There was good news and bad news when I discovered “Adapting to Modernity” by Heide W Whelan in the library. The good news, apart from the fact it is in English, was that it is the best resource I’ve found so far in my research about my father’s family. The
Among the many photographs from my mother’s side of the family are a few negatives, including two of glass. A quick Google search and I found this website. Apparently, there are two principal kinds of glass plate negatives: Collodion Wet Plate and Gelatine Dry Plate. I’m almost certain the negatives
Now and again I pull out one of the large plastic tubs which house the memorabilia I brought from my parent’s house. Much of the memorabilia is letters, documents and various bits of paper, written in Russian or German. There is not very much in English. If I ever have
Last year, I wrote this post about four ways to research your family history. This week I discovered the limitations of research while I was writing an essay for my study. The task was to write a short narrative on a person, place, time or event, using techniques based on
I have several genealogical charts of my father’s family. A couple of them comprise the entire family, one of them is only of my father’s direct family, and one of them includes the children of the females in the family. All of them contain valuable information; names, birth dates, dates
My paternal grandfather, Peter Julius Otto von Fircks, was born at Nurmhusen on 23 February 1876. At that time Nurmhusen, the Fircks family estate, was in Kurland, now Latvia. His name, date of birth and death, are recorded in the family tree composed by my cousin. My cousin was the