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For many of us we put off working on our German ancestors because we are afraid of having to read the Old German script, chicken scratch we say! But you absolutely have to be able to read some things, as German church book records are one of the main ways to follow your family line […]
Our Mecklenburg tour ended about a week ago and I think I can say it was successful, although we had our worries. This was a tough place for finding contacts. First off, Mecklenburg is a beautiful area, I keep calling it “big sky country” lots of open fields and wide expanses of sky. Lucky for […]
I recently attended an all day seminar with one of the leading German experts. Lectures were very interesting as were the questions the audience asked, they ranged from complicated to basic. It reminded me that when you are starting out with German research its helpful to know a few things going in. A few months […]
It’s amazing to me how quickly the world just gets to be a smaller place. The internet has opened a new world in the ability to connect with people all over the world and sometimes it holds some fun surprises! I also was thinking about what our immigrant ancestors would think of all the descendants […]
So we sent everyone out via train to visit their hometowns last Wednesday and usually we have to wait until they come back in the evening (or next day) until we find out how their day went, but this time Matthias and I were taking one couple to visit their hometowns too. We headed first […]
I wanted to do a trip diary day by day but I should know by now that this is not possible, days too busy and long to blog. So this is a recap of our recent group trip to the Northwest area of Germany. I am in a beautiful hotel in OstFriesland (scouting for a […]
Finally, our Television debut on German TV! Last September on our small group tour to the Rhineland area we were joined by a German TV crew after a journalist had contacted me asking if we would allow them to follow us around. We said yes and they were with the group for a couple days […]
On our Rhineland trip this year (2013) we visited and toured the Evangelische Archivestelle Boppard (the Evangelish Church Archives in Boppard) This depository has microfilms and many books for the Protestant church records in the Rhineland, we were shown their collection of Familienbuchs and were taken down into the stacks where we were shown some […]
Tues 17th – Today we head to the ancient city of Trier, famous for its ‘”Porta Nigra” the Black Gate from when the Romans ruled here. We are getting our folks used to the train and it seems like we meet new friends on and off the train! We approached the Gate and of […]
Since I am away for parts of September and October I will write about our trips in lieu of a newsletter which will return end of October. What a whirlwind we have been on, just now having time to put a few notes down about our trip so far. Day 1 – Seems like a […]