In The Beginning

I am participating in Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. This week’s title is “In The Beginning”. I will be writing on how I got started in genealogy. Today is also my first blog anniversary! I can’t believe that I have been writing these posts for a year now. Time flies when you are having fun.

When I grew up in Germany no one ever really talked about the past and a family tree was never mentioned. My Dad would talk a little bit about WW2, he had lived through it after all. He was also a soldier for a little while, however he kept getting sick and so he was released from his duties early on. His two older brothers Hans and Josef weren’t so lucky. They both perished in that horrible war.

My maternal Grandfather or Opa would talk a little bit about WW1. He talked about how he learnt a little English and French during the war. The first English and French words I actually learnt from him. Opa would make extra money in the war by entertaining the other soldiers. He would then send the money home to his Mother. He never talked about his Father. I know Opa served in France but when and where I don’t know. The records were destroyed during air raids on Wuppertal in WW2. Below a picture of Opa in his WW1 uniform.

At one point in the 1990’s I wanted to start a family tree. I had bought some genealogy software to install on our first computer. I entered some information about my parents and had made a mistake and wasn’t able to correct it. I pretty much just gave up. I was working full time and then my children were both born in the mid 1990’s and my life got very busy.

In the back of my mind I always wanted to create a family tree, however I didn’t have the time or the knowledge on how to do it until the year 2003. We were visiting my husband’s paternal Grandfather in the state of Washington. Grandpa was 96 at the time and was still farming. A picture below of him getting ready to plant some onions.

Grandpa would always tell lots of stories. He himself was a child of immigrant parents. They came from Austria. Over the years I had listened to these stories and they always had fascinated me. This time it was different. Grandpa had asked us we had the Scholz book. We had never heard of it. So he gave us a copy to keep.

I was mesmerized and hooked at the same time. It was the beginning of my genealogical journey. One hundred years of dates, pictures and stories. As I looked through the pages I couldn’t believe my eyes. To my surprise I was in the book. Life is funny sometimes. How can you be in a book you didn’t even know existed. The picture on the front cover was taken in 1938 for the 50th anniversary of Grandpa’s parents, Adolf Scholz and Rosina Muecke, together with all their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Adolf and Rosina were both born in Austria and married in Tennessee in 1888. They had nine children in that state and moved west in 1905. Grandpa was the youngest and only one born in Washington in 1906.

Adolf Scholz died in 1939, less than a year after their 50th anniversary. Rosina lived until 1960. She was asked to write down her life story. It was included in the back of the book in her original hand writing and also a typed transcript. I have read this story a million times and all of it starting making sense over time. I have been able to verify most names and locations.

When we first received the Scholz book, I had really no idea about my own family history. I didn’t even know the names of my own Great Grandparent until few years later when my research started.

The author of the Scholz Book was my husband’s first cousin once removed, Virginia Scholz Burger. Unfortunately we never met her. Sie died in 2004. I do have a couple of photos and articles I found about her during my research. First of all on her wedding day

She served in WW2 as a WAVE officer.

An her book was mentioned in the newspaper

I think she would be happy to know that her work is being continued in a slightly different form via my research. May be one day, I will publish a second book on the Scholz Family and continue the saga from 1988 on.

Starting my genealogy in 2006 I didn’t know much about our ancestors, except for the book we were given by my husband’s Grandpa. During almost 20 years of my research, I have accumulated massive amounts of documents, pictures, articles, books and so much more. I currently have 22,280 people in my tree. I work on extended lines as well. I have found second and third cousins via DNA testing and through research. My husband is the lucky one, he has all the famous cousins. Stuntman Yakima Canutt, President Herbert Hoover and actor James Dean. By the way, all three and my husband have the same ancestor. My husband is also an eighth cousin of the former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. We both have ancestors going back all the way to the 15th century.

My journey continues, let’s see where it will take me in the next 12 months. May be finding another second or third cousin. May be a trip to an ancestral place. May be a surprise of some sort.