We just celebrated the completion of the first 4 weeks of our family history trip to Germany. This has been filled with many blessings from our Heavenly Father as we work on the other side of the veil. At the same time, we were privileged to be back in Frankfurt am Main to participate in the Pentecost pealing of the bells celebration and to participate in the live streaming of the cultural celebration for the Jordan River temple rededication. In another 10 days we will complete this journey and return to our home, which will be cause for one more celebration.
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| At the "pealing of the bells" for Pentecost in Frankfurt am Main |
Visiting Parishes and Archives and the Freiberg Temple (and Poland)
In the past two weeks, we have visited six parishes, one regional family research center and spent 3 days in the regional archives in Nürnberg, Germany. Each experience is unique. All are positive, some touch us in very special ways.
One of these was our first experience since the last blog post, a visit to the small church of Heroldishausen. We had arranged this visit some time ago, through one of the other pastors that had helped us in the past. We arranged to meet the pastor of Heroldishausen in front of his Church at 10:00 am on Monday morning, May 8. Our experience there can best be summed up in Debbie's own words as follows:
"Little did I know when we entered the little village of Heroldishausen that I would have an experience that would change my life forever. We were scheduled to meet with Hans Siegmund in front of the Church at 10:00 am. When we arrived at the church we found a sweet old man with typical German attire and a walking cane patiently waiting for us. After a warm greeting he took us into a building and sat us down. I could tell that he was excited to share something special with us. He immediately sat down at a very old piano and began to play our national anthem. When he finished he began playing another song. It was the German national anthem. As I listened to this music, I was overcome with feelings of great love for my homeland. Tears streamed down my face. Even as I write this now, tears are streaming down my face. I felt like I was home. I didn’t want that moment in tome to come to an end. This kind, sweet, loving man put his arm around my waist as Tom took our picture.
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| Hans Siegmund playing the Star Spangled Banner for us |
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| Hans Siegmund with Debbie |
I felt a kinship with this special man. He had such peace and serenity about him. We spent a few minutes letting him share memorabilia from the community that he dearly loves. He told us about playing the organ with a famous guitarist and showed us some pictures of the event. Tom told him that I played the organ so he insisted that I play something on the organ. Those that know me know I don’t play the organ. I play the piano and wish I could play the organ. This organ was a pump organ. You had to pump it with your feet to make it work. So here I am in front of a very accomplished organist being asked to play something without music in an old organ that needed to be pumped. I made up some stuff, then asked if he had a hymnal which he had. My playing sounded much better with some written music to follow. It was an amazing, uncomfortable, “once in a lifetime” experience.
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| 1,000 year celebration of the Church in Heroldishausen, held in 2005 |
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| Debbie playing the old pump organ |
He had done some research on the family name we were looking for. He even took us to where the old books were kept, climbing up and down a steep flight of stairs. We spent two hours searching the records he had. His daughter came in and asked us what we would like to drink. We didn’t realize that she would come back with a huge platter of open-faced sandwiches typical of German meats and cheeses. My heart swelled with gratitude for this amazing experience.
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| Showing us some of the very old records from the parish |
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| His daughter bringing us a lunch to share with her father |
After eating he took us to the cemetery behind the church and showed us where his beloved wife was buried. She passed away in 2016 and we could tell that he missed her very, very much.
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| Hans Siegmund by the grave of his wife of over 50 years |
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| In front of the old Church |
When it came time to say “Auf Widersehen” we wished we could linger longer. Herr Siegmund watched as we got in the car and kept waving at us until we drove away. This is something Germans do. I was sad that we had another appointment because I wanted to bask in the glow of what I would call a very spiritual experience. I felt we had been in the presence of a very holy man who had ministered to my heart and soul. Thanks be to God."
This is one of the many blessings that we have received. Without going into the details of each, let me just cite a few of the blessings that were ours:
Heroldishauen - The full experience is noted above. It included advancing the "Born" line of Debbie's ancestors for a few generations and additional siblings, including the Faust line, which married into the Borns.
Grossengottern - That same afternoon we visited the Grossengottern office. We were thrilled to find a Familienregister book in that parish. It was only for the years up to 1758 but had some great information for the Apel, Born and Hirt families which are Debbie's ancestors. We were also able to add to the information for these families and build a little more around the Schade family.
