“Family Archaeologist” explores a century of family letters, diaries, and artifacts, and how they illuminate history and our shared humanity. To get an overview of the blog, click: “Welcome to Family Archaeologist”
LATEST BLOG POSTS
Searching for Home
Travel Tuesday When we took a brief visit to Sibiu (Hermannstadt to the Germans), we marveled at the massive wall surrounding the city, its combination of thirty-nine towers and four bastions a bulwark against invading Ottoman Turks. But while Sibiu defended the city in the past against those bent on its destruction, it is now dedicated to protect [...]
Sibiu—A Brief Visit
Pia?a Mare, the largest square in Sibiu. Called “Der Grosse Ring”when Lisi, my grandmother, worked here for Mrs. Jickeli Travel Tuesday In two previous Travel Tuesday posts, I wrote about my brothers and my visit to the small museum at the back of my grandfather Josef’ Gartz’s Neppendorf church, where we were astounded to find copies of [...]
The Pocket Watch and the Packing List
The pocket watch lay in Box 14 for the past seventeen years—and untold decades prior—in my grandparents’ cedar chest. I had assumed it was my grandfather’s watch, but didn’t know when he had acquired it. Its wide, crisply-numbered face and long gold chain made me wish I had a small pocket in which I could carry [...]
“John Philip Sousa” of Neppendorf
Marching Band of Neppendorf – 1925″Neppendörfer Neue Musikkapelle”Michael Gärtz, bottom row, 3rd from left Travel Tuesday When we walked into the small museum at the back of my grandfather’s Lutheran Church in Neppendorf (near Sibiu) and found photos of my grandmother and grandfather’s sister on display, we realized how interwoven our family history was [...]
Mystery of Missing Manifest: Solved
First page of Josef Gärtz’s diary on right; lower left he wrote “Kronprinz Wilhelm” see detail Even handwritten documentation from our ancestors can lead us astray as we search for the details of their pasts. In my case, it was my grandfather’s diary, a primary document, in which he had written the name of [...]
Spilling Secrets
Lutheran Church, NeppendorfWelcome TRAVEL TUESDAY Come, enter with me into the courtyard of the Evangelische Kirche Neppendorf. We’ve been here before—and learned when and from where (late 18th century and Gerstheim, Alsace, respectively) our forebears made their way to this little German community that became home to the Gerz/Gärtz family for nearly two centuries. [...]
Dress Designer Extraordinaire
Dress DesignerAlöisia Woschkeruscha 1912 March is Women’s History Month, and a topic for this month’s Carnival of Genealogy (CoG) is to write about a female relative. Thanks especially to Jasia at Creative Gene for hosting the CoG. Regular readers of this blog have met Elisabetha (Lisi) Ebner, my paternal grandmother. This CoG gives me an opportunity [...]
Loans, Homes, Names and Babes
Lutheran Church Neppendorfinterior TRAVEL TUESDAY After my brothers and I read the summarized history of the Gärtz (originally Gerz or Görz) family handed to us by the church secretary, Renate, when we visited my grandfather’s church in his hometown of Neppendorf, Romania, we discovered the following highlights. Perhaps some may ring true for your family as [...]
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