I don't know if any of you have letters or other documents from your Mecklenburgian ancestors, but if you do, you may wish to communicate with Nicole K. Konopka. She is a post-grad student doing research on a project looking at the personal texts--letters, poetry, dairies--by Mecklenburg-to-America immigrants. Sounds really interesting--wish I had some documentation like that from my Franks, who came to Milwaukee from the Schwerin/Strelitz areas of Mecklenburg (NE corner of Germany). There is a PDF attachment from Nicole that I don't think I can send through this list, but if you want it, let me know off list and I'll forward it to you individually. Hope you are all doing fine--Milwaukee was in a deep-freeze last week, but a new blanket of snow has freshened things up and it's a bit warmer than it has been. mrf -------- Original Message -------- Nicole K. Konopka, a post-graduate student in the “Cultural Encounters and the Discourse of Scholarship” program at the University of Rostock, Germany [http://www.uni-rostock.de/andere/grk1242/], is conducting research for a project tentatively titled “Irreversible Passages: Tracing Narrative Strategies in Ego-Documents of Mecklenburgian America-Migrants.” Her primary interest is the study of personal texts—such as letters, poetry, and diaries—created in the period between 1840 and 1914 by those who emigrated from Mecklenburg to North America. She aims “to decipher and point out the narrative strategies that were consciously or unconsciously used by the migrated Mecklenburgians, while they wrote back to Europe about their experiences, accomplishments, disappointments, and many more issues of personal concern.” Ms. Konopka plans to travel to Wisconsin during the summer of 2007 to further her research, and is looking for contacts with individuals or historical societies that own such personal documentation that she may examine. She is also willing to answer questions concerning her research project, and may be contacted by e-mail at nicolekkonopka@yahoo.co.uk <mailto:nicolekkonopka@yahoo.co.uk>