Okay, second try...I am Cheryl Orth Chapman, retired teacher and current picture book writer and amateur genealogist. I'm carrying the torch from the work that my Aunt Eva Orth Casto and her son Stanley began in the 1980's. It's easier now with the internet, but that doesn't preclude me from visiting cemeteries and archives - even in Germany! I've gotten some amazing directions to go from info in Find-a-Grave, such as discovering when and where my great-great-grandfather died, but that led to an even bigger mystery! My biggest mystery at the moment is that when my dad's great-grandparents, Joseph Anton Ort(h) and Eva Barbara (Kanith) Ort(h) came to America from Schneeberg, Bavaria, in 1846, with their 3 children, Albert, Amelia, and Martin, 2 older girls, Clara and Maria Magdalena, came with them. Through Find-a-Grave I found out about their deaths...but I'm looking for something more about their lives! I don't know if they were adopted or what (no record of them as JA & EB's children in the Wurzburg Archives, although others are listed, but not born in the same years)... but the info has to be somewhere! I am also trying to find out more about my mother's paternal grandmother, Minna Tietz Kusserow. I think that sometimes when these folks came across, all ties were cut!!! Just wishing I could re-tie the lineage!!! Just out of curiosity, and out of respect for the history of those immigrants who built America as they did!

Okay, second try...I am Cheryl Orth Chapman, retired teacher and current picture book writer and amateur genealogist. I'm carrying the torch from the work that my Aunt Eva Orth Casto and her son Stanley began in the 1980's. It's easier now with the internet, but that doesn't preclude me from visiting cemeteries and archives - even in Germany! I've gotten some amazing directions to go from info in Find-a-Grave, such as discovering when and where my great-great-grandfather died, but that led to an even bigger mystery! My biggest mystery at the moment is that when my dad's great-grandparents, Joseph Anton Ort(h) and Eva Barbara (Kanith) Ort(h) came to America from Schneeberg, Bavaria, in 1846, with their 3 children, Albert, Amelia, and Martin, 2 older girls, Clara and Maria Magdalena, came with them. Through Find-a-Grave I found out about their deaths...but I'm looking for something more about their lives! I don't know if they were adopted or what (no record of them as JA & EB's children in the Wurzburg Archives, although others are listed, but not born in the same years)... but the info has to be somewhere! I am also trying to find out more about my mother's paternal grandmother, Minna Tietz Kusserow. I think that sometimes when these folks came across, all ties were cut!!! Just wishing I could re-tie the lineage!!! Just out of curiosity, and out of respect for the history of those immigrants who built America as they did!