Little did we think that 2020 would turn out the way it did! I was quite ill with a persistent cough for the first 3 months of the year. My doctor eventually decided I may have had whooping cough! However, during that time a virus had emerged from Wuhan in China, called Coronavirus (or Covid as it has become known). The main symptom seemed to be a persistent cough – so had I had this Coronavirus? I’ll never know, as I wasn’t tested for it, but the virus has gone on to affect everyone’s lives in an incredible way. I intend to document the personal effects of the pandemic in more detail elsewhere, but will note here how the year progressed regarding family history.

As the country went into lockdown in March, it meant we were not allowed to leave home except for essential trips, either to do a weekly shopping or for daily exercise. We adhered to those strict guidelines and I honestly enjoyed the tranquility around our home and surrounding area. I now had much more time to devote to family history.

I was finding more interesting bits of information about the Groth family. I managed to find birth, marriage and death certificates for many of the family, but of course they were written in Old German script, so extremely difficult for me to read and translate. Google Translate helped with some of it, but I struggled to fully translate the certificates. At some point I came across a Facebook page dedicated to Prussian Genealogy and I haven’t looked back since! It is a superb Group of individuals who are dedicated to genealogy and helping others in their quest to find information about their ancestors. I have had so much help and can’t thank the Group enough. Posting a birth, marriage or death certificate for translation is immediately taken up by one of the members and they very promptly give a full translation. It has also been fascinating learning about other people’s journeys through genealogy.

The changes to family history/genealogy research since I started with this hobby/obsession more than 35 years ago have been incredible. Every day brings the possibility of a piece of new-found information and detail. More and more documents are being uploaded to the internet and we are able to confirm connections with ancestors where previously that information would merely have been a ‘maybe’ or a ‘probably’. Having made contact with descendants of one of my Gr, Gr Grandfather’s brothers has allowed me to gain a real insight into the family dynamic and life in the early/mid 1800s. That branch of the family emigrated to Canada, finally settling in the USA.

My goal is to try to find descendants of one of his other brothers, Johann Ernst Groth, who I know married and had family. I think they may have remained in Prussia, and I have found a death certificate for one of his grandchildren, named Ella Eugenie Groth/Bublitz. She died in Lubeck, Shleswig Holstein, Germany in 1982. The search is on!