A Strange Coincidence
I have been working (a little) on a family tree on ancestry.com. I may have mentioned this before, but ancestry.com is an amazing place to build a family tree. The site has a great search engine that looks up the name of every person you place on your tree. It doesn't matter if that person was born in 1983 or 1783. Ancestry has found information about just about every person I've entered into my tree. It has US Census records from the beginning, and they are scanned in, so you can see the actual document. I've also looked at German census records from the 1700s, passenger lists from ships between Bremerhaven and New York, and military enlistment records. It's pretty amazing and I highly recommend it if any of you are thinking of starting a family tree. It does cost money to belong, but I think the price is worth it if you're at all serious about geneology.
Anyway. My grandfather's name was Fred Th*ielhorn (the * is so it's not searchable, for those of you wondering). A relative of my grandfather's grandmother contacted me through ancestry.com. She mentioned that we have a Th*ielhorn relative here in Germany who would definitely want to meet with me. Enter Mr. Hartwin Th*ielhorn, who sent me a copy of his family tree last night.
It gave me a bit of a start to see the name of my grandfather, grandmother and mother on someone else's family tree...and the strangest part is that this guy, Hartwin, lives less than two hours from us here in Stuttgart. As a matter of fact, only about 15 kilometers from Lake Titisee, in the Black Forest. So, that Saturday that I took the kids down there, I was that close to a relative.
I told Hartwin that I think I'm amazed because we have such a tendency to be insular and only close with our very immediate family. Maybe that's just modern life. Back in the day, the family was a much bigger thing, I think. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. Everyone was much closer. It's a little sad when you think about it, especially since staying in touch today is never more than a phone call or a mouse-click away. What I'm trying to say is that it's interesting to consider how much larger our families are than we may think...
But I digress. I'm still just in shock that someone related to me lives so close. I think we'll go and visit him while Mom and Dad are here. He claims to have a family tree for Mom's side of the family that goes back to 1616.
Just had to share. Hey--take a minute to send an e-mail to your cousins or aunt or someone today!
Anyway. My grandfather's name was Fred Th*ielhorn (the * is so it's not searchable, for those of you wondering). A relative of my grandfather's grandmother contacted me through ancestry.com. She mentioned that we have a Th*ielhorn relative here in Germany who would definitely want to meet with me. Enter Mr. Hartwin Th*ielhorn, who sent me a copy of his family tree last night.
It gave me a bit of a start to see the name of my grandfather, grandmother and mother on someone else's family tree...and the strangest part is that this guy, Hartwin, lives less than two hours from us here in Stuttgart. As a matter of fact, only about 15 kilometers from Lake Titisee, in the Black Forest. So, that Saturday that I took the kids down there, I was that close to a relative.
I told Hartwin that I think I'm amazed because we have such a tendency to be insular and only close with our very immediate family. Maybe that's just modern life. Back in the day, the family was a much bigger thing, I think. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. Everyone was much closer. It's a little sad when you think about it, especially since staying in touch today is never more than a phone call or a mouse-click away. What I'm trying to say is that it's interesting to consider how much larger our families are than we may think...
But I digress. I'm still just in shock that someone related to me lives so close. I think we'll go and visit him while Mom and Dad are here. He claims to have a family tree for Mom's side of the family that goes back to 1616.
Just had to share. Hey--take a minute to send an e-mail to your cousins or aunt or someone today!
Comments
On a different note, I love reading your blog about all your adventures. Love to you all. Aunt Donna