I first became interested in genealogy when I was a child. My mom had a copy of Roberts's History of Lehigh County, which I pored over on rainy afternoons. I also loved to listen to my grandmother's tales about her family & how her great-grandfather came to the Lehigh Valley from Germany. As a young adult, I spent a lot of time searching graveyards & church records for my ancestors. I then took almost 30 years off while I raised a family & pursued a career as a middle school English teacher. Three years ago, after 35 years in the classroom, I retired & took up the ancestor search once more. It has now become a kind of obsession for me. My goal is to find, for each branch of my family, the first immigrant ancestor. I've also expanded my search to include my husband's family & my daughter-in-law's family. My husband will retire this June & one of our planned activities is to visit the places where our ancestors lived & where they are buried.

I first became interested in genealogy when I was a child. My mom had a copy of Roberts's History of Lehigh County, which I pored over on rainy afternoons. I also loved to listen to my grandmother's tales about her family & how her great-grandfather came to the Lehigh Valley from Germany. As a young adult, I spent a lot of time searching graveyards & church records for my ancestors. I then took almost 30 years off while I raised a family & pursued a career as a middle school English teacher. Three years ago, after 35 years in the classroom, I retired & took up the ancestor search once more. It has now become a kind of obsession for me. My goal is to find, for each branch of my family, the first immigrant ancestor. I've also expanded my search to include my husband's family & my daughter-in-law's family. My husband will retire this June & one of our planned activities is to visit the places where our ancestors lived & where they are buried.