Beethoven and Goethe, the German Shakespeare, were glad to see liberator Napoleon come, and glad to see occupier Napoleon go. Napoleonic la

You’re tracing your family back, and the spellings sometimes just go crazy.

Save letters! I have a treasure trove of memories downstairs. So began the email from my mother earlier this week.

French Germany? France is French and Germany is German, as a general rule, so how could you have French Germany? Well, borders can be flu

The first U.S. president born in the United States (so after the country’s founding) didn’t even speak English as his first language.

The largest emigration ports from Germany to the New World were the Hanseatic cities Bremen and Hamburg, Germany’s leading ports even today.

I love scouring old newspapers. I hit the jackpot with Joseph Billman from Erie - German-born and Civil War veteran.

The main Celtic traditions for genealogy are the Irish, the Scottish and the Welsh. Complicating matters, Irish settlers brought Gaelic from

Christine makes the journey across the Atlantic in 1950. Her daughter in Germany worries that her frail mother might not be strong enough.

Why do some family names end in -son and some in -sen?

AUGH! It’s not just a cry of distress, it’s an anglicization. Why do we see lots of names ending in -augh? Baugh, Grumbaugh, Brumbaugh?

Why were there piles of Christmas cards from 1960 sent from around the world to a young girl in Virginia?

Sewing, in addition to laundry, used to be a responsibility that almost every woman had. And yet it can be tough to get insights into this p

Just a head's up for those looking up dates further back (generally prior or 1752) or from some other countries cultures: People used di

It's amazing how curious you can get about people in no way related to you. I've written before about Olof Harrison, a Swede who mov

Our family has a photo of the framed wedding invitation of my 2nd great aunt and uncle. It's a charmingly simple one. When I first came

When you’re tracing an ancestor to Central Europe from a century or more ago, you need to find out which state they were from. Here are some

One of the early things my father told me when I asked him about his family was that my great-grandmother, Pauline Volkmann, had left her hu

A series of correspondence to and ​​from the same people opens up a whole new understanding about them. Old Swedish postcards from greater

When learning about ancestors who immigrated to the US decades or centuries ago, you get a double challenge. Not only is there the translati