USING GOOGLE EARTH IN MY GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH

Last week, my daughter and I went to the movies to watch "Lion".  According to my Google-employed son who told me about the movie, it was about a guy using Google Earth to find his birth home and village and more specifically his family.  It was a very touching movie!

The movie got me thinking on how many times I have used Google Earth for my genealogy research.  Some of my more memorable searches include the following:

1. Locating parcels of land where my Great Grandmother Bridget Chambers spent her childhood in the townland of Letter, Islandeady, County Mayo, Ireland. [If I had used Google Earth while on the road in Ireland I might have been able to see the land with my own eyes]

2. Trying to match a house that I have in a 1960 photo (the childhood home of my Great Grandfather Bryan Sherlock in Demailestown, Meath, Ireland) to see if it still exists today.  [Sadly I had no luck with my search but considering how old that house would have been -- he lived there in the late 1800's -- it probably has been torn down and a newer house built.]

3. Locating the following churches -- Katholische Maria Himmelfahrt (Helferskirchen, Rheinland, Germany), Saint Boniface Church (Wirges, Rheinland, Germany) and St. Laurentius Church (Dernbach, Germany).  [This helped with my visit to see them in 2015]

4. Trying to see what the house my Grandmother Theresa Nebgen Sherlock grew up in Chicago, looks like today.

5. And of course, looking at my Google Earth photos of my childhood home in Southern California. 

WRAP UP OF VISIT TO MY GERMAN ANCESTRAL TOWNS

It was such a wonderful gift to be able to visit 4 of my German Ancestral villages while on my Rhine River cruise this past summer.  While it required extra effort on our part -- renting a car, getting to the car rental agency before it closed at 1pm and of course finding our way back to our ship -- it was well worth it!  I loved seeing the natural beauty of the areas surrounding Helferskirchen, Wirges, Staudt and Dernbach.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that these villages are growing larger and seem to be doing very well.  I wonder if I can find any photos of these villages from the 1700 and 1800's.

I enjoyed the peaceful moments while I sat in the churches where my ancestors attended Sunday Mass -- St. Boniface in Wirges, St. Laurentius in Dernbach and the cute little prayer chapel in Helferskirchen.

While my Grandma Theresa knew that her father Peter Joseph Nebgen was from Dernbach, Germany, I don't think she knew about her ancestors from Helferskirchen, Staudt and Wirges.  I wonder if she had known, would she and Grandpa Charlie stopped and visited these villages on their trip up the Rhine River in 1961?

ICE CREAM, ITALIAN STYLE, IN GERMANY

All of this visiting my German ancestral villages has made my husband and I very hungry, especially since we skipped lunch on the ship in order to arrive at the car rental agency on time.  So, while visiting the German town of Wirges, we stopped for a snack at Dolce Vita.  It  is an Italian ice cream shop that has 5 locations in Germany -- Wirges, Montabaur, Hohr Grenzhausen and two in Altenkircher.

The menu had several pages.  It reminded me of the multi-page menu at Cheesecake Factory.  How many ways can you serve ice cream?  There was a two page spread of the menu that featured ice cream dishes in the shape of pasta.  Does this count as a meal?

After perusing the menu, I selected a mint sundae since I absolutely love mint, especially with chocolate.  My mint sundae not only was covered in a green mint sauce but also contained some mint chocolate cookies and mint chocolate candy straws.  There is no such thing as too much mint.  It was delicious!

VISITING THE TOWN OF WIRGES

After visiting Helferskirchen, we drove to the nearby town of Wirges, where the locals call themselves "Wirgesers".  The population of Wirges is about 5200 people so it is larger than Helferskirchen.

We drove to St. Boniface Catholic Church, which was built in 1885.  It is commonly known as Westwalder Dom. The church is located at Kirchstrasse 6 and belongs to the diocese of Limburg.

The church doors were unlocked so we happily went inside to take a peak.  We took photos of the beautiful stained glass windows and ornate figurines above the altars.  We also walked around the outside grounds where there is a grotto with a statue of the Blessed Mother, and some ancillary buildings including Bonifatius Haus (which looked like a church hall with meeting rooms) and a garden area.

There was no cemetery on the grounds nor one listed on our GPS for the town of Wirges.  According to FindAGrave.com,, over 200 people were buried in Katholische Friedhof Wirges.  According to Family Search.org, most of the older German graves have been replaced with newer deceased persons. This makes me wonder what they did with the older graves' remains.  Also, what happened to the former cemeteries that are no longer there?  I am thinking that the churches used to own a lot more property surrounding their current church building (which probably included a church cemetery) but through the years that land was sold off.  Perhaps this is one of those mysteries I may never solve.

NEXT STOP -- WIRGES, GERMANY

My 6th great grandfather Johann Adam Hommerich married Anna Manns (my 6th great grandmother) in the town of Wirges, Germany.  They both then lived the rest of their lives there.Their son Christian Hommerich (my 5th great grandfather) was born and died in Wirges.  Christian's spouse Anna Christina Hober was born in Staudt (a neighboring town) but lived in Wirges after she was married.

Anna and Christian's son Christian (my 4th great grandfather) was born in Moschheim (a neighboring town) but married a woman Anna Maria Bast from Wirges, where they both lived for the rest of their lives.  My 3rd great grandfather Johann Adam Homrich also lived his entire life in Wirges.  Johann's son Sebastian Homrich was born in Wirges but later immigrated to the U.S. and to Michigan in particular.

So, you can see that a lot of my direct ancestors were either born and/or lived in Wirges, so it was a "no brainer" to want to visit this town while I was visiting my other German ancestral towns.

TRAVEL TUESDAY

# 4 -- WIRGES, GERMANY

Continuing on with my Genealogical Travel Bucket List , #4 would be Wirges, Germany.  I should have noted before that these aren't in any particular order (most important to least, alphabetical, close to far, etc.). Wirges is a collective municipality, located in the Westerwaldkreis District of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany.  There are about 10 local municipalities within the collective municipality of Wirges, including Dernbach, Bannberscheid, Staudt, Helferskirchen, Leuterod, Moschheim and Wirges.

Most of the roots of my German family history originated (or at least to how far back I can go now) within these municipalities.  My 7th great grandfather Christian Hommerig was born in Moschheim as was his son (my 6th great grandfather) Johann Adam Hommerich.  The family then moved to Wirges, where my 5th great grandfather Christian Hommerich was born.

Christian's wife Anna Christina Hober (my 5th great grandmother) was born in Staudt, Germany.  Both of her parents, Johann Hober and Sophia Maria Sabel were also born there. Anna's paternal grandparents, Gregarin Hober and Maria were also born in Staudt, as was Gregarin's father Oster Hober (my 8th great grandfather).  The cemeteries of Katholische Friedhof Wirges (in Wirges) and Katholische Maria Himmelfahrt (in Helferskirchen) are the burial locations of a great many of my ancestors.

So, how could I not want to visit this place -- basically the birthplace or ancestral homeland of my German roots?  Now if I could just figure out a way to combine this pilgrimage to the homeland with a river cruise on the Rhine River, I would be thrilled!