Following many years of genealogical detective work, we have been able to track several lines that were ancestral to the Kirsch family in Germany. We, in this case, involves several people over a period of about 30 years. Mom and … Continue reading
Often, people ask how they can find someone to DNA test for a line whose surname they don’t carry. There are indeed ways to do this, to stitch information snippets together, and if anyone can do this, a genealogist can excavate … Continue reading
Nora Kirsch on a motorcycle with 3 of her daughters, Eloise, Mildred, Nora and Edith, my grandmother. These women were always up to some sort of mischief! I come by it honestly!!! Nora, or actually, Elnora or Ellenora Kirsch lived … Continue reading
It was a stifling August day in 1994. I was visiting the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana to fulfill a promise – a contract actually – that the Embroiderers’ Guild Chapter in the city where I lived had … Continue reading
Would you like to visit the home where your parents or grandparents lived? Maybe great-grandparents? Does their home still stand? Did someone within the family inherit it? How about visiting the homes of aunts and uncles that you visited as … Continue reading
The X chromosome can be especially useful to genetic genealogists because it has a unique inheritance path. Thanks to that characteristic, some of the work of identifying your common ancestor is done just by simply HAVING an X match. Unfortunately, … Continue reading
Hans Lenz was born in 1645 in Beutelsbach, Germany, three years before the end of the 30 Years War. Unfortunately, the church records for this time period, between 1626 and 1646 were destroyed during that war by the legions of … Continue reading
Not long after I published the article Johann Peter Koehler (1724-1791), Innkeeper, Lawyer, Mayor of Ellerstadt, my friend Chris sent me a note saying: “Please have a look at this website:” The webpage is in German, of course, but above … Continue reading
How many inns would an innkeeper keep if an innkeeper could keep inns? Apparently, innkeeping is a family affair. Naming your inn something regal like “The Lion” seems to be popular too. Anna Elisabetha Scherer can tell you all about … Continue reading
My ancestor, Margaretha Elisabetha Koehler was born on April 30, 1772 in Ellerstadt, Germany to Johann Peter Koehler and Anna Elisabetha Scherer. I wrote about the Kirsch and Koehler homes in neighboring Mutterstadt where Margaretha Elisabetha lived after her marriage, … Continue reading
