German Genealogy Group Meeting Notes

Notes from the February 2026 German Genealogy Group Meeting:

Donna Jernigan presented a power point overview of her recent six-week trip to Germany.  It was delightful and certainly got me to thinking about taking a trip to Germany.  Thank you, Donna.

At our January 2026 German Genealogy Meeting, we talked about having a workshop or individual work sessions on using AI to help with our German research.  Debi Haynes offered to be our leader.

Our first AI workshop was held on February 9^th at the genealogy library from 10:00 to noon.  We took a break to attend the Brown Bag Program and had opportunities for more AI help in the afternoon.

Ten members attended the AI work sessions.  At the March meeting, we will discuss our successful and not so successful attempts at using AI to do German research.  We may also make plans for additional work sessions.

Later in the afternoon, Ron Dearth gave a repeat performance of his presentation on Stumbling Stones which he learned about on his recent trip to Germany.  Conceived in the early 1990’s by Gunter Demnig as an art project, stolpersteine, or ‘stumbling stones’, consist of small brass and concrete markers placed at the last known home or workplace of someone killed or persecuted by the Holocaust.

Notes from the December 2025 German Genealogy Group Meeting:

Donna Jernigan is still working on the overview of her recent six-week trip to Germany so we will not be seeing the production in January as hoped.  She is putting a lot of time and effort into this presentation and I know it will be worth the wait.

Debi Haynes gave a progress report on her research on slave history in Central Texas.

Ron Dearth has been researching his wife's German line and may have found a link to a whole new line.

Richard Storm talked about his early Storm immigrant who was his 4 X great grandfather.  For many years, the Storm Family has held a family reunion in Mitchell, South Dakota, with attendance of over 500.

Joan Tabb, with the help of Debi Haynes, found additional information on her Mayflower ancestors including her Alden line.  Samuel Alden served in the Republican Army of the North that fought in the Battle of Medina in 1813 in the area around San Antonio.

Helen Miller shared information that Tom Ball and Austin will host events meant to replicate a German Christmas Market.

Karen Austin briefly discussed Family Tree German Genealogy Guide, written by James M. Beidler.  Karen also talked about her ancestors Elizabeth Lechler and Peter Lechler.  Peter fought for the Union in the Civil War, never learned to speak English, and eventually settled in the China Spring area of McLennan County.

Mike Gerig and Karen are both descendants of the early Goodnight settler, but from different brothers.

Linda Jordan focused on verifying information and sources on her German grandfather's line.

Notes from the November 2025 German Genealogy Group Meeting:

Joan Tabb announced that she finally has enough information and documentation to start writing the story of a family line.  She discussed how she plans to use focus questions to guide her writing.  The discussion then turned to how to adequately document her sources and deciding to use footnotes or endnotes.

Debi Haynes also emphasized how beneficial developing focus questions can be in genealogy research as well as helping to write our stories.

Karen Austin, a first time attendee to the German Group meetings, told about researching her German lines of Niswanger, Brock, Goodnight, and Lechler.

Donna Jernigan gave a brief overview of her recent six-week trip to Germany and offered to give a more detailed presentation on the trip at the January German meeting.  This trip was a combination of touring Germany and doing genealogy research.

Ron Dearth told about investigating the story of a child born in Germany, adopted by an American, and raised in America.  Through the efforts of members of the child's family in Germany, the grown child has been reunited with some of her German half-siblings.

Notes from the September 2025 German Genealogy Group Meeting:

Based on information presented at a recent Brown Bag program on using school and other types of organization yearbooks, Joan Tabb called a library in Albuquerque, New Mexico trying to locate high school annuals for the years 1929-1934. A library volunteer sent Joan copies of pictures and lists of activities pertaining to her ancestors. Her great-grandmother's 1930-1931 high school annual contained a note written and signed by her great-grandmother to another classmate referring to their interest in theater arts.

E. G. White-Swift is working on getting the cemetery records for his German ancestors in St. Louis updated. His goal is to get a headstone for his great-grandfather.

Helen Miller invited everyone to attend the Octoberfest on October 11 at Crawford sponsored by the Heart of Texas Chapter of Texas German Society. Everyone is encouraged to make reservations in advance.

Ron Dearth prepared handouts related to German research to distribute to individuals visiting the German table at the recent CTGS Open House. He shared copies of the handouts with those attending the September German meeting. The handouts were on what you need to know as you begin German genealogy research and free websites that may be most helpful.

Linda Merryman and E. G. introduced the group to the website One-Step Webpages by Stephen P. Morse
These are Stephen P. Morse's One-Step tools for finding immigration records, census records, vital records, and for dealing with calendars, maps, foreign alphabets, and numerous other applications - Stevemorse.org

Notes from the August 2025 German Genealogy Group Meeting:

Linda Jordan started a discussion on using AI (artificial intelligence) to do German research. She recently watched the Family Tree webinar Using AI to Translate German Church Records and More into English, presented by Geoff Rasmussen. Several of the most popular AI websites were discussed and examples of how to use them were given.

Most of the members of our German Group have a few German documents that we would like to have translated. AI may be the solution. One website discussed was Transkribus.ai. A person can upload an image of a German printed or handwritten document to be transcribed. The results will not be a perfect translation, but you should get a better understanding of the contents of the document.

Another topic discussed was how we can help individuals who are just starting their German genealogy research. We might consider developing a handout suggesting the basic information they will need to get started and providing print and online sources for finding that information.

Notes from the July 2025 German Genealogy Group Meeting:

Debi Haynes and Matt have been researching the churches in Riesel, many of which have German roots.

A copy of the book Robert & Betty Krienke Family, by Robert Krienke, is available at the genealogy library.  Bob and Betty's son-in-law is posting photos on line in hopes of contacting Italian relatives.

Joan Tabb is developing a collection of short stories she has written, and pictures, newspaper articles, documents, etc.  The items are placed in chronological order and will serve as the foundation for the book she plans to write on the life of her grandfather.

Debi Haynes reported on her recent success in researching plantation records for Churchill Jenkins.  Debi encourage the members to go back to newspapers.com often to check for new articles being added.  The genealogy library has a subscription to website. Other topics discussed at the meeting were researching surnames on WikiTree, using Family Search Labs, using Google lens, and having success researching events and locations.