Germans, maybe

The image above comes with this caption: Typical group of Gary, Indiana school children. Top row standing : left to right, Greek, Negro, Roumanian, Lithuanian, Italian, Polish, Croatian, Hungarian. Middle row, American, Austrian, German, Bulgarian, front row, Scotch, Russian, Irish, Assyrian, Slavish, Jewish and Spanish. Do these children look American? The people in the photo above were … read more Germans, maybe

Day 68: Stars aligned

I have a map of Germany with yellow stars, marking the stops of a trip for next spring. The stars do not mark tourist attractions. None of the names would be familiar to anyone outside the region: Kulsheim, Merdingen, Weisenheim, Dornberg… Until today, those towns were just words on a spreadsheet, matched up with names … read more Day 68: Stars aligned

Day 13: Getting the name right

I’ve been doing ancestry research for a few years. It can be very addictive, like playing mahjong or Sudoku, putting all those pieces into place and making everything add up. One thing I really love is to correct mistakes made in the index to the U.S. Census. These records were hand-written, and transcribed to searchable … read more Day 13: Getting the name right