At the end of April I came back from a wonderful month-long trip to northeastern France. The first part of the trip was spent in the company of my brother and our aunt and uncle. After visiting cousins who live in Franch-Comté, the region just south of Alsace, we set out in a rented car to see some of the areas in which our ancestors had lived. Using Saint-Avold as a base, we explored the Moselle countryside around the communities of Bérig-Vintrange, Vallerange, Faulquemont, Créhange, Guessling-Hémering and Grostenquin. We spent part of one day in Nancy (fascinating potato trees just off the Place Stanislas) and another day, with German friends of my brother, in Saarland, visiting the cities of Sankt Wendel and Neunkirchen and the small town of Hasborn. After leaving Moselle we drove into Alsace and stopped to see the castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg. Our base of operations in Alsace was the Auberge du Mehrbachel, very high on a mountainside above the community of Saint-Amarin. We visited many communities in the two adjacent valleys that were home to most of our Alsatian ancestors. My aunt and uncle, who had not visited France before, enjoyed all the sights, sounds and tastes. My brother, who had joined me on a similar family pilgrimage several years ago, had made great progress recently in his study of the French language and I think that enabled him to get more out of the experience this time. One highlight of this part of the trip (unfortunately the day after my brother had to leave) was a reception at the town hall in Fellering, where my great-grandfather (my uncle's grandfather) was born. The mayor and her four assistants were present and we were shown the registers with the birth records of my great-grandfather (1869), his mother (1838) and his grandmother (1803). We were served kouglof (a typical Alsatian cake with lots of variant spellings) and crémant d'Alsace (sparkling Alsatian wine) and we sat and visited for quite a while. Two local reporters were present, so we ended up getting our picture in the paper. After my uncle and aunt left I headed to Colmar and spent eight days doing research at the Archives Départementales. Their hours are M-F 9-12:30, 1:30-5, and I endeavored to make the fullest use of the time -- I looked at, and took notes on, 601 documents. Even so, this was much less than I had hoped to accomplish (I'll just have to keep going back, I guess). The focus of my research was a series of notarial records known as "inventaires et partages après décès" (estate inventories and settlements) that can be a gold mine of information, especially if the parish either has no extant records or if the records that do exist are not particularly informative (e.g., a marriage record that says Jean Schmitt married Marie Anne Meyer, without naming their parents). I went through every inventory for the town of Fellering (1598-1789) and then started in on those for Oderen (they start in 1625; I got through 1765 before running out of time). I also looked briefly at wills, but they were much harder to slog through and much less informative, so I gave up on them quickly. (These notarial records are almost all written in German, in the typical German handwriting of the period; let me know privately if you're interested in seeing a sample -- I took lots of digital photographs and would be happy to send you one to see what they look like.) In this process I made breakthroughs on four lines and added lots of new ancestors. The biggest breakthrough, though it only resulted in identifying one new ancestor, was to finally solve the mystery surrounding the origins of Petrus Golly. His 1696 marriage record calls him the adoptive son of Ludovicus Schumacher, but none of the church records shed any light on that relationship. Schumacher was married three times, but there didn't appear to be any connection between his wives and Petrus Golly. One of the wills I looked at before giving up on them was that of Schumacher's third wife (they were married in 1685), and in it she is said to have an illegitimate son and later in the will that son is named as Peter Kolli. Her 1685 marriage record says that she was from Canton Bern, Switzerland, and was married after embracing the Catholic faith, so she is my grandfather's first confirmed Calvinist ancestor. Now all I have to do is find a baptism record for an illegitimate son Peter born to a Catharina Rott somewhere in Canton Bern around 1672. A highlight of this second part of my trip was a visit to Strasbourg, where I climbed to the observation deck of the cathedral (216 feet straight up a narrow spiral staircase, which I insisted on taking two steps at a time). I got to the top just before 10 a.m. on a Sunday and it sounded like all the bells in the city were ringing. I stayed up there quite a while just taking in the view and listening to the sounds. I was then met by a friend and fellow genealogist who had invited me to join her for what turned out to be a very pleasant visit with her family over lunch. At her suggestion I visited the Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre Dame, the museum associated with the cathedral, and saw a very impressive exhibition of 15th-century artwork (I've recommended that my library purchase the catalog). Just before leaving Strasbourg I heard a brief organ concert at the cathedral. During the entire month I was in France I was warmly and graciously welcomed by family, friends and complete strangers. I hope at least some of them will give me the opportunity one day to return the favor. I bought lots of books. Listed below are some that might be of general interest to those members of the list who read French: Les noms de famille du Haut-Rhin, by Anne de Bergh, Laurent Millet and Marie-Odile Mergnac (Paris : Archives & Culture, ©2007; ISBN 9782350770628) This book lists the 1000 most common surnames in the département du Haut-Rhin (southern Alsace) and says something about each of them (origin, prominent people who bore the name, variations, etc.). I bought it because it includes my name, but I can't really recommend it because I suspect the authors don't know what they're talking about when it comes to the origins of specific names (this is a common failing in such books -- they are full of generalizations and guesswork based on perceived meaning of the name rather than on actual research). Quand la France pleurait l'Alsace-Lorraine : les "provinces perdues" aux sources du patriotisme républicain 1870-1914, by Laurence Turetti (Strasbourg : La Nuée Bleue, ©2008; ISBN 9782716507097) Terre d'Alsace, rêve d'Amérique : roman historique, by Elisabeth Jaeger-Wolff ([Strasbourg?] : Éditions du Bastberg, ©2003; ISBN 9782848230207) Active, propre, honnête : jeunes filles alsaciennes en place à Paris 1900-1960, by Jean Haubenestel (Strasbourg : [J. Haubenestel], 2002; ISBN 2950976328) Protestants d'Alsace et de Moselle : lieux de mémoire et de vie, edited by Antoine Pfeiffer (Ingersheim : Oberlin/SAEP, 2006; ISBN 2737208122) Robert Behra ************** Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family favorites at AOL Food. (http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001)