10 THINGS TO KNOW WHEN STARTING GERMAN GENEALOGY RESEARCH

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 […]

Mardi Gras, Fasching, Karneval- whatever, Let’s Party

Mardi Gras, actually French for “Fat Tuesday”, refers to the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent’s 40 days of repentance that ends on Easter Sunday. Bringing out the wild side of people, Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras as it is more commonly referred to, is filled with events to tempt the final moments […]

Who Do You Think You Are experience for the Average Joe!

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 […]

Familienbuch, Burgerbuch and Ortssippenbuchs

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 […]