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Month: January 2026

Austria

Agnes was just a little girl when her mother died, leaving her father to find a new wife and travel to the New World in…

Warsaw

The classic setup from “An American Tale” — two Polish families left Warsaw to escape Russian rule; Helen’s in 1886, Waddy’s in 1895. While I…

Bohemian Rhapsody: Part 2

Antonia and Karl seemed to find fate just as magically as Emilie and her Karl. Before 1888, these Bohemian immigrants traveled across the ocean to…

Baden

Peter’s history seems mysterious at best, placing him in New York in 1882. You see, documents only seem to indicate that he was ambiguously from…

Bohemian Rhapsody: Part 1

How strange it must have been to live in the Kingdom of Bohemia under the Austrian Empire’s rule. Emilie and Karl may have left in…

Héricourt

Constant and Eugenie may have left together, but records have a way of disappearing into the ether. After losing his first wife, this Frenchman started…

Addendum to Neuhausen

As it would seem, I uncovered new information that indicates Karl and Magdalena arrived much sooner than 1862: they actually arrived in New York City…

Belfast By Way of Dalry

It was 1879 when Francis decided to leave the shores of Éire behind. Born at the tail-end of the Potato Famine, he found himself at…

Neuhausen Auf Der Fildern

Karl and Magdalena lived near Stuttgart — actually, it was a little village called “New House on the Fildern” (Hiemstra). A beautiful town outside of…

My American Tale

Before the Disney Renaissance, I watched Don Bluth and Steven Spielberg’s 1986 animated class, An American Tale, so many times. My grandparents had this fancy speed…