Its been a long year

Circumstances being what they are I have not posted anything on the family in a long time. Mostly because I do not have new info. I have been improving my German langauge skills slowly and surely and totally obsessed with Matthias Reim's music. Talk about taking a detour! But also the family past has had to take a back seat to the present. I am so jealous of people who get to invest 40 hour work weeks on their family history. I just do not have the that kind of time while I am wrapped up in surviving.

That said I was surprised to find that we have two new followers... Laura and Fritz. Google was not able to connect me to a profile so I know nothing of them except that they are here and they have some sort of interest in our goings on. So "Wilkommen!" And "Veilen Dank" I am glad you are following. Feel free to leave comments. I activated the post moderation so that anyone who shares personal contact information doesn't get hassled. I know that makes it a hassle for everyone else. But telephone numbers and such posted on the internet is a bad idea and I just can't get some people to understand that. So please.... please... please keep leaving comments. The moderating is just for your personal saftey.

A sheild

I don't know what the source for this is. I suspect it comes from a better version of the Wappenbuch that I mentioned before. I haven't made much progress here lately. Been a hectic year. But I do hope to have more to offer soon.

This strikes me as a bit of a "Do'h" kind of a thing. A scriptorium monk in the sheild confirms what the author of Dirty German says... Germans are geeks. I guess it's in the DNA or something. So if you obsessively collect anything, spend a lot of time in your head researching things in depth on subjects that seem rather archaic and pointless to others while hanging your hat on obtaining every piece of new technology that you can afford.... you gotta know that you are definately, unabashedly and irrevocably German.

Huh...

Remember when I said I thought that there might be a connection to Wallachia? encyclopedia.kids.net has an article on the Lechfeld battle of 955. It's a bit earlier than I was thinking. Basically the Thuringian Knights, part of the Lauenstein regency from 1222 and so on, apparently went galavanting into Transylvania to route a Magyar incursion on orders from Otto I the Great. There was a decisive battle at Marienburg. And Andrew II of Hungary brought the Tuetonic Knights, of which there would have been some Thuringian knights, back in 1211. The knights occupied Burzenland in Transylvania. Andrew's daughter was supposed to marry the Landgrave of Thuringia to solidify some borders.

I keep finding names that dance around Lauenstein but no real solid links. Grrr..... I am getting tired of sitting in the library with the screen floating in and out of focus!!!!!

Exciting Times

Hi All,
Blogs in brief: a blog is an online journal that is either self built or uses a company's predetermined template. Blogger has free templates and offers a variety of settings to make it easy for you the writer to use and the reader to navigate. I have this set to notify me in my email account when new comments are posted. So no worries about your comments not being seen. I left things really open on my end because I know that the way they keep enhancing search engines is going to bring people to me since getting to them has been so frustrating and tedious.
Blogger also allows you, the readr, the option of following the blog so that you will be notified by email when there are new comments.
Personally, I can't wait to talk to Barb. I believe we knew each other in a past life (current) from either my days at a rubber stamp store or through Tim. I used to sit for Tim and Sue's kids. I don't want to publish my phone # here. But I can be found on Facebook if you guys have accounts there. Facebook has a fairly adequate instant message system that would let us chat in real time.

We Have a Hit

Well, its been a crazy kind of busy since the last time I posted. And I have a bite here. It looks like there are tons of questions all around.

Dear Edith,
I will call your mom soon. Work has been nuts and I want to be able to talk to you guys with all my concentration. I wasn't really certain I'd ever get anything but a good base in the family tree. I am so happy that you found this and contacted me.
Sherry

Dear Family,
The Erna Gerbstadt I found was indeed Grampa's sister. She passed at 100 years old. The family found the blog and has contacted me. As I said to Edith, its been nuts so as soon as I get a solid block of time to call I will. And I'll publish the results here. With luck we can all get together soon.

Translation update

I am almost done translating the first half of this thing. I've got the words fairly accurately thanks to my Cassells that I unearthed from the depths of dad's living room. But I am uncertain of the proper application of the words. So I'm kinda stuck at the moment. But I will be posting the word for word soon.

there ain't enough Excedrin on the planet

Okay, my zeal for the translating has completely degenerated into a headache the size of... well what's bigger than the Universe? So i decided to try to find more Gerbstadts by using some married names as bait. Guess how you know you are the only one interested in a topic. The answer:
Because your own blog is the number two find on a search engine.
Yeah... hilarious. Apparently the Heupels that Erna married into aren't looking for the rest of the nuts on the tree. I did find a few people with the surname: reporters, geneticists and a couple of bankers. Mostly links to a geneticists trying to uncover the link to hydrogen peroxide in the body.
Yeah... who knew our bodies made THAT! And that is why our hair goes grey. Apparently the older we get the less we cvan get rid of so it just discolors our hair. Like it does right out of the bottle.
I must be insane or tired to be that interested in these kinds of tangents. No, wait. I'm a geek. That would explain some of it. Not enough of it though.