Are German dialects really more extreme than American dialects? Are they ever! The Old World dialects in general are far, far more extreme t

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

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

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

We're used to seeing von and van in names famous and not. Now it's time to explain their meaning and what you might learn about someone's ancestors from those three little letters. Von We all know of various von’s: Baron von Richthofen, the Red Baron; Count or Graf von Zeppelin with the zeppelins he invented; Wernher von Braun with the rockets he devised; the von Trapp family of the Sound of Music. By the way, Germans pronounce "v" as an "f", so "von" sounds like "fonn." (un

Beer lovers and German fans can likely answer this riddle in a second. We are talking about Oktoberfest! September brings a nip in the air, leaves changing into magnificent colors and Oktoberfest. In Munich and in many beer-loving towns across the United States, Oktoberfest celebrations get underway in September. Why September? The first Oktoberfest indeed was in October. To be precise, it started on October 12, 1810 to honor the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess of

Voyage to America: Servant Class - Independent Woman

Martin Luther, who grew up with the tradition of gifts on Nikolaustag, shifted gift-giving to Christmas, since saints were no longer a focus

A family postcard goes from gibberish to treasure with translation - the magic of family genealogical translation!