… en route to family history
Warning: The Legal Genealogist is whining.
On an ordinary day, I’m managing the discombobulation of this pandemic reasonably well. I’m Zooming along with family, friends and colleagues. My housemate, Clancy, has fangs and fur and as long as he’s fed regularly, petted on demand (and only on demand) and his litterbox changed, he’s fine. I’m busy at home and getting out just enough not to feel too confined.
So most of the time I’m okay.
Not today.
Today I’m whining.
This is the day when I should have been traveling home from the 2020 Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Kansas City — getting an early start homewards, actually, because… sigh … this is the day I should have been doing laundry, grabbing the bigger travel suitcase…
And finding the passport.
And tomorrow… tomorrow is the day when I should have been boarding an airplane headed for family history.
This is the crest of the ruling family of Fürstentum Reuß jüngerer Linie (Reuss Junior Line in English), a tiny principality in today’s German state of Thüringen (Thuringia in English). A whopping 319 square miles of territory with a 1905 population of 145,000.1
And that is where, in March of 1891, my paternal grandfather Hugo Ernst Geissler was born, in what is now the town of Bad Köstritz.2 Where he was baptized.3 Where his parents, my great grandparents, were married.4
And where — sigh — I had intended to be, in the days and weeks to come.
Starting two years and more ago, I had blocked off the entire month of September 2020. No speaking gigs, no meetings, no obligations whatsoever after the FGS conference.
Because I was going to walk in my ancestors’ footsteps.
I had planned to spend a lot of time in Thüringen, in places like Bad Köstritz and Gera and Rüdersdorf, and in Sachsen-Anhalt, in places like Ossig and Reussen and Haynsburg.
All the little towns and villages where my own people — my father’s father’s side of the family — had lived and worked and married and died, for centuries.
And I’d planned to spend a lot of time in Bremen. Where my father was born.5 Where his mother, Marie Margarethe Nuckel, was born.6 Where my grandparents were married.7 Where their first child, my aunt Marie Emma, was born and died and buried.8
Where my own people — my father’s mother’s side of the family — had lived for hundreds of years.
I’ve been to Germany before. Many times. But this was the year I was going to do the family history part.
The ancestral journey.
The walking-in-their-footsteps trip.
This year.
2020.
The year of the pandemic.
When — as of today — Germany’s borders are closed to Americans, since we can’t seem to summon the self-discipline to get the pandemic under control here.
Sigh…
Someday.
I will walk in those footsteps.
Someday.
Just — sigh — not today.
Whine.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Oh, to be …,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 5 Sep 2020).
SOURCES
- Wikipedia (https://www.wikipedia.com), “Principality of Reuss-Gera,” rev. 11 June 2020. ↩
- Standesamt Köstritz, Geburten, No. 23, 1891, Hugo Ernst Geissler (City Registrar, Births). ↩
- Evangelische Kirche, Kirchenbuch Bad Köstritz, Taufregister Seite 69 Nr. 21 aus 1891, Baptismal Record of Hugo Ernst Geissler (digital image of record in possession of JG Russell). ↩
- Ibid., Trauregister, Seite 11 Nr. 11 aus 1879, Marriage Record of Hermann Edward Geissler and Emma Louisa Graumüller, 22 June 1879 (Church book, Marriage Register, Page 11, no. 11 of 1879). ↩
- Standesamt Bremen, Geburten, Nr. 2888, 1921, Hugo Hermann Geissler. ↩
- . ↩
- Heiraten (Marriages), p. 41, nr. 5, Geißler-Nuckel, 14 Feb 1918; Kirchenbuch (Church Book), Evangelische Kirche St. Jakobi, Bremen, Heiraten 1911-1930; FHL INTL microfilm 953,273. Also Bescheinigung der Eheschließung (Certificate of Marriage), nr. 135 (1918), Geißler-Nuckel, Standesamt (Registry Office), Bremen. ↩
- For the birth, Bremen Standesamt, Zivilstandsregister (Bremen city registry office, civil status registers), Geburten (Births) 1919, Reg. Nr. 2420, Marie Emma Geissler (1919). For the death, ibid., Todten (Deaths), Reg. Nr. 226, Marie Emma Geissler (1920). For the burial, “Sterbefälle in Bremen 1811 – 1975 (Deaths in Bremen 1811 – 1975),” Die Maus – Family History and Genealogical Society of Bremen (Gesellschaft für Familienforschung e. V. Bremen) (https://die-maus-bremen.info/ : accessed 5 Sep 2020). ↩
You are entitled to whine. So much careful planning and anticipating, all for naught. I was to fly tomorrow to Scotland to do the same thing… Instead I am going to a scotch tasting.
Hmmm… maybe I should have a German beer and some schnitzel tomorrow. Hugs to you for your postponed plans as well…
So sorry for this disappointing outcome to so much planning and anticipation. Hoping that our world will be righted again in the near future and that you will have that opportunity to walk where your ancestors walked.
