Family history . . . again.

So, my two-week trial of Ancestry.com is up tomorrow, and . . . I signed up for another month.   I'm thrilled, perplexed, delighted, frustrated, confused, puzzled, and who wouldn't want to continue with that?

Seriously, it's wonderful, and I'm having a blast, along with my daughter.  It's so absorbing and addictive!  I've gotten back to the Revolutionary War on my son's tree, back to the 1700's on my daughter's tree . . . and not nearly so far on my own.  I wonder whether many records in Germany were lost during the war?  Here's what frustrates me:

 

This is the house my mother was born in (an apartment building, actually), at 1 Goethestrasse in Lehe, Bremerhaven, Germany.  I know this because 1) I found the address on a document of my grandfather's which listed his home address in 1926, and 2) I've seen the building with my own eyes, when I was in Germany long ago.  It is now a historically preserved building.

What frustrates me is that even with the exact name, date, location  . . . I can't find any record of her on several genealogical websites in Germany.  Nor her father, mother, grandparents -- it seems like a dead end.  I'm bummed, but I'll keep looking.

What's great, though, is being able to find stuff on the web that's really precious:

 

This is an old wooden church that is very significant in my family history:  Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ozone Park, Queens, New York.  My grandmother was baptized there in 1895, by Pastor Gustav Bates.  The next pastor was one I met:  Dr. Hugo E. Meyer.

Dr. Meyer, as almost everybody except his wife and children called him, was a herpetologist in addition to being a pastor :)  He had a collection of snakes, and I remember as a very young child, going into a shed-like kind of affair to look at the snakes.  Deliciously scary.

As time moved on, Dr. Meyer was succeeded by Rev. Ernest A. Meyer, his son.

Uncle Ernest, as he was known to almost everyone in my family, was married to my grandmother's sister, and he was a wonderful human being, tied for favorite relative of all time with my other uncle, Eric Berneburg.  Unfortunately, he died unexpectedly in his 40's, way before what should have been his time.

Anyway, back to the church:

This is the church as I remember it, and this is the church in which my father was baptized, my mother and father were confirmed, my mother as a girl would listen to my father singing in the choir, my parents were married, and I was baptized.  I remember going with my cousin through the "behind the scenes" parts of the church and loving it.  It stands there still, and I would so much like to visit it again.

 Imagine little baby me, down in front, being baptized. 

So there you have it -- I'm loving every minute of the search, except for the moments when it feels as if my head will explode. I highly recommend it to anyone who has the time to do it -- it's very satisfying.

Miss you, Uncle Ernest, and Mom, and Dad, and all Grandmas and Grandpas, and Aunt Dorothy, and and and . . .