I visit an emigrant museum in Hamburg and a Hanseatic history museum in Lübeck to learn more about the area my family came from. After stops in places like Venezuela, New York and New Orleans, they eventually settled on farms in southwest Iowa, where I grew up and where my family still lives. They emigrated to the US in the mid- and late 19th century, seeking better lives for their families. It turns out that ancestors from both sides of my family came from Northern Germany, within an hour or two of Hamburg. Technology is going to get me only so far. And AncestryDNA, while interesting, also doesn't give me much to go on that I don't already know. The problem is I have no idea if those names are accurate, and I don't really know how to confirm them digitally. I enter every ancestor's name that I know into the system, and it spits back "hints," suggestions of other people who might also be my relatives. There may not be a "later."įor most people today, the easiest way to research family history is through. Then my dad's older brother and sister died within a couple of weeks of each other in August, and his younger sister started facing health problems. There are constantly more articles to write, and life gets in the way. I've always thought I'd have more time to do it later. I want to track down where the Tibkens came from, and maybe even meet some distant cousins.ĭespite numerous trips to Germany, I've never taken the time to research my family history here. I've always been interested in family history, and over the past couple of years, I've gathered information about my origins from various family members. I'm spending a month in Hamburg, Germany, as part of a journalism exchange program through the Goethe-Institut. A Tibken - familiar, yet a total stranger - has actually answered the phone on my first try. I'm calling one of the six numbers I found in Germany's online Das Telefonbuch for residences with that last name, the same as mine. I pause a moment, digesting the fact she actually said Tibken. "Tibken," a woman says as she answers the phone.
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