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Taking a Genealogy Research Trip to Germany
Part of my family history hails from northern Germany, back in the late 1800s. My ancestors fled because they weren't interested in war. Once we hit Stade, the point was driven home, just how important advance research is when taking a genealogy trip.
The aim of our trip was Stade, Germany - a small walled town north of Hamburg on the Elbe river. It was an important merchant town, long ago, and now it's a well preserved relic of gorgeous cobblesetone streets and authentic older houses.
Unfortunately, while we did have some general information about our ancestors and their birth dates and such, we didn't do any more practical research into the location of the gravestones, the hours the church was open, or the location of the house. We arrived at the library to find the librarian only spoke German. Our requests for genealogy books got us a book on dinosaurs. The church was closed while we were there. The house location - #20 Church Street - did not exist. And the map we had of the graveyard only marked the entrances, and not the stones ... and after 45 minutes of searching we could not find them.
We did love being IN the town of our ancestors, but with some prior planning we could have gotten much more out of our perhaps once-in-a-lifetime visit there. Read more about our trip to Stade, and make sure you get FULL details beforehand for any trips you might plan for yourself!
Lisa's Genealogy Trip to Germany
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Note - Lisa Shea wrote this content for the genealogy site at BellaOnline.com - you might still find this content there as well. That's fine :) I gave permission!
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