[austrian_2k13]

Hey there forum members!

As weird as this may sound on the first read, I'm currently working on a very personal project where any help I could get my hands on might serve me well. What am I trying to do? This may take awhile to explain.

Long story short: I'm trying to reactivate contact to family members who have stayed in Basin, MT about 100 years ago.

What's all this about?
Well, I was born and raised in Austria, where I still live today. Some years ago, my now 81-year-old Grandmother told me stories about her grandad and his brother moving to Basin, MT with their families around 1900. Her mother, my greatgrandma was born there and held american citizenship until her death in Austria in 1998.

However, they returned to Austria after WWI, whilst the brother stayed in the US and tried to build up a new life there. And as keeping contact between Basin, MT and a small mountain village in the Austrian state of Tyrol was expectingly tough by that time, contact at some point stopped entirely.
I had been playing with that idea for quite a while, but now I wanna try to find some members of my family over there (if there are any, you never know)...
Why now? Well, my grandma is 81 now, and she said it would be like circle closing for her if we ever found family members, or just knew there weren't any left. Who knows how much time she's got left, so that's why I would like to get as close as possible to solving this.

Maybe some of you know (or know someone who knows someone who... ) where I can get information, or maybe someone in here is from Basin or around and knows something.

Here are almost all the facts I got (which is barely anything...):

Family Name: Wibmer
The head of the family was named Joseph Wibmer, and worked as brewmaster at the local brewery in Basin. The facility called Basin Brewing Company was shut down in 1964.
His daughter Ernestine Wibmer (my greatgrandma) was born in Basin, MT in 1908.
Her older sister Rose Mary Wibmer died in 1904 at an age of only 4 months due to undisclosed reasons.
Joseph and his family returned to Austria some years after the end of WWI, his brother (name unknown cos my grandma can't remember it) chose to stay and start a new family.
The name of the village they were originally from is "Matrei" (also called "Windischmatrei" back then), located in the state Tyrol (eastern part of it) in today's Austrian republic (Austria-Hungary monarchy back in the days).

I will try to get more information somehow, but it's all just really long ago.

So maybe, someone in here is familiar with the name Wibmer or heard a similar family story like this one from a friend or something, or maybe knows if the moved somewhere else, anything will come in handy.
I swear my only motive is to get as much information about lost family members, nothing else than that.
I would look for sth myself over there, but it's difficult to find enough money and time for a flight since I'm a college student and I also work partime.

Thank you very much,

Grüß Gott from Austria,
Jakob

[happiness is]

Hello, Jakob,

The Montana state historical society in Helena, Montana, would be interested in
your family history story about Basin.
Contact them at this link and they may be able to assist you in finding more information.
Montana's Official State Website

I hope that helps.

All the best,
H.I.
in Bozeman, Montana

[MTSilvertip]

I don't know the family name, but this person is on Facebook and lives in Bozeman, about 100 miles from Basin.

Looks like she would have married into the family, but might be a lead for you.

https://www.facebook.com/jeri.widmer

Good Luck

[daliowa]

Jakob,

If you go to www.stevemorse.org and click on [SIZE=2]Ellis Island Gold Form (1892-1924[/SIZE] you wil find several people with that surname. You can see the original passenger manifests, and it will show where in the U.S. they were going.

[daliowa]

Also, try searching the surname at www.familysearch.org which is a free site that contains countless genealoglocal databases. i.e. U.S. census & so much more.

[austrian_2k13]

Thank you all for your useful hints! I will carry on looking for my people over there, I might be lucky

[historyfan]

I will post what I find later today or tomorrow at the latest. I took a quick look and did find the brother that stayed in US and his family in old census records. I need to sort out all the relationships in order to give you meaningful information.

[Camchase]

Thanks Daliowa. I, too, am doing research on my family tree and didn't want to spend the $25 - 35 a month for ancestry.com. Thanks for the links. I'm searching the Ellis Island info now. I know for a fact that my family came through Ellis Island but not much more. Great info.

[daliowa]

Originally Posted by Camchase

Thanks Daliowa. I, too, am doing research on my family tree and didn't want to spend the $25 - 35 a month for ancestry.com. Thanks for the links. I'm searching the Ellis Island info now. I know for a fact that my family came through Ellis Island but not much more. Great info.

Ancestry is avaiable for free on many public library computers. Ancestry is a good resource.

[austrian_2k13]

I've been going through those Ellis Island arrivals, but the problem is the people listed all arrived a lot later than my ancestors must have... I guess it's pretty close to 1900, because I know for a fact that they had already been in Basin in 1904. The earliest arrival on the lists is from 1910.