I am doing a very happy , happy dance here in Australia. And because I am so happy I wanted to post, both to share and to say a huge thankyou to so many on this list who have helped. After 20 years of searching, two of it very intensively I have managed to find my German cousins!!!!! (first cousins - or my grandfathers sisters family) And if it hadn't been for this list and some very, very generous folk on the list it would never have happened. THANKYOU everyone!!! With a very particular thankyou to Henning and also Gisella. Without your wonderful, wonderful, wonderful help it would never have happened. I havent actually spoken with them as yet, but thats simply because of time differences. But I know their names, addresses and telephone numbers. Impatience says I will call a little later and try to speak to them by telephone. I only hope that they speak English!!! I know most of the time in researching our family history we look backwards, but in my case my German origins were fairly recent, about 120 years. That plus our family circumstance meant that I wanted to travel forward as well as backward. I found it fairly easy to travel backward with the family tree as we knew where my grandfather was born (Frankfurt am Main) and that his father (my great grandfather) had died in Nieder-Roden. Turned out that the entire family had not left Nieder-Roden since the 1600's - until of course my grandfather left. For a little background. My grandfather, Peter Schuler came to Australia from Germany in 1888. He was working aboard a ship that had sailed from Bremen. Injured in the rigging he was put ashore in Australia, and because the ships passengers were bound for Samoa and a German Man O War they sailed without him. 16 and alone he made his way in Australia and never went back to Germany. He had a very hard life and was a true pioneer. We knew tiny snippets of information about him but very sadly he died in 1930, leaving 9 children. Their mother had died in 1928. Most of them were very young and ended up in orphanges. Separated from their brothers and sisters it took many years for them to find each other. However almost 80 years later there remained 2 brothers who had not been seen since the 1920's. A couple of years ago one of those children turned 90. My Aunt contacted me and said that she didnt want to die not knowing what had happened to her brothers. So my 20 year "fiddle" with the family tree, mainly with the German branch, turned into a huge search - and thats when I linked up with this list. Nine months ago I managed to find one of the missing brothers, the eldest in the family. Well the brother had died but I did find his grandson and as a result his son. The irony was that my father and this brother had looked for each other all their lives and it turned out that they had actually been living 15 minutes apart for most of their lives and never knew. I found him by getting on the internet and writing to every single Schuler in the Australian telephone book and sending an outline of what we knew of the family tree. Surprisingly most people DID respond, even if it was to say that they were not related. I follwed the protocol set out in the German ancestry web sites, that is sending return postage etc. I still really wanted to find my grandfathers family in Germany. Because of the circumstances surrounding his death and the fact that he died during the depression we knew no one here would have contacted his family in Germany In amongst his fathers things the son found a very ancient and very well worn piece of paper that had been written by my grandfather sometime in the 1920's. On it was two addresses. One was for an Anthon Schuler who we did not recognise and the other was for a Christina Eberhardt who we knew was my grandfathers sister. The two addresses in Nieder-Roden (modern day Rodgau) no longer existed. So I set about writing to every single Schuler in Nieder-Roden, Dieburg and Frankfurt am Main (where we knew my grandfathers family had come from). It was an expensive exercise and I wasnt getting very far when I had a bright idea. I wondered what would happen if I wrote to the Stadt in Rodgau. So I did. I just explained a little about my grandfathers death, enclosed a copy of the two addresses we had and asked if they could help. It was months ago that I wrote and I hadnt heard anything and was starting to believe I wouldn't when I got a letter yesterday. In this letter they have identified the Anthon Schuler - it was my grandfathers cousin. And they have also given me details of my grandfathers sister, her marriages, her children and their children. Which of course gives me the married names of my cousins!!!! A quick peek in the German telephone book and sure enough they are both there. In addition to all that they also gave me some of the family tree backwards to 1650. A lot I already had, but they have managed to fill in a few blanks as well. I was equally surprised to find that they have not charged me for the information at all. Rather they have wished me luck on my search and a reunion. Also a few months ago I was introduced to the joys of Ebay and out of curiosity I put in a search for Nieder-Roden. That came up with someone who was selling a book on the History of Nieder-Roden. So I had the book, but not having cousins names I couldnt really relate to a lot of the family, though there were many Schulers menioned (so many thanks Gisella for translating bits for me) Now with this information from the Stadt I looked again and found photographs of family that I can identify. I can actually put faces to names and know that I am looking at my cousins!!!! It was so special to look at a photograph in this book and see my cousin as a young man. The same young man I am going to try and call tonight. I know we often ask questions on the list - so I hope you will forgive this long post - but I thought I would share a joyous success. And whats so special is that the Aunt who started me on the earnest part of my search began to fail a few weeks ago. I pray with all my might that she will recover and have many more years with us, but I know that I have now fulfilled a promise to her. I found her brothers and her cousins. And I couldn't have done it without my fellow list members - THANKYOU!!!! Love many, hate few, learn to paddle your own canoe. -- American Proverb Keep Looking For Rainbows!! _--_|\ /Karen \ \ _.--._ / v Karen, http://members.optushome.com.au/karens