You find the darndest things in the Stumpp book.[1] It’s a classic and almost beloved reference work for those researching their German ancestors who settled in the Russian Empire. It’s also infuriating for its gaps and sometimes just plain wrong information. And then other times, it’s…well…quirky. Lists of Odessa City Germans When Glueckstal researcher Tom […Read more]
It took me at least a month of deliberation to decide to launch myself out into the world during a global pandemic. Decision made, I’m embracing it as a new type of travel adventure. I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be a broke-my-foot-in-Bosnia-type adventure or an abandoned-in-a-dingy-Slovakian-train-station-at-night-type adventure. Trying to figure out the […Read more]
What’s a globe-trotting, ancestral-town-seeking, genealogist to do when under COVID-19 lockdown? Find places of family significance closer to home to explore, of course. I’ve been walking in my neighborhood (permissible under lockdown guidelines) but all the closed coffee shops and stores mock me, making me think of the DBC (Days Before COVID). A couple of […Read more]
I’m an explorer. Whether it’s traveling to explore ancestral towns, traveling to explore new places with friends and family, checking out new hiking trails in the mountains, or simply trying a new restaurant in my neighborhood, my life is all about being out and about. So being in lockdown for weeks, with no known end […Read more]
Most people buy souvenirs when they travel. I seem to buy clothes. Not because I’m a fashionista (believe me, jeans and sweatshirt are my favorite outfit). Not because I intentionally set out to remember my travels through apparel. But something always seems to come up to make the clothes in my suitcase inadequate. There was […Read more]
The worst house sitter I ever had was the one I had to pay. For years, my long trips seemed to coincide with a friend or friend-of-friend’s need to escape difficult roommates, find somewhere to live during a breakup, or stay for the summer when home from working abroad. All of these were mutually beneficial […Read more]
Genealogists and cemeteries go together like peanut butter and jelly. So exploring cemeteries is nothing new to me. I’ve tip-toed through broken stones and overgrown lilac bushes in the cemeteries of German villages in Ukraine, hoping to find a shard from an ancestor’s grave. I’ve bumped over gravel roads to find the country cemetery out […Read more]
Guest blogger Alex Hamel is a graduate of the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. For several years, she has taught English and lived in the country of her birth—South Korea. I have two homes and every day I feel torn between the two. One is where I grew up in Minnesota, pictured myself getting […Read more]
I know he existed. But where did he go? One of our family mysteries is Wesley, an orphan boy that lived with my Schott grandparents sometime in the early 1900s. The family lore is that my Grandpa Peter “went to the train station” to pick him up, that he was a bit wild, and that […Read more]
You may have seen the Ancestry ad where a man trades in his lederhosen for a kilt after taking a DNA test that shows he is more Irish than German. A word of warning—if you make your wardrobe choices based on a DNA test, you may want to make sure that store takes returns. And […Read more]