Okay, hey guys :)
So, for years now I've been doing research and trying to place my family tree together, however it's been rather difficult due to the fact that my Oma - Elfriede, was German, was adopted when she was 2 years old and placed into a christian orphanage.
So! What i'm trying to find out is a number of things:
Is the last name "Otto", a common German last name?
Children who were adopted out/ had an illegal birth/ unrecognized birth - were documentation destroyed/ non existent?
How is one to find out any information regarding "gypsy" German's? (As she grew up with them and yes i know the term "gypsy" is offensive now and i know they're either Roma or Sinti.
Facts:
If anyone can help me, I'd honestly, be so appreciative!
Hi!
Otto is indeed pretty common; from Old High German ot = possession, heir. It's also a given name. Here is an absolute distribution map by Landkreise (small territorial unit, like a county); and here the same thing for relative distribution; both from telephone book data of 2005.
Depends on where she was born. Was she baptized? There's regulation covering how children born out of wedlock were to be documented in the Kirchenbücher, the churches registers of birth, marriage, death, baptising and so on. In Bavaria, f.e., the birth was documented only under the mothers name with the midwife as a witness, the father was left out unless he wanted to be noted. Other spiritual jurisdictions may differ. If the birth was completely clandestine, there will of course be no documentation, but at one point or another (latest at the point of her marriage, probably at adoption), she will have been registered somewhere.
There is a documentation center on German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg that deals with persecution of Sinti and Roma; they have a unique archive of personal documents, pictures and postwar interviews of persecuted Sinti and Roma and they cooperate with the German central council of Sinti and Roma. They would be your first adress if you want to search for personal information. There's contact info on their website, so you can send them a mail or phone them. They should be able to answer in English.
Where was she adopted? You could always try contacting the local archive, they are usually happy to help genuinely interested inquirers (my girlfriends mother runs such a municipal archive, and I know that she is always glad to help). Lastly, you can find scanned Adress registers for Stettin here, where you could possibly find her mother if you know her name, and the State Archive of Sczecin should also be able to help with any further inquiries.
One good starting point would also be asking the archive of the city where she was adopted for further information, as adoption requires official documentation.
Whether any of that archival material has been lost or is still available is hard to say, if she was from further east than Stettin, chances are worse than if it was in the rest of Germany.