Fascinating exercise in living history

Hi dawnald, Wow!! that is interesting, please tell us some more about your great-grandfather, what a wonderful thing to have, a letter written all these years ago, sadley I haven't got letters like that. Tamara

Now I'd definitely have to research the cousin. I love family history and am very fortunate in that mine is a relatively easy family to trace back to about 1790. Before that it gets a little hazy. My Great Great Grandfather inherited a large fortune from his father, who had in turn inherited from his uncle. I'd love to know how he spent it all. I do mean ALL too! Grrrrr. LOL.

That's great! I am getting goose bumps as I read through your post. It must have been an interesting process. History relived through the translation. I remember the time I found out that I am related to a very important figure in Indian history. My mom never told me and we happened to trace it back through family tree!

How cool! We should never forget where we came from and it's fantastic that you have access to family history like this. My Grandmother on my Mother's side has traced my family back to smugglers in the English Channel around the 1600's, but I have no knowledge of my Father's side really. I have German heritage on his side though, this I do know. My Grandmother's family line is quite well known in the region of the UK she's from, so thankfully there's a lot of information available. Even a book! I remember reading something a while back that said that the Great Fire of London destroyed many records and because of this, it can be very difficult to trace genealogy through public records. I'm not 100% sure, but I think this is why my Grandmother was only able to trace back to the 1600's and no further herself.

I don't have any documentation as you do, that is so very fascinating! My step grandfather was an Austrian Jew...was here on business (he was a jeweler) when Hitler invaded Austria. He went back after the war and could not find his family. He returned and married my Irish Catholic grandmother...said a priest in Austria helped him try to find his family and he from then on contributed to the church. He had a daughter and a wife and siblings lost in the Holocaust. He raised my mom and aunt as his own and they loved him as their own too. My father's family's story is interesting too. His father immigrated from Germany as a child. He worked for the government out west...in Minnesota. He was on one of the reservations and met my grandmother's family (Ojibwe) There was a measles epidemic and my grandmother was 14...her parents asked my grandfather who was in his late 20's to marry her and keep her from the epidemic. They had 16 children...eight single births and four sets of twins! Every family has a story...I encourage all to find out who they came from. It is so enlightening and interesting.

What a great story, my grandma used to tell me lots of stories about that era too. But it's been so long and so much has happened in my life that I don't remember them. But I think that you should share that story with the world, your letter should be in a museum.

I used to love listening to my dads stories of the Home Guard, Dads Army, during the second world war. He was born in 1909 an my eldest daughter learned more about history from him than she would ever have learned at school. Sadly, he never wrote anything down so lots of it is lost to my grandchildren. When someone can tell you about the first radio they had, it was called a 'catswhiker radio' and other things, it really brings history to life. Maybe you could research the cousin and see if he made it to the states.

That is so cool, I think I'm living history... Just read my posts...

i absolutely LOVE history! my father in law was a boy in war torn Germany during the Second World War and was only one year away from having to join the Hilter Youth. He and his pals were on a field playing soccer and an American bomber went over head and instead of bombing the young boys, he saluted them! my grandfather was on a ship on the Atlantic ocean while the Titanic went down. (there was about 100 ships on the ocean that particular night).

I bet that was alot of fun going through the letter and seeing what they experienced. I don't have a fun or interesting story to tell about my family...with the exception of my grandparents who ran away together to get married....but it's more a memory that a family would appreciate.

GOOD MORNING DAWN, No, i don't , wish i did . I think u are very fortunate to have some family history like that. I really know very little about my family, guess i need to do some research & see what i can find. I guess it was something my family never talked about or if they did i wasn't paying attention as a child. Have a great day.

I think that this is a real big deal, I could never do anything like that of course all the languages I know are English and a very little French. I really admire you.

My grandfather was a freedom fighter working in a sugar mill in Bhopal,India.So one day he got rid of 4-5 brats irritating him.Later on he went on with Mahatma Gandhi,for the non co operation movement, in a young age of 19.this was my family history