Julie's Genealogy & History Hub

Title: German Census Records 1816–1916: The When, Where, and How of a Valuable Genealogical Resource Author: Roger P. Minert Format: Paperback Published: 2016 My Rating:   The following review first appeared in the Federation of Genealogical Societies FORUM magazine (Winter 2016); reprinted with permission. Census records are a keystone for those researching ancestors in the United States, as well as Canada, England, and other European countries. But for those working on their German roots, census records aren’t more than a brief mention in most German genealogy how-to books, if at […]

Week 4 Prompt: I’d Like to Meet This week’s 52 Ancestors theme is “I’d like to meet.” There are certainly a lot of ancestors I’d love to meet, so I can ask them a ton of questions. But, I’m going to go with a living relative. I’d love to meet fellow blogger and distant cousin-in-law Cathy Meder-Dempsey. It would be so cool to travel to Luxembourg and meet her and her husband, see the sights, and indulge in the culture. Maybe someday!

Title: Map Guide to Luxembourg Parish Registers Author: Kevan M. Hansen Format: Paperback Published: 2016 My Rating: The following review first appeared in the Federation of Genealogical Societies FORUM magazine (Winter 2016); reprinted with permission. Kevan Hansen has a spectacular series of books, Map Guide to German Parish Registers, that to date has over 50 volumes covering various places in Germany (both present-day and historical). Earlier this year, Hansen released a similar book specific to Luxembourg, a small country surrounded by Germany, France, and Belgium.

Week 3 Prompt: Unusual Name This week’s 52 Ancestors theme is unusual names. I thought I’d focus on one of my German surnames for this theme. A few years ago, I attended the 2016 Jamboree live stream of Fritz Juengling’s lecture “German Names: Their Origins, Meanings and Distribution.” It was extremely fascinating and I got all sorts of ideas. Some of my German surnames are obvious: Müller = occupational surname for a miller Schwartz = descriptive surname, probably someone with black hair But other surnames are not so obvious. One […]

Title: Trace Your German Roots Online: A Complete Guide to German Genealogy Websites Author: James M. Beidler Format: Paperback, Kindle Published: 2016 My Rating: The following review first appeared in the Federation of Genealogical Societies FORUM magazine (Winter 2016); reprinted with permission. Trace Your German Roots Online: A Complete Guide to German Genealogy Websites by James M. Beidler can be considered a companion to Beidler’s earlier book The Family Tree German Genealogy Guide: How To Trace Your Germanic Ancestry in Europe (Family Tree Books, 2014). While there are a few […]

Week 2 Prompt: Challenge This week’s 52 Ancestors theme is about challenges. Simple enough, I guess. But my challenge was figuring out which challenging ancestor to write about. I’ve decided to write about one ancestral couple, who I assumed would remain brick walls forever. Fortunately, with the few clues that I had and new databases on Ancestry, I was able to find this German couple’s origins and parents. Heinrich Karl “Charles” Stoffel and Anne Marie “Mary” Braun are second great-grandparents on my maternal side. They immigrated from Germany and settled […]

Week 1 Prompt: First I’ve decided to participate in my first 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. Since this was my first-ever post for the challenge, that was going to fit the first theme. However, when I randomly picked a number from 1 to 63 (covers six generations on the ahnentafel), up popped number 14, which corresponds to my great-grandfather George Rottman, who has his own first-related story. I’ve written about George many times over the last ten years, but I’ve never shared the story of his first marriage, which […]

Title: The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America’s First Serial Killer Author: Skip Hollandsworth Format: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle Published: 2015 My Rating: The following review first appeared in the Federation of Genealogical Societies FORUM magazine (Fall 2016); reprinted with permission. For nearly a year in the mid-1880s, the “midnight assassin” tormented the city of Austin, Texas. This lesser-known crime spree may very well be America’s first encounter with a serial killer. For over a decade, Skip Hollandsworth, a journalist for Texas Monthly, combed through historical records in […]