u/gitsNital

I'll start with everything I know so far (I have every birth certificate and marriage certificate listed below):

Great-grandfather

- Born in 1915 in Argentina

- Married in 1942

Grandfather

- Born in 1943 in Argentina

- Married in 1970

Father

- Born in 1973 in Argentina

- Married after my birth, and then divorced

self

- Born in 1995 in Argentina

The main problems are my great-great-grandfather, which I don't know who it is. Here's the data:

- The father in my great-grandfather's birth certificate is listed as "Andrés Macht". I also have the names of his father and his mother (no ID number), but I don't know if that's useful.

- Andrés Macht is written there as "russian, married"

- Andrés Macht is written as 29 years old at the moment of my great-grandfather's birth, so I've calculated that he was born in 1885 or 1886

Based on this, my ancestors are russian. But here's what troubling me:

- The crucial thing that I don't understand is this: up until my father, **all of them spoke german**. I've heard stories all of my life about how their family gatherings and holidays were in german, not spanish. My grandmother (italian descendant) used to sing me german songs as a baby, and told me she learned those from my grandfather (he died before I was born). The family tradition of speaking german stopped with my father and aunt (one generation above me). If this "Andrés Macht" came from Russia, why did his family for many generations keep a german speaking tradition?

- There are Argentina's ship records for immigrants from 1882 to 1937. There's no "Andrés Macht". There are only two russian "Macht" but the dates of arrival and their birth years don't make sense to my situation, so there's no way they are my ancestors. This doesn't mean anything, because "Andrés Macht" could have just come to my country without registering.

- However, in these records, there is one german "Andreas Macht". He arrived in 1910 as a 25 year old, which means he was born either in 1884 or 1885. If it was 1885, it's the one that could be the father of my great-grandfather.

- My father told me that, when he was a kid, he saw a photo album or some kind of family book, where he remembers that the original immigrant to our country was "a military russian or german guy called Andreas Macht". I've traveled and visited a lot of family members, nobody know what this book is. I should note that all my family, until me, lived in a very remote rural area, and all of them grew up pretty poor. The professions of my grandfather, great-grandfather and "Andrés Macht" are listed as "laborer". Why would a military russian/german guy move to Argentina to become a laborer?

The story that I (want to) believe happened is this:

- "Andreas Macht" was born 1885, in a place where today is East Germany, or West Russia, or something in between. He arrived in Argentina in 1910, at 25 years old, registering himself as "german". At some point, he started calling himself "Andrés" because "Andreas" sounds feminine in spanish (Andrea is a female name in spanish). He got married some time between 1910 and 1915, and later had his first child (my great-grandfather) in 1915. Why did he put himself as russian instead of german in my great-grandfather's birth? I don't know. He must not have spoken very good spanish, so the person that wrote the birth certificate must have understood russian, instead of german?

I know I don't have a lot of possibilities. After a lot of time and money, today I managed to finally dig local records and get my great-grandfather's birth certificate. My heart sank when I saw his father was "russian". All my life I thought my lastname "Macht" was german.

I'm moving to Germany in October with a working holiday visa anyway, and I think I need to figure out another path to citizenship. This post, hoping smarter people than me could help, is my last attempt at this. At least I want to know I did everything I could, and there was nothing else that could be done to get citizenship via this way.

My questions are:

- My father got married after I was born, is that a potential problem?

- How or what or where would I go to find more concrete information on this "Andrés Macht" or "Andreas Macht"? I have the ship record, his father's and mother's name and the approximate year of birth. Nothing else, unfortunately.

- Even if I really came from russians, not german, could anyone help me make sense of the german speaking tradition if they were really russian?

Thank you if anyone read this.