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| Pastor of Grossengottern who has been a major help to us |
Thamsbruck-The next day we visited the Bad Langensalza parish where we were able to review the records for Thamsbruck where many of Debbie's ancestors are from. We were able to finish the photos of records going back into the 1600s from several of our lines and specifically traced back the ancestry of the Heinemann and Schleiffer lines which had married into the Stoll lines. These families are so interweaved with others in the village that we have taken many photos of these many pages of records. We feel that we are able to not only extend the family lines but add many siblings and cousins of Debbie's ancestors.
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| Debbie taking photos from the records in the large Thamsbruck parish book |
On Wednesday morning we went to the parish of Allmenhausen. We had been trying for some time to arrange this visit and were able to confirm this visit only the week before. There we were met by two ladies who are responsible for the books. They allowed us to look in the books but not take any photos. So we had to transcribe everything we could find. We found the marriage of her Ritter line, but finally realized that they had come from another village, which will be a visit for another time. However, we did extend the line of the Ritter spouse, which we discovered to be Helderung. Every time you resolve something in family history you open up additional research needs further back in time.
That left us only a little time to visit the Muhlhausen parish once more. Dr. Kublick has been so helpful. In just an hour and a half, we were able to find key information on a Muller line, which opened up a few more generations and left us more to pursue in a future visit. It may have been our most productive hour and a half during this trip.
With Thursday being a holiday, we decided to go to the Freiberg temple again and did ordinances there on Thursday and Friday, rounding out a productive family history week. One of the ordinances that we did was the initiatory and endowments for Anna Margarethe Müller, Debbie's great . . . great grandmother for which we are missing all of her ancestors. After the Thursday sessions, we met once again with Elder and Sister Lindsay in their apartment to see if we could tie better into their family history line and find any hints for Anna Margarethe Müller. After searching for a little, they were unable to find the on-line version of their genealogy book. Sister Lindsay called to the U.S. to talk to their genealogist without success.
They had a cooking activity with other sisters from the temple to come to their apartment, so they invited us to stay and join them for dinner with the idea to contact the genealogist after the dinner. which we did. We had a delightful evening associating with 4 more missionary couples and enjoyed a wonderful dinner together. The food was extra delicious, German Roulade and different dishes and desserts from the other missionaries. Senior missionaries are always instant friends wherever we go.
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| Twelve people eating dinner in the very small apartment of Elder and Sister Lindsay. |
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| Homemade Roulade and red cabbage, etc. at the aparmtent of E/S Lindsay |
After dinner we were able to talk to the genealogist in the U.S. and discussed the situation of Anna Margarethe Müller. She told us that the best source of birth location often is noted in marriage and death records. Neither had anything noted in this case. We sent her copies of what we had copied of the birth record of her son and her death record.
The next morning we received an email back from her, stating that she was unable to see anything in the records but gave us an email of a genealogist in Germany she had worked with for the Lindsays, saying that he was much better at reading old German. I went ahead and forwarded the images to this genealogist, Ronny. By Friday night we had received an email back from Ronny with a full translation of the birth record, which in fact did identify her birth place, Gross Vargula. Once he identified it, it became easy for us and others to see who had looked at it previously.
We were excited because their records are in the archive that we will be visiting before the end of our trip. However, we sent an email to the parish and he responded immediately and scheduled a visit with us this coming Wednesday afternoon. In fact, his email was in English. We are hoping that the long search for Debbie's Müller ancestors may be making a positive turn.
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| In front or our "German" temple in Freiberg on a beautiful day |
Friday we signed up to do some sealings after our endowment session, but there were no others available to participate, so we ended our temple time a little early. We took advantage of the time available and went to visit Poland, which was only a little over an hour away. We had tried this once on our mission with serious traffic congestion and ended up giving up. This time all went well. We went across the border, stopped and bought some things in a store and had a nice mid afternoon lunch, having a restaurant all to ourselves. After buying gas at a lower cost than in Germany, we headed back to great grandpa's house in Steinach. It was a four and a half hour drive, but we arrived by 9:00 pm that evening.
