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

1843 letter in old German handwriting from my 3x great grandfather, to his son telling him to hurry from the army before his mother dies.

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

Berg vs. Burg  These two words show up abundantly in family and place names across the Germanic languages (German, Swedish, Dutch, Englis

Recall that in our last blog on Herbert Harschnek, the US family had been searching for any German relatives for decades with no success. Wh

Finding Herbert Harschnek - a little saga of 99 years parted: Starting with Alois Harschnek whom we mentioned in our last post.

Here’s a fun tip for researching relatives, especially 1st generation German ones. The Library of Congress’ Chronicling America: Historic...

People's surnames often provide clues into their way back family history. Learn what Von and Van mean for the Dutch and Germans.

Beer lovers and German fans can likely answer this riddle in a second. We are talking about Oktoberfest! September brings a nip in the...

I feel so very lucky that my family has saved and cared for both family photos and also diaries, letters and other family pieces. Reading...

It’s the old master’s birthday, and we’ll take that as a happy excuse to talk about names like Bach.

Voyage to America: Servant Class - Independent Woman

German has two variants for ch, depending on whether the surrounding letters are ‘bright’ or ‘dark’.   If you say “ee, ey”  versus “o, oo, a