Ancestry.com
Did you ever join Ancestry.com? Recently I joined. I have begun putting people into classes or teams. So far, I have got several people on my mother’s side and just one on my father’s. And I have gone into my mother’s relatives, I believe, going back four generations. But I have not gone very far in getting people on my father’s side into the list. I know he had two brothers, but I have not found them yet.
My father’s mother was Emilie Clara Erna Burchard, and married to become a Zastrow. So that was my father’s and my own name before I married.
Emilie was actually born in the U.S. But her father was working for the State Department as a German citizen in 1860s. She was sent back to Germany for secondary school and got married there. My father was born in 1903, the youngest of three boys, also in Rostock.
My father came to the U.S. in 1928 or around then. He came with his mother. I don’t remember how long she stayed in this country, but she returned to her home in Rostock, in eastern Germany.
I would love to find at least some of my relatives in Germany. I know I have at least one cousin, and I am sure many others! This one cousin I met in 1991 when I visited his mother and aunt. I would guess he is about the age of my older son who is in his 50s.
But so far, I haven’t traced my father’s family for more than two generations. I will certainly keep working on it. And my mother’s family, with four generations, is quite impressive!
Have you tried Ancestry? What successes have you found?
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