River Cruising Water Cooler

[notamermaid]

15 hours ago, Rebel54 said:

Have you ever been to this town?  A few years ago I found out that my birth father was someone other than I thought he was. 

I have not been and never heard the name before. I have been to Stuttgart which is not too far from there. That is quite a thing to find out. It kind of changes your whole being.

 

Kusterdingen appears to have an interesting church - the one in your photograph. Turns out the roof is green tiles. That is quite unusual. Kusterdingen is an hour and fifteen minutes by car from Lampoldshausen, where @jpalbny's ancestor is from. Checked the name in the Neckar thread where we had talked about it.

 

By the way, I am currently helping with a genealogy inquiry that was passed on to me through work. An American family planning a trip to the Rhineland to check out an ancestral home. I do that sort of thing occasionally, but only very limited research as I am an amateur.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[CPT Trips]

If one is going to delve into genealogy best be prepared for surprises and, perhaps, scandals. “Extremely short” pregnancy or walking the aisle with a baby bump. Bigamy, going on the lam and then starting another family. Discovering that the father listed on the birth certificate died years before the birth. 
You just never know. 
 

[Rebel54]

7 hours ago, Daisi said:

@Rebel54, you'll have to do a Rhine holiday (land or cruise) and go visit, looks like a nice town with all the old architecture!

 

I do plan to visit one day.  Trying to convince my father to go with me but he's a bit wary of traveling because of the "world situation" with extremists and terror plots.  Me, I don't let that stuff stop me.  I refuse to be held back because of fear.  I do want to get there before I am too old to enjoy going.

 

[Rebel54]

20 minutes ago, CPT Trips said:

If one is going to delve into genealogy best be prepared for surprises and, perhaps, scandals. “Extremely short” pregnancy or walking the aisle with a baby bump. Bigamy, going on the lam and then starting another family. Discovering that the father listed on the birth certificate died years before the birth. 
You just never know. 
 

LOL I was a Vietnam baby.  Marine on the way to his tour in Nam.  Met my mom when she apparently was on a break from  my "dad".  A couple ancestry.com tests later at the age of 51 (me) and everything changes.  I'm not shocked, mad or upset.  It is what it is and explains a lot. 

Sounds like you have your own story to tell CPT.

[CPT Trips]

@Rebel54 Most of the stories are a couple branches away on the family tree.😱

[Rebel54]

7 hours ago, notamermaid said:

I have not been and never heard the name before. I have been to Stuttgart which is not too far from there. That is quite a thing to find out. It kind of changes your whole being.

 

Kusterdingen appears to have an interesting church - the one in your photograph. Turns out the roof is green tiles. That is quite unusual. Kusterdingen is an hour and fifteen minutes by car from Lampoldshausen, where @jpalbny's ancestor is from. Checked the name in the Neckar thread where we had talked about it.

 

By the way, I am currently helping with a genealogy inquiry that was passed on to me through work. An American family planning a trip to the Rhineland to check out an ancestral home. I do that sort of thing occasionally, but only very limited research as I am an amateur.

 

notamermaid

 

 

Very interesting.  I will get there one day in the near future. 

My ancestry search started in an effort to help my mother who was adopted at birth, locate her family.  She's had a series of strokes and I wanted to make sure she had some of that info before it was too late.  Trying to help her, I opened a whole can of worms that she wasn't expecting.  Not sure if it's memory damage from the stroke or she's just not wanting to admit that she knew all along....but she was "genuinely" shocked when I told her.  I don't think she would have been as willing to take the test had she known/remembered but who knows.  My father (the one that raised me) comes from a long line of Native American and Irish.  I had NO native American and a small amount of Irish....Clue one.  Clue two..he didn't show up as my relative in the list of family and he did a test too.  A little digging later I now have two dads and a half sister that I never  knew about.

 

[Rebel54]

2 minutes ago, CPT Trips said:

@Rebel54 Most of the stories are a couple branches away on the family tree.😱

My mother is from a long line of Mennonites....her ancestors came from Russia and Prussia to Germany and then on to the US.  Given that they had to live in groups that were not allowed to socialize with the locals when they were on the run for religious freedom....there may be a few branches on that side that are a little straighter than one would like.