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| Eating in the Polish restaurant, all to ourselves |
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| Restaurant in Poland |
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| Beautiful flowers on the outside of the restaurant |
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| Polish flag flying on a building near where we bought gas |
The next week was spent primarily in Nürnberg, 3 days in the regional archive and 1 afternoon at the GFF genealogical library. We then drove to Fritzlar, Germany, 3 hours away for a Friday 10:00 am visit with the parish there.
At the Nürnberg archive, we tracked down many of Tom's missing relatives, including some that could be found in no other way. The archive has the original church books for many of the parishes in Bavaria. We had started work on the Fuchsstadt church books in our previous visit a few weeks earlier, but this week we finished the extension of our family line to several more generations. We also were able to identify other names from other parishes and made many copies of books for the side of my Grandmother Schlerf, parish of Rittersburg. We also copied thousands of cards that had been made from the Marktbergl parish where many of Tom's relatives are from. Even though most of these lines have been completed back to the 1600s, these cards will facilitate adding many siblings and cousins to Family Tree.
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| Debbie reviewing some of the old Church Books in the Nürnberg archive |
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| Tom reviewing the old books of Uffenheim |
We were trying to research another great . . . grandfather Matthaus Herold from Dietenhofen. After several miscommunications on the books that we needed, we finally received the correct books on Thursday afternoon. However, we were unable to find anyone of the Herold family in those books. We are still stumped on this line.
Each night after visiting parishes or archives, we try to identify all of the images that we have captured and organize our results. This will save us many headaches in the future and is Sister Rueckert's goal each and every day. Below shows her working in the hotel room, organizing her efforts of that day. Then each morning we get up and do it all again with a new parish and a new set of relatives.
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| Debbie naming all of the images that she captures during the day |
On Wednesday we had planned to visit the archives in the morning and the GFF Franken genealogy library in the afternoon. However, the Nürnberg archives were closed on this Wednesday which gave us some much needed breathing room. The Franken Genealogy library is only opened on Wednesdays from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm.
It was important that we were able to print all of our Fritz Magerlein Familienregisters on this day as we would not have another Wednesday afternoon available on this trip. The person responsible for the library arrived about 10 minutes late, so we started on our 6 page list of surnames and villages as quick as we could. Debbie started on the top of the list and I started on the bottom. We met in the middle at 5:59 pm, with over 500 pages of printed paper. On the average they have 25 to 30 names on each page. These names represented genealogies of names and villages where Tom's family history lines ended. Of those names, even if only 30% are actual relatives, it would be over 4,000 names that can be taken to the temple.
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| Debbie reviewing the pages printed from the Magerlein Familienregisters |
We were exhausted, but felt totally blessed by our Heavenly Father to complete this major task in the time available. We stopped for dinner and returned to our hotel totally exhausted but happy.
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| Exhausted with our pile of over 500 pages of names |
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| The 500 pages of genealogical listings, a major treasure |
On Friday morning, we awakened early and drove three hours to Fritzlar, Germany, where we visited one more parish where one of Debbie's great . . . grandfathers was born. We had seen in an earlier marriage record that the father of the bride, Daniel Volke, was from Fritzlar. When we arrived the Librarian at the Cathedral was waiting for us with research already completed on Daniel Volke and two more generations. She was a little protective of her Church books, but with our insistence, she continued with even more research and allowed us to take photos. With this we were able to identify one more set of grandparents and perhaps some siblings. We stopped after the primary research was completed.
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| Debbie writing down the research of the caretaker of the Fritzlar library |
This office was housed inside the cathedral and is part of a major library of old documents, including letters and books that are nearly 1,000 years old. It was a special opportunity for us to see major historical documents, including one of only 9 pages that was first produced by the Guttenberg press.
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| Tom in the "old" library of documents and books in Fritzlar |
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| The old Church in Fritzlar, the library is housed inside this Church |
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| In the old town of Fritzlar, quite charming and German |
Other week day activities:
When we have a few minutes in the different locations, we try to enjoy where we are. The following are photos taken during these past two weeks:
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| Smelling the roses at the Bad Langensalza Rose Gardens |
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| Japanese Gardens, also in Bad Langensalza, near our hotel |
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| More Rapeseed fields near Muhlhausen |
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| Large fields of rapeseed near Allmenhausen |
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| Dinner in our hotel room in Nürnberg, from the rotisserie Chicken truck near the hotel |
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| At a gym, getting some exercise on our Wednesday morning that we had off. Photo is from my treadmill while Debbie is biking below. |
Weekend Activities:
We visit all of the parishes and archives during the week. That leaves our weekends open. We try to renew friendships, worship in our Sunday meetings, exercise and relax. The photos below are from some of these activities.
