Engraving by Matthaus Merian, early 1600s. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) Thanks to the awesomely awesome genealogy website maintained by the Mormon Church (FamilySearch.org), I recently dug up a bunch of info about one branch of Tony's family tree (on his mom's side) for which I previously had very little documentation. The family's surname is Antoni and they came from Lauterecken, Germany. So far, I've been able to go as far back as Henry and Christina (Schott) Antoni, who were Tony's (are you ready for this?) great-great-great-great-great grandparents. I found their marriage record from 1777 and the birth/baptism records for most (if not all) of their children.
Whenever I discover a new person/family in my research, especially when I'm looking at the European ancestors, I always do a Google search of where they lived. Even though Germany has undergone a lot of political and leadership changes over the past three hundred years or so, the names of individual towns seem to have stayed fairly consistent down through the generations, which makes finding ancestral records and villages fairly easy. Anyway, I started looking at some of these photos of Lauterecken on Panoramio and fell in love (Photo1 Photo2 Photo3). This town is going on my list of places to visit when I someday go back to Germany.
Whenever I discover a new person/family in my research, especially when I'm looking at the European ancestors, I always do a Google search of where they lived. Even though Germany has undergone a lot of political and leadership changes over the past three hundred years or so, the names of individual towns seem to have stayed fairly consistent down through the generations, which makes finding ancestral records and villages fairly easy. Anyway, I started looking at some of these photos of Lauterecken on Panoramio and fell in love (Photo1 Photo2 Photo3). This town is going on my list of places to visit when I someday go back to Germany.
Lauterecken is in western Germany, not far from the French border and is in the German state of Rhineland - Palatinate (often called Rhineland-Pfalz).
Now, I know that there are a lot of picturesque, quaint little towns all over Germany, each with their own distinctions. And I'm sure that there are other towns that have better travel ratings, lodgings, food, "charm," and so on. But tell me how cool would it be to go with my husband and children with the knowledge that we are walking some of the SAME streets that their ancestors walked hundreds of years ago? I don't know about you, but that kind of stuff gives me goosebumps :)
©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
