I hit a brickwall on Fredrich Matz, where can I find 1800s German Records?

Question

I am brick-walled on Fredrich Matz and I am struggling with where to look for sources for him before he came to the United States. I have checked family search and ancestry with no luck. I know he was married and had two children before he immigrated from later records. 

Answer 1

Germany is a pretty big place, and if you do not have further information to narrow it down, you will have a hard time finding anything. Church records for many communities are available online at ancestry.com (as you noted), but if a search there does not find anything useful, then you are probably out of luck. :(

I had a look at the landing record of 1884. There is a bit more information:

Friedr. Matz, age 34, farmer, from Prussia, traveled with

Ottilie Matz, age 26 years (his wife)

Hulda Matz, age 3 years (his daughter)

Otto(?) Matz, an eleven-month old baby boy.

This allows a couple of inferences:

1. Friedrich Matz was born around 1850 (plus or minus nor more than a year. If you are lucky, this will give you a birth record and a community.

2. He married his wife Ottilie (born approx.1858) not much before 1880 and not much later than that, either. Knowing the community might give you a marriage record with Ottilie's LNAB, and then you may be able to bootstrap birth records for the other members of the family, Ottilie's parents, etc. It's not going to be easy, but I think there is hope.

Comments

According to the details Gus added, this should be him: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/LDJ1-R6X

And here's his birth entry from Kirchhayn, nowadays Doberlug-Kirchhain in Brandenburg: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-64K9-HX2

Attempted transcript:

Friedrich Wilhelm, 5. Kind und 1.(?) Söhnchen

geboren den 28. Juni vormittags um 11

Vater: ... Friedrich Wilhelm Matz, Bürger und ...

Mutter: Frau Christiane Wilhelmine geborene Liebe

Wohnort: derselbe (i.e. Kirchhayn)

Taufe: 30. Juni

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There is more in the departure record: He was from Plagow, Brandenburg, now called Plawno, which is in Poland. I am not at all familiar with what records might have survived from there and where they might be kept. Maybe someone else more knowledgeable about this region can help out? (Another confusing factor might be that there is another Plagow (Plawno) in Pommerania, not too far from there, and the persons creating the passenger lists may not have described them accurately enough to tell them apart.

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Friedrich Wilhelm, 5. Kind und 1.(?) Söhnchen
   --- It just says "Söhnchen". I think that means 5. Söhnchen.
geboren den 28. Juni vormittags um 11

Vater: Meister Friedrich Wilhelm Matz, Bürger und Kuerschner (tanner)