 

[Rebel54]

8 hours ago, notamermaid said:

I have not been and never heard the name before. I have been to Stuttgart which is not too far from there. That is quite a thing to find out. It kind of changes your whole being.

 

Kusterdingen appears to have an interesting church - the one in your photograph. Turns out the roof is green tiles. That is quite unusual. Kusterdingen is an hour and fifteen minutes by car from Lampoldshausen, where @jpalbny's ancestor is from. Checked the name in the Neckar thread where we had talked about it.

 

By the way, I am currently helping with a genealogy inquiry that was passed on to me through work. An American family planning a trip to the Rhineland to check out an ancestral home. I do that sort of thing occasionally, but only very limited research as I am an amateur.

 

notamermaid

 

 

I have a LOT of exploring to do 🙂  I can't wait to start.

[Rebel54]

38 minutes ago, CPT Trips said:

If one is going to delve into genealogy best be prepared for surprises and, perhaps, scandals. “Extremely short” pregnancy or walking the aisle with a baby bump. Bigamy, going on the lam and then starting another family. Discovering that the father listed on the birth certificate died years before the birth. 
You just never know. 
 

I do tell people to think very hard before they spit in that tube.....your life can turn into a Jerry Springer episode over night.

[Canal archive]

This area is the one I get the most queries about. Family history is big business. I  research workers on the canal be they navvies, lockeepers and boatmen. The best story I’ve unearthed so far is the couple who both worked for GWR and moved in together, never married so that the lady could still collect her late husbands pension and not pay rent for her cottage. I didn’t believe it at first but managed to prove it, wow did I feel pleased with myself. Georgian and Victorian into the 1900s.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Canal archive

[notamermaid]

8 hours ago, Daisi said:

@Rebel54, you'll have to do a Rhine holiday (land or cruise) and go visit, looks like a nice town with all the old architecture!

 

A nice small town indeed. A Neckar river cruise together with the Rhine would be a good trip, too.

 

I think AmaWaterways have teamed up with a company to offer a "genealogy river cruise" this year. But I think if I felt comfortable touring independently a land trip could be more in-depth.

 

Fascinating stuff, finding out about one's family. I went to the area of Würzburg three years ago partly to see where my ancestor was from. Turns out he was not born in the village that I visited, it is his last place of residence in Franconia but he only lived there briefly. But his name appears elsewhere in the area and stems from not far away. So still Würzburg-Franconian. I think all my family hail from within the German realm, but before 1700 who knows...

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Daisi]

My sister started researching the family tree when my nephew received a school assignment to trace the family back to Great-Grandparents. Since he knew my Mom's parents, she decided to go a bit further.  30 some years later, she has traced multiple family trees back many generations and we have a massive data base. I just took a quick look, the earliest I found on one side goes to 1255 in Devon England. It's great, as we have managed to contact family all over the world and are in constant contact with some. One of the fun things for her is one of our family names is "Smith", she's only managed to go back to the 1560's for them.

 

@CPT Trips, the "stories" have been uncovered, including finding not one but two members from my Mother's side marrying into my Father's side. Not that unusual, except for the 1300km distance and it happened in the early 1800's!

[Canal archive]

I can’t remember what thread but Jazz mentioned about Viking getting their passengers rowing but strangely  enough when you go far enough back a lot of us have a touch of the Viking in our ancestry. Puts a new look on the expression ‘to go a Viking’.

[notamermaid]

1 hour ago, Daisi said:

including finding not one but two members from my Mother's side marrying into my Father's side.

Happened with us, just one person though. Perhaps not so surprising. As I said, we have all lived quite close, for a hundred odd years in the wider Rhineland, all of us. And at least on my father's side for a lot longer.

 

45 minutes ago, Canal archive said:

when you go far enough back a lot of us have a touch of the Viking in our ancestry.

