A Trip Inspired by Genealogy

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I was lamenting the fact that I would not be at Stonehenge for the Solstice this year as we had planned. As I spoke I was thinking about next summer; the trip to Indonesia, perhaps the trip to Europe we didn’t make this year, but then maybe we should do something different in Europe.

As we talked my husband brought up the fact that he’d still like to go to Poland to visit the area his maternal grandfather came from. And of course I’d love to visit the area in Russia where his grandmother lived; she crotched a table cloth while tending sheep at the age of about 9 years old, on a hill in Russia. I have that tablecloth packed away.

I’ve started to look into where Grandpa Frantz came from and have found that he was born in Olszyn, Prussia which is now Poland. I’ve found that it is a small town with a castle in the northern part of Poland.

As for his grandmother, she was born in Friedensfeld, South Russia. I’ve not been able to place it on a map yet but it appears that it still exists.

Apparently, his grandmother’s parents were invited to Russia by Catherine in order to farm. Then later they were forced out, hence she moved to Canada and then California.

While I’m also attempting to find a location for Dale’s grandmother city, I’m also looking to find if we can get info on exactly where the house would have been located. This I’m afraid will be close to impossible but I’ll try.

We have some good friends, Rod and Karen, who we’d be seeing at a wedding so we were emailing back and forth about meeting up. Karen mentioned that she’d gotten into genealogy recently. I replied back that we were also, that we were hoping to go to Poland to visit the birthplace of Dale’s grandfather and possibly his grandmother’s in South Russia. Karen said that they were also planning a trip to the same areas next year to visit the places of their ancestors’ birth in Poland and South Russia.

We now are planning to do some brainstorming with some people who lead tours to those areas. Since our trips will be about the same time we hope to also meet in Poland or South Russia, or wherever!



It really is fun to do this with a friend with similar interests but also exciting to plan to do something different and visit areas where we’ve not been before.

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