Family Archaeologist

“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.”

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 [...]

Linda Admin2011-03-29T03:30:00-05:00March 29th, 2011|Chicago: A View Over Time, Family Archaeologist, family history, Genealogy, memoir, Romania, Siebenbürgen, Transylvania|

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 [...]

Linda Admin2011-03-22T03:30:00-05:00March 22nd, 2011|Family Archaeologist, Transylvania|

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 [...]

Linda Admin2011-03-15T10:28:00-05:00March 15th, 2011|Family Archaeologist, family history, Genealogy, Germans, immigration, Transylvania|

“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 [...]

Linda Admin2011-03-08T04:30:00-06:00March 8th, 2011|Family Archaeologist, family history, Genealogy, Siebenbürgen, World War II|

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, [...]

Linda Admin2019-04-18T12:15:43-05:00March 4th, 2011|Family Archaeologist, family history, Genealogy, immigration|

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