Thursday, May 31, 2001
Today, we woke up to the most beautiful day that we have
seen yet. The sun was shining and
the day was clear and crisp. Anne
told us at breakfast that it had rained about 5 a.m., but it was bright and
sunny now.
By 8:15 a.m, we were off and driving to Neustadt for a
day of research at the church Archives. The
sunshine would have to wait for us. On
the way, we stopped for gas at the Esso Station, where gas was listed at 2.18 DM
a Liter. No problems this year,
with finding the gas tank on our little Mercedes, as it has no locking buttons
you must release from inside the car….. just open the tank and fill.
Our kind of car! We purchased 37.47 liters of super-bleifrei gas for 81.65 DM.
This works out to be about $4.00 US dollars per gallon.
We’ll never complain about our US gas prices again!!
Prices of gasoline by the liter!
When we go the Neustadt Archives to work, we carry lots
of equipment with us. John must
have his computer and voltage adaptor so we can plug in the computer and work.
When John does his research today, he’ll just type the new information
directly into his database. We
packed the Motorola talk-about radios, so we can call back and forth to each
other when we both go in different directions.
I brought my video camera, just in case!
Both of us carry digital cameras, along with the batteries and extra
memory chips. I brought my palm
handheld computer and little keyboard, as I type information directly into it
and just give John the file for later entry into his database.
And last, but not least, I must carry my little micro-cassette that I
talk into all day…… to take notes, so I will remember what we did during the
day, for my journal writing. (You
didn’t think I had a perfect memory, did you?)
We are high-tech travelers with heavy tote bags.
(Others have called us Geeks!)
Leaving the island, we must pass over the Fehmarnsund
Bridge and the sight this morning is impressive as the weather is so clear and
sunny. There are a few boats on the
water and the colors are beautiful. Unfortunately,
they are doing construction repairs on the center lane, so traffic is going slow
in the narrow lanes. I can understand why the cars are all so small, as our
large American cars would not work very well in this country.
Once in Neustadt (exit 13 on the Autobahn), we find
parking is very difficult as this city is very old and the streets are narrow
and many of them go only one-way. When
entering the city, there are signs directing you to public parking lots, but we
can’t find them, as we are unfamiliar with the city streets.
Finally, we parked at a parking lot by some restaurants, just over a
small bridge and only about 5 blocks from the Archives.
The only problem was that we had to put 3 DM into the Automat machine to
get the parking ticket to put on our dashboard.
3 DM bought us 3 hours of parking. At
noon, I would have to walk back and buy another 3 hours and replace the ticket
on the dashboard. No problem!!
Once at the Archives, we set up our computers and found
the Landkirchen books for Births in the late 1800’s.
John had me copying the names of each child born, the date of the birth,
and the father and mother of that child. It
was a real challenge trying to read the names, as these records are in old
script. John tried to teach me how
to read some of the common names, such as Hans, Margaretha, Matthäus, Catharina,
etc., but the letters are not easy to read.
Most of the time, John had to read me the names and I typed the
information onto my Palm computer. John
set up his laptop Computer next to me, and began copying the information from
the marriage records of Petersdorf starting in the year 1862.
By 11 o’clock, the sky was clouding over and it looked
like rain was eminent. So, I left a
little early to purchase another parking ticket on our dashboard.
On the way to the car, it started to sprinkle a light rain and I hurried
along thinking about the umbrella that was in the car!
All of a sudden, I realized that John had the car key, and I would not be
able to get into the car. I bought
a new parking ticket and left it on the outside of the front windshield,
anchored down by the wiper blade. I hoped this method would work.
By now it was starting to rain, and I had to run for cover.
I went into a drugstore of some kind, looking for a cheap umbrella, but
couldn’t find one. Instead, I
found an 18”carry-on luggage with wheels that would solve my packing problem
for the return flight. I paid the
25 DM and was on my way….. in the rain! I
went to another bakery and got some lunch for John and myself (sandwiches and
kraut-salat). Then…. a quick trip
to the small grocery market to purchase water and Fanta soda.
Now were ready for a fast lunch.
Back at the Archives, John and I ate our lunch.
The four other researchers were also having a bite to eat and coffee…..
at the same table that we all were doing research on.
In America, they allow no food in the same room where you are doing
research. We were amazed!
Back to work! The
time was passing too quickly, but by 3 p.m., we had accomplished a lot of work.
We said our good-byes to Mrs. Melitta Muhl-Elher and thanked her for her
assistance. John always gives a
donation to the church for the use of the church records.
This is not necessary when you do research at these archives, but we only
come once a year and want to express our gratitude.
While we were leaving the archives, another researcher, who was working in another room, came out and introduced himself to us. His name was Hans-Peter Voss, and he has a web site about Fehmarn. He does genealogical research for hire and can be contacted thru his website. He has easier access to the church records, unlike us who can only come once a year. John has seen his web site and even has a link from his site to Hans-Peter’s site. I visited this site, before we left for our trip, so I could read about Fehmarn history. It is an excellent web site, according to John. Check it out for yourself at: http://home.t-online.de/home/hans-peter.voss/english.htm
By now, it is raining much harder, so John ran to the car
and picked me up at the front door. I
got this front door service because my brother didn’t want to get his computer
wet! It took a while for him to get
the car, and drive back to the Archives. Traffic
was backed up, and many streets go only one way.
But I had faith in my brother….. because I was standing next to a very
tall church steeple and John naturally gravitates to those church steeples.
He had no problem finding me!
On the way to Burg, we discussed how successful this trip
has been for John’s research. He
said he has gotten 10 times the amount of information as he ever gotten on
either of the first 2 trips. Everyone
has been so generous with information, and passed on copies of all kind of
records to John. Everywhere we have
gone… to the Burg Archives, the Neustadt Church Archives, meeting with local
people….. all we get is cooperation and more information for the database.
The photos of the headstones from all the cemeteries on the island also
provide John with lots of (death) dates to help complete the database.
John tells me, it will take about a year to enter all this information.
After crossing the Fehmarnsund Bridge, were back on the
island. It was raining very little
now, but the weather was not good enough to take pictures at the Petersdorf
cemetery like we wanted to do. Instead,
we went to the Neukauf Grocery store and shopped for a few food items.
John had never been in this store and he found it to be the most modern
grocery on the island. I had shopped in it last year, and liked it the most of all
the food markets. We bought some
bread, sliced meats, cheese, and fruit to take back to our room.
We had about 2 hours of work to do on the computer and thought we would
picnic in our room for dinner.
The rain had lightened up, so at 7 p.m., we went driving
in the car towards Petersdorf. Unfortunately,
it was raining when we got there and we could not take pictures of the
headstones in the cold rain. We are
not THAT dedicated!!!
We had not seen Orth, so we drove in that direction.
We went thru Püttsee and Flügge where we discovered a major camping
area. The roads in this area are very narrow, about 1 lane…. sometimes with 2
cars coming at each other. It makes me a little nervous, as there is not much of a
shoulder on the side of road to pull off onto… and I’ve got this fear of
driving into ditches. (See the 1999
Journal, day 1 for that story!)
Before long, it was 8:30 p.m. and we were at the Internet Cafe for our last visit to pick up our e-mails. This has worked out well, as trying to make a phone call stresses us out! Then we went back to the room, for a quiet evening of more work on the computer. I think I need a vacation!!
J
Tomorrow’s plans: We will leave for Hamburg.
Click here to continue on to Friday
The FEHMARN GENEALOGY Site
Created using Microsoft Frontpage and maintained by:
John Kostick, 131 NE 172nd Street, Miami, FL
33162