Cary, I would recommend to you Germanna Record No. 17 written by Dr. Katharine L. Brown entitled The First Fifty Years.  It is a very brief and concise book but does include some detail about the beginnings of Germanna and (bless her heart) includes endnotes for the chapters citing sources.  You will recognize many Germanna names among the early members and leadership.  In the early years, I don't think Dr. B. C. Holtzclaw was involved but he was already interested in genealogy having published the Holtzclaw Genealogy in 1936.  I have found a number of his letters written to various archives asking for information about his ancestors.  These letters are dated well before the beginning of the Germanna Foundation. I agree that the original source is best--if it is possible to see it.  Microfilm can be good or bad depending on the filming.  I have been working through the Siegen church records as well as some of the surrounding villages, both Catholic and Protestant, for some years now.  And it does help to have others help with the more difficult areas, especially German friends who are adept at reading the old script. I have also found the archivists at Muenster and Hamburg to be helpful-even with my bad German which is slowly improving.  I truly wish Dr. Holtzclaw had properly cited sources in his books.  The Holtzclaw Genealogy has virtually no sources listed and there are a number of rather large errors in the book.  My entire family line from my gg-grandfather on is incorrect.  I would love to know where he got that information. Suzanne ----- Original Message ---- From: Cary Anderson <drcary@cox.net> To Suzanne, You wrote:  Saturday, July 26, 2008 12:30 PM <"Dr. B. C. Holtzclaw, by his own admission, did not speak, read, or write German with any degree of fluency. He stated in some personal correspondence that his spoken German was so poor that he could not be understood and that he could not read the old German script at all. His research in Germany was actually done by Mr. Emil Flender, brother of Mr. Ernst Flender-two people who have apparently been forgotten for their contributions. Mr. Ernst Flender's generosity is the reason that the Germanna Foundation owns the land that they have today."> The Fender deserve special recognition someway for their contributions to Holtzclaws compilation of the various genealogies.  I am not aware of much of the beginnings, in fact, much of anything about Germanna, and wish I were younger instead fastly approach my dotage. I do have one thing to offer.  No matter what the skills of the researchers were for any source of a person's ancestry, one should always try to see the original records used or at least a microfilm.  That old script is not easily read, and recognized experts in Germany readily admit that they do make respects.