Tuesday - The Burg City Archives
This was the first morning in our little apartment. I fixed a breakfast of sliced meats and cheeses, rolls & bread, fresh fruit, soft-boiled eggs, tomato juice and hot tea. We tried to fix a breakfast similar to the breakfasts we've had in Munich and Garmisch. Having the kitchen available to us was a definite advantage.
By 9 a.m., we were at the Volksbank in Burg, exchanging our traveler's checks for Euros. We find this to be a very easy way to get the local currency. Before our trip, we always order the local currency over the phone. American Express mails it to us, along with our Traveler's Checks. The Geldautomat (ATM) machines are another easy way to get more Euros.
Then John went to the St. Nickoli Church in Burg to finish looking for more headstones to photograph, while I went shopping in the Stolz department store. We needed wash clothes and I'm always looking for German candy to bring home to my grandchildren and friends. At home, everyone is particularly fond of the chocolate Kinder eggs with the plastic toys inside.
After shopping, we went to go the Burg City Archives at 10 a.m., but found out from a sign on the door that they open at 2 p.m.. So we changed our plans. We went back to the apartment for a little refreshment. I packed a picnic lunch of sausages, fruits, breads, pastries and bottled water. Then decided to drive to the Puttgarden and Bannesdorf areas.
Driving around, we noticed what a beautiful, clear day it was. All over most of Germany it was raining, but here in Fehmarn, we had lots of sunshine. The fields of Raps flowers were everywhere. We drove by another field of the yellow flowers and saw the tall windmills standing out in the fields. This is a site we have seen before, but we pulled over and took another photo, as it is a most beautiful site.
Wind park in Rapsfield
We wanted to check out the Port at Puttgarden. This is where the ferry is located that takes cars, trucks and people to Denmark. We wanted to check out the train schedules to see if we could use our other day of travel that was available on our "Ride and Rail" ticket. After considering our limited options with the train, we thought it would be better to drive our car to Lübeck or Kiel for a possible 1-day trip, later in the week.
View of Port from Puttgarden shoreline
From there we went to the St. Johannes Church in Bannesdorf. John must check all the cemeteries for new headstones to photo for his website. We usually prefer to do this after dinner, as the lighting is better. The harsh sunlight in the middle of the day creates shadows and glares on the photos. John also goes into each church, to photo the portraits, epitaphs and other objects in the churches..... to preserve it all and to share this information on this website.
St. Johannes church in Bannesdorf
We sat on a bench in the cemetery, in the cool shade of a tree and ate our picnic lunch. It was a very restful place to eat. Eating in the restaurants has been great, but sometimes it's nice to sit in a quiet place and enjoy the beautiful day.
Bannesdorf cemetery
We went back to our room, to drop off our picnic supplies...... and then back to the downtown Burg area. I wanted to make a phone call before 2 p.m. Back home in Florida, it was about 8 a.m., and we decided to call our Mother. She could then relay our messages to other family members and let them know that everything was fine. E-mail works great, but sometimes it's nice to hear a familiar voice.
Phone calls are expensive and somewhat difficult because you must have a phone card to activate the phone. You can purchase this card at the Post Office or a local book or gift store. After that, we used our AT&T International Calling Card to complete our call.
It was now 2 p.m, so we went to the Burg City Archives, located in the Rathaus, to do a little research. Karl-Wilhelm Klahn was pleasantly surprised to see us, as John has not informed him or his cousin, Dieter Klahn that we were coming. As we were trying to talk to him..... John in English and Karl-Wilhelm in German, another man came up and introduced himself as Heino Kühl. Fortunately for us, he could speak English so he helped translate the conversations between John and Karl-Wilhelm.
Heino Kühl with John at the Burg City Archive
Heino is an assistant to Karl-Wilhelm at the Archives. We also found out that he is the brother to Achim Kühl, our weeklong landlord of the apartment that we are staying in. John started to ask questions about Heino's family history and before you knew it, he was looking it up in his computer. John loves to talk Fehmarn genealogy with others. There's a certain excitement that drives him.
Before long, others arrived at the archives. John recognized an elderly woman that we had met in the Neustadt Archives last year. Her name was Erna Lübker and she also spoke no English! With the help of Heino as a translator, John found out her parents and grandparents names, and found some information in his database. John got Erna and Heino’s addresses and promised to send them reports after he got home.
John did finally get some research done, for a little while. He takes digital pictures of family charts at high resolution to put in his computer and reads the information at a later date. When he started to talk again, I took the camera and continued to photograph (no flash) the documents. This method works very well as you can collect the most information in the shortest amount of time. Handwriting is much too slow. And most important, this method does not damage the documents. Later, John reads the digital photos on his laptop computer while he enters the names and dates into his database.
The Archives were scheduled to close at 4 p.m., but with all the talking, it was 5 p.m. before we left. Besides researching documents and collecting information, meeting other people who are doing their own family research is very exciting. And one of the reasons John collects all this genealogy information into one database is to share it with others. They in turn share their information with him, and the database grows larger! Everyone benefits.
Jens Market on Burg main street
After a little shopping at the Jens Market for a few more groceries, we went back to our room. With just a short time to rest, we were soon headed back to town…. going to the Internet cafe. For about 2 Euros we can pick up our e-mails and send out the daily report to our family. We noted that the Cafe is open from 4 p.m. to midnight, most nights.
Back on the main street, we were soon looking for a place to have dinner. At first, we went to the Wisser's Hotel Restaurant to eat, and found that they are closed on Tuesdays. Walking along the street, past the shops and cafes, we found Störtenbeker's Restaurant. We had eaten there on another trip, and decided to try them. Our waitress spoke no English, so we got no help reading the menu. But that is no longer a problem, as we can figure out enough of the words to know the basics.
By 7:30 p.m., we had finished dinner, so we went driving in search of cemeteries and new headstones. John wanted to go to the Burg City cemetery on Sahrensdorfer Weg, but after wandering around, we decided to try to find that one another day. We ended up at the St. Johnannas Church in Landkirchen.
While John wanders around looking at every headstone for new ones, I also wander around the cemetery looking for flowers to photograph. I have found the flowers in the cemeteries to be very beautiful. Last year, I started doing this and use the photos as a screen-saver slide show. The close-up view of the flowers, rotating on my computer at work are very beautiful and relaxing for me. They also remind me of my trip!
Even though it was 8:30 at night, we still had plenty of sunlight, so we went down the street a few blocks, to the other small Landkirchen cemetery. Now John had completed 4 cemeteries, and had only 3 more to visit. He photographs the headstones for the website, and for the information on the stones... that he adds to his database.
Back in our room, it was still daylight, so we started working on the computers. John must download all the photos from the small smartmedia disks, which we use in our digital cameras, to his laptop. Then he sorts them into files. He also works on putting new names and dates into his database from an index he created from the Church book on Burg births from 1700 to 1766. John has worked on this index for the past year and has made a printed out copy to present to the Neustadt Archives on Thursday.
Finally..... the sun has gone down.... around 10 p.m., and within the hour, we were sleeping.