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

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

We’d talked about how much the German dialects vary, looking at dialect forms of the Lord’s Prayer. Let’s compare High German and Dutch.

In honor of Mozart's birthday on January 27th, we look to a curious Mozart connection or two crossing the Atlantic.

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

The tribes that coalesced into Germans spoke 'the people’s/ popular language’ as opposed to Latin

Not long ago, a friend asked me why we say Germany when the Germans use the word Deutschland. The words aren't even related! Good quest

In honor of his son's third birthday, Wagner wrote an Idyll. Learn the story behind its first performance.

German and English both mostly use h the same, as that puff of air at the start of a word: hello/hallo, here/hier, horn But what’s that h do

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

This simple song is said to date back to 1679 in Vienna, Austria - Marx Augustin was a cheery, popular balladeer and bag-piper of the time

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

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

In reaction to the horrific killing burning across Europe, in 1916, Danish composer Carl Nielsen wrote the Inextinguishable, meaning the &#3

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

Eliese Trede, my mother's grandmother, immigrated in 1908, leaving her loving parents on a journey across the Atlantic. This is her 1925

This is an 1843 letter from my 3rd great grandfather, to his son telling him to hurry home from the army before his mother dies. We have a l

An apprentice butcher's training in 19th century "Germany" included journeying and learning from one expert to another and sta

See the 1922 comparison of small-town Fairfield, IA versus New York City - it's entertaining what doing genealogy research can uncover t