German Immigrant Ancestors
in Syracuse and Onondaga County, New York

School graduation certificate of Katharina Gilcher

Katharina Gilcher attended the daily school ("Wertstagschule")
in Rathsweiler, Kreis Kusel, Pfalz, from the ages of five to 14,
and graduated from the "Sonn- und Freiertagschule" two years later (1872),
receiving this diploma testifying to her "excellent" and
"very good" grades and "exemplary" conduct in such subjects as religious education,
reading, penmanship, grammar, spelling, written and oral calculation,
social studies, drawing, and needlework.
This certificate traveled with her to America and
would find a home tucked away for many years in the big
Kreischer family German-language Bible inherited by her descendants.
This certificate provided me with her name, the place
and date of her birth, and was the first clue of where
she had come from in Germany.