WIDOUGLA-L Archives

From: Jeannette Harper <>
Subject: Kind of off topic but not really...
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 15:48:11 -0700

Back in February (2004), Kim Lemberg posted a message about a new research
team in Hamburg Germany on the Cook County IL mail list. Many of us with
ancestors in Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, etc have 'roots' in
Germany. And even if not Germany, many of our ancestors left Europe by way
of the port of Hamburg.

I hesitated for a couple weeks and then took the plunge - I sent an email
message to the ladies at http://www.genealogus.net/.

Holy cow is not sufficient to say just how overwhelmed I have been with the
information provided by one of the members of this group!

I have been researching my Dittmer line (with Pimsner 'side line') for over
30 years - never quite knowing just where my great grandfather came from but
guessing at Hamburg Germany. I have the ship manifest for his arrival in
America; I have a copy of the marriage certificate for when he married my
great grandmother, Anna Marie Pimsner, in Cleveland Ohio; and I have a
photograph of him and his family in front of his store on California Avenue
in Chicago...

Thanks to Silvie Harrfeldt, of GENEALOGUS HAMBURG, I now have actual
birthdates, parents, grandparents, etc! I even have digital copies of the
original church records!

I wanted to share this site and this service for those of you ready to take
your Douglas County ancestor search up another 'notch'! Especially if you
are like me and neither read nor speak German! This team is awesome!


Jeannette Harper
County Coordinator/Webmaster
Douglas County GenWeb
http://www.rootsweb.com/~widougla/


Researching: Brand, Dittmer, Franke, Franzen, Helwig, Hopp, Markgraff,
Neander, Pimsner (and so many more...)

This thread:

• Kind of off topic but not really... by Jeannette Harper <>