May 12:
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| Ruckertshofen, a nearby village |
In our May 12 Saturday, we decided to go for a walk and run in Ruckertshofen. This is a remote village about 10 kilometers from where we are staying. The village is named for the small river or creek in a nearby forested area. It made for a nice morning activity.
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| Ruckertshofen creek in Ruckertshofen |
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| Debbie walking in Ruckertshofen. The creek is in the wooded area behind her |
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| Near some lumber cut out of the wooded areas |
When we got home we helped Cristian and Marianne get their garden planted. They did most of the planting, but Tom helped dig up the ground in preparation for the planting.
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| Marianne and Cristian transplanting the plants that have been growing indoors |
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| Tom, actually working on this vacation |
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| View of the garden from our bedroom |
That same afternoon we were able to visit Werner and Dorota Rückert, our friends and relatives that we found on our mission. We had a joyous reunion and were well received. This is our first visit with them since they have been visited by the missionaries. They have enjoyed the visits from the missionaries. We were joined by Elder and Sister Paxton, from the Ansbach branch, who came to meet them. After a meeting of almost two hours, Werner asked Elder Paxton to come back again. After that visit, the Paxtons also made a short visit with Cristian and Marianne. Once again, Cristian asked Elder Paxton (who speaks good German) to come back and visit again. The Paxtons had offered to help "minister" to these friends of ours. We feel like we have done our best to introduce them to other good people of our Church and that ministering can continue.
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| Werner and Dorota and their daughter Claudia with Debbie and Elder and Sister Paxton |
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| Werner and Dorota with their daughter Claudia |
May 19:
This weekend we needed to come back to Frankfurt to exchange our rental car for a new contract. We decided to spend the weekend here. While here we had the chance to go back to the National Bibiliotek and review the Church book indexes that were ordered from Leipzig, have dinner with Tom and Raelene King (he is our old boss in the Area office), go to the pealing of the bells (30 minutes of bell ringing from 12 different church) and attend the Jordan River Temple Cultural Celebration, which was streamed live. This made for a wonderful and full Saturday in Frankfurt.
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| The final books that few were able to review at the National Bibiliotek, retrieved from Leipzig to be available to us |
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| Dinner and Ice Cream with Tom and Raelene King, friends forever |
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| On the bridge over the River Main, during the Pealing of the Bells on the Saturday before Pentecost |
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| The Youth Cultural Celebration of the Jordan River Temple Rededication, watched in Germany, streamed live at 2:00 pm SLC time, 10:00 pm Germany time |
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| Part of the amazing cultural celebration |
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| President Eyring applauding at the end of the celebration |
Sunday worship:
We have been privileged to watch the membership of the Church follow the direction of our prophet, Russell M. Nelson. On April 15 and 22, we watched new Elders Quorum Presidents being called and sustained in our previous wards in West Jordan Utah and Frankfurt Germany. On April 29, we participated in a full discussion of ministering with the combined adult meeting in the Ansbach ward. On May 6, we were taught in the Nürnberg stake conference by an Area 70 about receiving revelation, as shared by President Nelson. On May 13 we again attended in Ansbach and coordinated ministering to our friends with members of this ward and enjoyed a fast and testimony meeting. Today, we attended the Frankfurt 1st ward and Frankfurt 2nd ward. Again we heard the Stake President refer to President Nelson's talk on revelation to the Frankfurt 1st ward and our speaker in the Frankfurt 2nd ward based his remarks on President Nelson's recent talk.
We testify that we are led by a prophet and the membership of this Church are supportive and excited to follow our living prophet. We love to be part of this Church and to see it move forward in so many different settings.
We are also thankful for the many friends old and new that we can associate with in our Church activities. This certainly is a place where we enjoy a taste of Zion.
