Und keine hat den Sieger begrüßt…. (and no one welcomed the victors)
The destruction of Elbing (West Prussia).. the end 1945.
Soviet News Reel #1
Soviet News Reel #2
Sharing is a particularly wonderful aspect of human existence.
If you have found ManyRoads to be helpful in the conduct of your research during the past months, we ask that you briefly reflect on the wonder of your family, community and life. Please also take a moment to remember those less fortunate than yourself. In remembrance of those you love, we ask that you provide a small donation to those in need during this upcoming holiday season. We have placed a link in our side menu to Oxfam’s Unwrapped program to facilitate access to what we believe is a very good charity (see the Oxfam Cow on the right and view the video below to learn more…). But by all means, feel free to choose another charity, if you prefer.
We would greatly appreciate a small note, email or comment letting us know of your intentions and actions. By working together and sharing our resources, we not only help each other but, we also contribute to the creation of a more peaceful and joyous existence for everyone.
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”
-Joseph Campbell
For some reason Christmas, this year, reminds me of WW1. I know it shouldn’t.
I have no idea why I am reminded of WW1- perhaps it is because I have been doing a lot of genealogy and I spend a lot of time thinking about the past. And, the past always reminds me of my Opa (Richard Senger). His life and mine have been deeply affected by the Great War (his directly.. mine vicariously).
I know a war is historically over at a definitive point in time, but emotionally that may not be the case. It seems more like waves… each following the other, getting smaller and shallower with time and distance. The pain of the Great War continues to ripple across time, still affecting me. His pain, his strength, his loss, all remain in my heart and remain real.
I remember his stories of the front (Verdun 1916), the stories of pain of angst of survival.
Last night while watching television, we saw these songs sung. I shed tears for my Opa and all those who suffered…
Which genetic genealogy DNA service is best? This is the question with which I am currently wrestling. Perhaps one or more of our knowledgeable readers has some insights to share. I certainly would appreciate experienced observations and insights into our dilemma.
Here are the basic objectives of our DNA search:
My assumption is that we ultimately are best served by having my father’s DNA run for both matrilineal and patrileneal lines (additionally examining both sides for Native American markers). We also ought to have my mother’s DNA run for our Prussian ancestry markers to check her matrilineal lines for European migrations etc.
If you have already conducted similar research…
We have a list of links to the providers we have found on our Links page (see Genetic Genealogy). Perhaps we have missed some important players? Perhaps you can tell us which are best, based upon your experience(s)…
Rejoice in your family, from where you have come, and all that you are.
We wish these joys to everyone on this Thanksgiving and every day. As the old Shaker song reminds us, it is truly “The gift to be simple”.
More
The cemeteries of the former Zeyer, West Prussia have severely deteriorated over the years. Clearly the destruction of the Zeyer ev. Kirche by Russian bombardment did the most complete removal of burial sites. But time itself has eroded the Zeyer Mennonite burial grounds as well.
The photos below are what is left of both the Lutheran and Mennonite Cemeteries (2010).
All that remains of this burial ground is a marker placed there in 2009.
As evidenced by the photos, this burial ground has been left to the elements and time.
As Rainer wrote me:
Recently a new Internet Expulsion (Ethnic Cleansing) Discussion Group opened its doors for business.
If you are interested in learning more about, or are researching, the European Ethnic Cleansings of the 20th Century as described below, these groups may be of interest. Hopefully the discussions will remain constructive as well as informative.
The European-Expellees Expellees * EUEEP * EUFV * UESE group describes itself as follows (click here to visit their site):
Flight, expulsion, ethnic cleansing, banishment and exile are fates suffered by millions of Europeans in the 20th century and represent a widespread political phenomenon in the world up to this day. This group is intended to serve as a platform to enhance communication and interaction between European refugees, expellees and people who support their rightful aims.
English, German and Italian are the official working languages of the European Union of Exiled and Expelled People (EUEEP). French will be permitted in this group as another major European lingua franca of high importance in the European institutions.
