"By telling the stories of our ancestors, we are honoring them and helping them to rest better." -- M.Dawn Terrell
http://www.ancestorscall.blogspot.com/
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I'm in the process of transferring over to a new design, so things may be a bit wonky for a couple of days as I work it out.
Let me know what you think of the new design in the comments!
While I'm not an expert on genealogy by any means, I have been researching for a number of years and have learned a few things along the way. Since 100% of my non-US research is in Germany, many of the things I've learned are about doing research in that difficult venue. Joining Ancestry and hoping for the best won't get you much of anywhere, I'm afraid. I'd like to share some of the resources I've tapped into in doing my German research, in the hope that it might help some who are just getting into it. Why is researching in Germany so hard? For one thing, the nation called "Germany" didn't exist before 1871 -- what we now think of as Germany was a group of loosely related kingdoms that shifted borders, had different systems for keeping records, and so on. Few civil records were kept; most records were in the hands of the various churches, Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed. Many records were damaged or lost in the two great wars of the 20th
Many thanks to Valerie Hughes of Genealogy with Valerie for nominating me for the "One Lovely Blog" award! I'm delighted and flattered; thank you so much. Here are the requirements: Thank the person who nominated you and link to that blog Share Seven things about yourself Nominate 15 bloggers you admire (or as many as you can think of!) Contact your bloggers to let them know that you’ve tagged them for the One Lovely Blog Award 1. Done, but I'll say it again -- thanks so much for nominating a newbie to the genealogy blogging community. 2. Seven things about myself: I recently retired from teaching; I was an English Professor at San Francisco State University and the Director of the Composition Program for many years. I fell in love with genealogy a couple of years ago, and have been actively pursuing it ever since. I've gone from 7 or 8 people in my family tree to hundreds. My family is 100% German and the ancestors who came to America alm
This morning I was contributing to a thread in the German Genealogy facebook group; a researcher had asked for help in figuring out the German equivalent of the surname Workman . One of the most useful sites I've found for investigating German surnames is Christoph Stoepel's "Geogen" sites. "Geogen" stands for "genealogical geography," and his site will help you locate possible points of origin for your German ancestors. When you put in a name, a map will show you where your family name is found today; the information is current rather than historical but still very useful, since German families tend to be a lot less mobile over the years than are families in the United States. A caveat, though: if your ancestor's name is Schmidt or Meyer, you'll have a much harder time getting a lead because those names are so common. The less common the name is, the more luck you're likely to have. Also, the site is most helpful if your family came
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