Why do some family names end in -son and some in -sen?

We’d talked about how much the German dialects vary, looking at dialect forms of the Lord’s Prayer. Let’s compare High German and Dutch.

AUGH! It’s not just a cry of distress, it’s an anglicization. Why do we see lots of names ending in -augh? Baugh, Grumbaugh, Brumbaugh?

Why were there piles of Christmas cards from 1960 sent from around the world to a young girl in Virginia?

Are German dialects really more extreme than American dialects? Are they ever! The Old World dialects in general are far, far more extreme t

Sewing, in addition to laundry, used to be a responsibility that almost every woman had. And yet it can be tough to get insights into this p

The tribes that coalesced into Germans spoke 'the people’s/ popular language’ as opposed to Latin

Not long ago, a friend asked me why we say Germany when the Germans use the word Deutschland. The words aren't even related! Good quest

What on earth is going on with those letters? The s looks like an f !It sure does. I hope you never need those last couple of sentences. Old

Here are a couple tricks to help decipher old German handwriting, Kurrent or Suetterlin, especially important with old family letters.

German and English both mostly use h the same, as that puff of air at the start of a word: hello/hallo, here/hier, horn But what’s that h do

Figuring out the day of the week that something happened can be important in genealogy. Here are a couple approaches.

A series of correspondence to and ​​from the same people opens up a whole new understanding about them. Old Swedish postcards from greater

English can be all over the map in how you’re supposed to pronounce any given set of letters: you polish the Polish silverware, you wait for

We thought it would be fun to conclude our week celebrating  the magic of handwriting with a light-hearted Christmas note that arrived one F

Eliese Trede, my mother's grandmother, immigrated in 1908, leaving her loving parents on a journey across the Atlantic. This is her 1925

1843 letter in old German handwriting from my 3x great grandfather, to his son telling him to hurry from the army before his mother dies.

I remember being flummoxed by my mom's handwriting. What could it possibly mean? How glad I am that I learned cursive and can now read h

Civil War 1862 Diary: Looking at just the week of August 26 highlights his experiences: rebels attacking, burning railroad bridges, fighting

Day 2 to highlight the Art of Handwriting and your Family through January 23rd, National Handwriting Day. Share a favorite family hand-writt