A second group, more narrowly focused on the German Expulsions from the former German Eastern provinces, describes itself as follows (click here to visit their site):
[The group focuses on discussions and information about ]Expulsion of ethnic Germans after World War 2.The expulsion of Germans after World War II refers to the mass deportation of people considered Germans from the eastern Soviet-occupied zone of Germany, and is the main part of German ethnic cleansing from eastern Germany after World War 2. Central Germany was to become its new east. The ethnic cleansing, intended for new forced border changes, was decided by the Allies at the Potsdam Conference.
I sincerely apologize for the delay in getting our almost regularly scheduled, nearly monthly ManyRoads NewsLetter out. The past month has provided quite some challenges (mostly technical).
22-24 October proved to be quite a challenge for us at ManyRoads. Our old web host (hostpapa) shut ManyRoads down because of our excessive server memory and CPU utilization. When asked what precisely the problem or cause was, they were unwilling to respond meaningfully. So, we moved to HostGator where we are now using 0.1% of our server, and under 1% of the server memory all while having improved our site speed by more than 50%. Cloudflare has played a huge part in this improvement. But, it is worth noting that the folks at HostGator have been hugely helpful and unbelievably responsive. (You will note posts on this below…)
Additionally you may have noticed a small menu bar appearing on the bottom of our site pages (Wibiya). Please feel free to use the bar for searching, tweeting, facebook links and the like. Every click on the bar helps improve our site rating and the chances that someone out there will find us and send us more information to share.
By the by… during the last month, a number of folks have sent us materials to share on the web. We greatly appreciate your ‘donations’ and make them available, as we are able. I would note that some of the items are not necessarily easy to upload and/or share. Some of the links are private and prohibit shareing but we check them all out and give it our best…
Happily, our visitor numbers have continued to grow and we are now averaging nearly 230 visitors per day! Given our nearly 24 hour total dead-time, this is quite an improvement. In the BLOG world, we are still pikers but I sure am glad you all stop by! As I have noted in the past, in the genealogical world, according to Genealogy.org, we are in the top 40 sites tracked by them (yes we slipped a bit since last month).
Another significant change on the ManyRoads site involves our maps. I have removed the old WordPress plug-in we were using, because the maps went dead in our new site hosting configuration. I have cleaned up the maps, standardized their format and hand-coded the presentation of the materials. It all seems to be working fine; please let me know if you encounter any problems.
Finally the list! Here are other ManyRoads items posted during the past month (and a bit…):
As always, I want to request any/all of you who have genealogical websites please consider reciprocal linking with ManyRoads. There is no cost and both your site and ManyRoads will benefit from the links. Simply place a link to http://many-roads.com on your site; send me an email letting me know you have made the link; and, I’ll place a link to your site.
And last but not least: Happy Thanksgiving to all our US readers!
The State of California provides a rather robust set of genealogy links. We hope you find them helpful and useful.
Who says genealogy is not full of surprises? Well, not me!
Over the past few months I have had the wonderful good fortune of coming into to contact with two magnificent people (families). One of them grew up near the village(?) where my grandmother (Frieda Senger) was born and raised- Pietzkendorf. The other has been a family friend for more than 250 years and now lives in Dakar, Senegal.
I am truly amazed that this website and my genealogical efforts have introduced me to both Rainer and Hans; or more precisely, these efforts have made it possible for us to find each other. All three of us and our families truly have traveled ManyRoads, gone different directions and yet we have very much in common- a love for place, a sense of community, and a willingness to continue to help each other unravel the threads of time in our collective efforts to find out more about who and what we are.
It is truly a wonder!
It amazes me… Vielen dank Rainer und Hans fuer die Bilder, Buecher, hilfe, geduld, und freundschaft.
…mark
On the 22nd of October, 2010, I received an email from a long-time (since 1762) family friend (more on that later).
