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Originally Posted by SunDeck
Part of our family is from the Ems region. I have old letters from my great-great grandmother to her family from varying times in the early to mid 20th century. One of her grand sons, my great-great uncle was a bishop and former Army chaplain (WWI) and had arranged sending shoes and clothing to them after WWII. Since they were in the British sector, he was not allowed to continue and eventually they lost contact. All we had, in terms of a location was a postcard with the village church on it.
A few years ago, my aunt visited and found the church. She asked at the rectory about the family ("Albers") and was directed to a house down the lane. She asked the occupants about the family and then produced a picture of my great grandmother in her wedding dress and sure enough the family had the same picture! And it was the same dress my aunt had worn at her wedding.
The other side of the family is well documented by a relative. I email with my cousins in Riemsloh occasionally- they live on the dairy farm that has been in the family since 1100. Interestingly, they seem just as interested in the family history as we are. There were three out of four men who left for the states in the 1870s (the farm passed to the eldest) and it was a complete mystery to them what had happened to them.
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SunDeck, I've been working on my genealogy more and started putting the Emsburen database info on an Ancestry.com page a 3rd cousin set up for another family line. I see now that my 5th great-grandmother was an Albers. Let me know if you'd like this link to the database. It's allowed me to get some of my ancestry back as far as 1600 in some lines.
I've made some breakthroughs in recent times getting additional info on some lines that have been nettlesome. The family line that I neglected to ask my great aunt about (her mother's family) has been discovered, maybe my earliest ancestors to the U.S. (1830's) and put me in touch with some other distant cousins researching the same line. Likewise, I came across someone doing research on one of my mom's lines and find I may be a double cousin to him, as it seems my great-grandfather married a cousin of his one of his own cousins (related to cousin thru his mother's brother, married cousin from the in-law side of that family).
Funny thing is, and Cincy folks will get this, besides being descended from an Albers, I'm also related to the Krogers (for out of town folks, Albers was Kroger's grocery competition until Albers went out of business).