Thanks — for all of us, I hope it’s sooner rather than later…
Oh dear, you have every right to feel a bit down right now. The only consolation is that you didn’t travel and get caught up in a sudden change of rules while you were out of your home country
That is the silver lining in this cloud, for sure. Although being “trapped” in Germany for a while might not have been too great a sacrifice… 🙂
I/we all feel your pain and are whining with you. Here in a Florida it feels like lockdown literally and figuratively. The good news is this will pass and you will be back in Germany walking in your family footsteps, very soon we hope.
I’m figuring another year or so before I’m going to be comfortable travelling widely… Even if we get a safe effective vaccine soon, the sheer number of doofuses swearing they won’t take it will impact my comfort level. Sigh…
Sometimes a spell of whinging and whining plus a tear or three is the best response to your wonderful detailed plans going awry. You’re definitely not alone. I’m only 5 hours of driving away from my son/daughter-in-law and 3 grandchildren in Seattle, whom I haven’t seen in months and months. And won’t. We’re all experiencing losses that are painful. And as a nurse trying to keep up with all the info on Covid-19, I’m clear that I may not cross that border to my south until a truly effective vaccine is available. And at the moment I’m out of wine. Double-sigh.
Oy, Celia… I didn’t remember that your family was south of the border — and yeah, that border isn’t going to be open for a LONG time. (Dumb Americans. Dumb dumb dumb.) We all need an occasional whine, but your situation is really worth a good whine. And you need to go order some wine!
I’m so sorry…how frustrating. I know we’re all supposed to keep on carrying on, but every once in a while it’s ok to whine…
I’ll even consider wine with my whine today! 🙂
We are all feeling the pain of this pandemic. My major travel plan for 2020 was a visit to Sweden to see my son and to have my first white Christmas. Not this year but hopefully 2021 will be better for all of us. In the meantime we have all discovered Zoom.
Oh Shauna… what a disappointment… that would have been such a wonderful trip.
And of course the postponement of FHDU for 2021 has us all down in the mouth as well. I’m sure glad there will be a “domestic” version in 2021 (if conditions allow, of course) and am avidly looking forward to coming back Down Under in 2022.
My sister-in-law started creating a “Not the trip I planned on” photo book that shows what she was doing when she should have been in Italy, Austria, etc…
“Today at this time I would have been in Rome at our favorite little restaurant, but instead here I am on my deck with a box of wine and some cheese and crackers!
Sigh…”
At some point we will look back in laugh, as long as we live through it!
2020 The year of the staycation!
That’s very clever!!
I’m so sorry. You are entitled to whine. I know I would be whining. 🙁
We’re all entitled to whine right about now…
No travel plans for us but we are improvising celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary. Not exactly how we thought we would spend the day but we are grateful that we are healthy and able to improvise.
It’s people like you that make me ashamed to whine at all, Pat — so many major milestones being missed this year…
Judy – no need to be ashamed about how you feel. Each of us has our own response to what is going on based on where we are in life. I will say I have no sympathy for people who whine about not being able to get their nails done or get their hair cut when it is convenient for them. I weep when I read of families who could not or cannot be with a loved one as they die because of visitation restrictions.
For us, we will celebrate anniversary # 51 with extra gusto and a really good bottle of a bubbly beverage.
So much has been lost, in real gut level human terms, for sure. But yes, those of us who get through this will celebrate with extra gusto on the other side.
Whining and even blubbering are reasonable reactions to the cancellation of such a long planned trip! I suggest you calendar it again (and perhaps with a back up date too). Anticipation is one thing, making the trip a reality can be so much better. Early on in this seemingly everlasting isolation one of my cousins, who entertained me in the family’s cottage where our 3ggp lived, e-mailed me saying how glad we both must be that I made the trip “home” to Ireland, which my ggm left in 1886, two years ago. So true. And I have another trip “home” on my calendar for 2022 or 2023.
I’m working on it… it’s the “you’re not getting any younger” part that I can’t control!! 🙂
Judy, I feel your disappointment. Although not as grand, I had planned to spend time in the Joliet, IL area following our McDonald family reunion which was supposed to happen in August. I, too, was going to “walk” in my paternal grandparent’s and great-grandparent’s footsteps.
Gentle hugs… this is definitely no fun.
I got mine in in May 2019 in Bavaria and Graeubundigen and Luxembourg and Baden. Of course, the drive to churches in southern Bavaria was unaccompanied by any of the offspring. Switzerland, however, was later cited by my son as a highlight of the trip, seeing me so excited.
I’ll get to do it one of these days… I hope.
Oh I feel this so much. To celebrate my 40th this year I was going to make a pilgrimage to visit a family cemetery that’s only accessible by canoe…
Gentle hugs to a fellow traveller-delayed…