I was recently contacted by a previously unknown fifth cousin, Andrea, from Bremen, Germany. We share fourth great-grandparents, Peter Joseph Mauren and Anna Maria Minwegen. Her branch of the family remained in Germany while my third great-grandparents emigrated to America in 1840.
Andrea’s search began recently with a family chronicle written by her second great-grandfather, Franz Xaver Mauer, in 1936 when he was 83 years old. He describes in detail his ancestors, their occupations and where they lived. He was born after my third great-grandmother, Anna Catharina Mauren, his aunt, left for America. Although he never met her, he heard that she and her husband Nicolas Pohl celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in America (in 1872).
Andrea graciously shared with me an electronic copy of her family chronicle. It is a great resource and is something I never would have found in a library or online collection. It is one of the rewards of publishing my research online.
By way of background, I have over forty years experience as a software engineer. I enjoy genealogy as a hobby, which I started in earnest in 1994. I've always liked family history. Now whenever I uncover some fascinating fact about an ancestor, I also take time to read about that era in history. Whether it be the Napoleonic Wars, the Erie Canal, Steamships, the Port of Hamburg, or hurricane tracks, there's always something new to learn.
By 2000 I published my family tree on the Internet. Unfortunately there were no software tools then that did precisely what I wanted. So I created GED-GEN, a Windows program to automatically generate a genealogy website. It converts a GEDCOM data file to a series of web pages in family group sheet format. Since 2002, people from all over the world have used GED-GEN for their websites.
Today I continue to research my family history, with the help of distant cousins. I am also actively creating digital images of my collection of genealogical evidence.
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