European Vacations

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The Journey

Hello fellow bloggers, have you ever taken a journey at the spur of the moment. like a road trip? Or, even better, an even longer journey on a train, just to be spontaneous? I certainly have in more ways than one. A couple of years ago, I actually took a trip via Amtrak from St. Cloud, to Chicago, on to Phoenix, to Vashon Island, and then back to St. Cloud. It was a two week journey, and I am so glad that I did it!:)

That's how long the journey was for the family of my maternal grandfather when they sailed from Bremen, Germany, to Elllis Island. From Ellis Island, they took the train to meet up with relatives in Montevideo, Minnesota.They decided not to stay too long, because in 1902, they relocated to Hutchinson, Minnesota, and stayed there for quite a while, before relocating one final time to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

One of the many challeneges of taking a journey, and to do family research, is to obtain documents. You need to know what your destination is, how you will get there, and how the journey will be documented!

The challenge for me was that my maternal grandfather was the youngest of seven children, and by the time I was able to ask him any questions, it was hard for him to remember anything. When his family embarked on the ship heading to Ellis Island by way of Bremen, Germany, he was a toddler, and actually celebrated his second birthday while on the journey!So, of course, he would not be able to remember the journey at all!
But, thanks to documentation that my grandmother hid in a dining room hutch, my journey to find the answers of the unsolved mysteries was about to begin. More later. Happy trails!:)

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