Rainer and his family were in Poland looking at the alte Heimatland. AND… they had been to visit the street where my mother lived as a teenager with her Onkel Robert and Tante Olga. The email I received contained these photos. I was visiting with my mother when the photos arrived. Es war wirklich eine Ueberraschung! (It was truly a surprise!) Meine Mutter war sehr froh alles wieder zu sehen (My mother was happy to see everything again.). She had not seen her Onkel’s house since the mid- 1940s, and here it was. Someone I knew was there and had sent photos.
As Rainer surmised, the buildings had been significantly rebuilt. My mother’s old bedroom window was exactly where he placed in the photograph(see photo one).
If this complex of building is where your mother lived, then, referring to the present structure, her room could have been the one on the third floor above the passage…. but I cannot exclude the possibility that the whole structure / everything changed in a way that nothing can be identified any more.
Vielen dank Rainer und Familie.
Was kann ich sagen? Nur das ‘es war einmal’ so fangen alle Maerchen an…
(What can I say? Only that it was ‘once upon a time’; that’s how all the fairy tales begin…)
all photos copyright © 2010 Rainer Mueller-Glodde, used with permission (Vielen Dank Rainer!)
11 months to the day from when we began ‘full-scale’ usage of WordPress on ManyRoads, we were graced by our 50,000 visitor. 13 November 2010 is truly a landmark day for ManyRoads.
Unfortunately, we do not know the name of our 50,000 visitor; however, we do know that they have visited us some 81 times before. We also know that their Internet Service Provider is located in Redwood, California.
During the past 11 months, we hope you have found our information helpful and even a bit fun. It has been a learning experience for us; one we plan to continue working on down the road. We extend our sincere thanks to each of you who have spent time with us ManyRoads. We hope to see you in the future, again!
Website security & speed are crucial to your genealogy site. Like most websites, genealogy sites are under daily attacked from hackers and information thieves. If you are interested in the latest technology available to speed and secure your site I recommend taking a look at Cloudflare.
ManyRoads has been running the beta version of Cloudflare now for a bit more than two weeks. So far as I am able to determine, our site is operating about 50-100% faster than it was a month ago on HostPapa without the benefit of Cloudflare & Hostgator. The combination of our move to HostGator and Cloudflare seems to have made a significant difference in our site’s performance, and all with few downsides. To date, I have noticed only two short duration glitches in our site availability and one spike in ISP performance.
Looking at ManyRoads statistics, here’s what we see:
In fairness, there is one ‘significant’ downside to Cloudflare. Because our site visits are passed to us through Cloudflare’s servers the traditional Visitor plugin I use on ManyRoads no longer can tell me where in the world folks are coming from with certainty. Cloudflare will supposedly provide this information in a later release.Since I first published this post, this problem has been resolved! Hooray!
Briefly here is what the folks at Cloudflare have to say about their product:
CloudFlare protects and accelerates any website online. Once your website is a part of the CloudFlare community, its web traffic is routed through our intelligent global network. We automatically optimize the delivery of your web pages so your visitors get the fastest page load times and best performance. We also block threats and limit abusive bots and crawlers from wasting your bandwidth and server resources. The result: CloudFlare-powered websites see a significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks.
And now as for the best part of the Cloudflare version ManyRoads uses, it is free.
Here’s what others have to say about Cloudflare:
Flucht und Vertreibung Geschichten von Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). German Expulsion histories broadcast and published by North German Radio (NDR).[SinglePic not found]
Even though ManyRoads was completely down due to ISP problems for two days in October, we were still blessed with our highest number of visits ever. Thank you!
In October, we had more than 7300 unique visits. This means, on average, more than 235 folks stopped by for a visit each day.
Based upon our current statistics, our 10 most popular and frequently read pages are:
Please feel comfortable to contact us with any questions regarding our areas of expertise or to request further information/ documentation.
We also greatly appreciate any facebook ‘like’ or retweets for page(s) you find helpful, informative or even controversial. Hopefully the Wibiya bar, on the page bottom, is helpful in making that easy.