biography of Friedrich Heppenheimer from pages 3-8 of this book (and also the poem on page 2). Translation by Anja Schiel, November 2008.

As of January 2009, this booklet is being held by Walter vom Saal.

The single document as pdf file was made with pages scanned on scanner and then converted to a pdf file using Photoshop CS2. The original pdf file was a very large file (43.55 MB) but on 1/23/2009 I replaced it with a 8.17MB file. It still will take a long time to download.

The pages as photo album were photographed with my Nikon D300 (see below). I am experimenting with using a scanner vs. photographing on a copy stand. For this album, thumbnails are 240 x 180, and photos have been reduced to maximum 2000 wide or 1500 high.

48 documents selected unsystematically to translate and figure out what they are. These have been chosen from the large collection of original handwritten German documents currently held by Walter vom Saal. The goal is to get at least some of them translated in order to try to get a sense what the entire collection of documents might contain.

Each item in this album has a link to a high resolution photo.

As of 9/30/2009, many of these documents have been translated. See the main page for links to the translation.

Album posted March 5, 2009.

Translations of some items posted September 30, 2009.