[1964Alum]

Thanks for your story, navane. I am very interested in hearing how this turns out. My mother's ancestry is very well research to way before her gateway ancestors, but not my father's, other than the Quakers. I connected some time back with a contemporary on my mother's maternal line. Lo and behold we had 12 ancestors in common, all in England, where he still resided. He even came to a family reunion here in the US with a huge genealogical chart of his family in England and its connection to the family here. We had an immediate personal rapport. He also had the same rapport with a cousin in my mother's generation who had roughly the same careers in their respective countries. There are also contemporary Swedes who are cousins on my mother's paternal line.

But my roadblock is on my father's side as I can't go back any further than my gateway ancestors with the exception of the Quakers. I did, however, come across a picture of a WWII German officer who was the spitting image of my father. He was a "von", which is part of that family's lore. I couldn't find any further record of him so that is all that I have. Germany is about the only European country I haven't gone to, mainly because of what happened here. There is, however, a street in my beloved Vienna, Austria bearing my family's surname.

Ah, the mystery!