Tips and Tricks from a Nineteenth Century Man

Appointment of Carl Neumann as consul to Puerto Plata by King Wilhelm of Prussia

Back in 2020, I posted about documents found in the Royal Prussian Archives related to my husband's 2nd great-grandfather Karl Ludwig (aka Carlos Luis, or Charles) Neumann.  

These documents included his application to become the Prussian Consul in what is now Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, as well as his correspondence related to holding that post for some years. Of course, the documents were all handwritten and in old German script, so I hired a translator, Nina Gaffney, to tell me what they said. At that time I focused on the important family references in the documents which allowed me to trace his family back to Prussia over several generations.

At the time, Nina told me that she had found the documents very interesting, especially how Karl had framed his application for the consul job. Recently she asked if she could use the documents in an article she was writing focusing on tips for writing a job application.  The article has been published on the American Translators Association German Language Division website, and it gives a different look at the character of Karl Ludwig Neumann while pointing out the techniques he used to make his application successful.

Here is the link to the article.