There have been a number of dead-ends and brick walls in my family tree, some that have persisted for generations. I only began researching my family’s history when I studied abroad in Germany in 2014. Some branches of my family tree were well-documented by previous family members. Others were complete mysteries. It wouldn’t be my […]

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I was doing some family history research tonight and tracing some of the people who match me on Ancestry. That led me to a quandary. The image was not shown in Ancestry. The church books were readily available and digitized on FamilySearch. But… you guessed it! LOCKED! It’s okay. It’s happened before. One of the […]

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Microfilm Collections Locked A number of researchers have been left in the lurch since the LDS operated FamilySearch removed physical microfilm collections from circulation in 2017. After an almost two-year waiting period, many of these same collections were digitized and provided online at no-cost. However, for researchers with a focus on former eastern German territories […]

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For those with Pomeranian ancestry, rejoice! Ancestry has finally whittled down their matching estimates to more specific regions. What’s exciting about this update is the addition of Baltic States. It seems that Eastern European ancestry has been split apart into two separate groups that better define a person’s heritage. What’s changed? Users can opt to […]

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The city of Blumenau, Brazil was founded on September 2, 1850 by German immigrants. The place takes its name from its founder, Dr. Hermann Bruno Otto Blumenau. Many from the lists below show variations of place names from Pomerania but may be spelled incorrectly. For example, Podewils is spelled “Podewels” and “Podewelg” and Nelep is […]

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