More so for you than for us here, but as the Vikings raided along the Rhine, who knows, one of those strapping men may have caught the eye of a Rhenish maiden that was an ancestor of mine. I won't rule it out.

 

I am a bit surprised by how much the test differentiated for @Rebel54. I thought that if I did such a test it would probably reveal boring 100% Germanic. Perhaps it would be more accurate and varied after all.

 

I have step relatives on both my mother's and father's side. Oddly enough, one got in touch yesterday after not having had any contact for at least four years.

 

Got a bit further with the research for the American family. Looks promising for giving them some good news in the coming weeks. If so, I will then pass it on to a couple of more qualified people to continue.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Daisi]

2 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Happened with us, just one person though. Perhaps not so surprising. As I said, we have all lived quite close, for a hundred odd years in the wider Rhineland, all of us. And at least on my father's side for a lot longer.

 

 

 

 

 

The funniest thing was, when we started this journey, and found out that Mom came from one side of the Firth of Forth, and Dad the other, we joked they would be related.....never thinking that 100 or so years later, in another country and so much more distance between them, they (very distantly) are!  Now we are looking into the Highlander side that went the the Netherlands...you never know. 🙂

 

[Canal archive]

They must have been very good swimmers? 😂

[Rebel54]

6 hours ago, Canal archive said:

I can’t remember what thread but Jazz mentioned about Viking getting their passengers rowing but strangely  enough when you go far enough back a lot of us have a touch of the Viking in our ancestry. Puts a new look on the expression ‘to go a Viking’.

I was just looking at my numbers and saw I have a bit of Viking in me....I was pretty excited 🙂

[CPT Trips]

13 hours ago, notamermaid said:

I am a bit surprised by how much the test differentiated for @Rebel54. I thought that if I did such a test it would probably reveal boring 100% Germanic. Perhaps it would be more accurate and varied after all.

How’s this for differentiation? Similar mapping is available for, in my case, UK and Ireland. 

 

[Canal archive]

Never thought of testing but I do know that on my mothers side I have Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire evidently a few coal miners and from my fathers a lot of French as my grandfather and his predecessors came from Guernsey.

[Canal archive]

I thought you’d like to see this the latest innovation from Scenic.
 

https://issuu.com/scenic10/docs/faq_scenic_luxury_cruises_consumer_luggage_and_tra

[Ritabob]

€50 toward laundry makes it easier to travel with carry on only. Good move Scenic!

[Canal archive]

Are the BBC scaremongering again this in the news today.
 

Droughts leave cargo riverboats high and dry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64553079

[notamermaid]

2 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Are the BBC scaremongering again this in the news today.

Hmm, I will just have a quick look... ((pretends to go down to the river bank)) ... yup, ships running perfectly, all good.

 

The BBC is almost as bad as Bloomberg with this. Not saying the article is wrong of course, it is just this underlying scary tone that is a bit of a "pain". But seriously, logistics have been a bit more challenging and there is the new "Synthese" ship which has been hailed as the best step to adapt to low water on the Rhine. Other rivers have been similarly affected I reckon. You just adapt and get on with it, I would say. German articles are a bit "happier" in tone.

 

The one thing we should not do - as I have said several times before and just repeating it for the newcomers - is deduce from business that leisure will be the same. The same physical rules apply for river cruise ships of course but the ships are different and depending on river the situation will not necessarily be the same at a certain point in time. It could be better, it could be worse.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[sharkster77]

Here's an out-of-nowhere question, I think worthy of the water cooler:

 

Has anyone had any experience with Globus Travel?  They just happen to have an itinerary that I have not been able to find from other vendors (a Montreal-to-Montreal trip that visits the Gaspe Peninsula and Gulf of St Lawrence).  I think their parent company owns one of the river cruise lines (can't remember which one).  They have been around forever---I wish there was a Cruise Critic for land tour companies!

 

We've traveled with Collette and Trafalgar (and Viking) but never with Globus.

 

Based on where we live, it would involve only a one-hour flight to Montreal.  A family member has traveled with Globus, but it was 20+ years ago, so their info would be very dated.

 

Just throwin' it out there..............

[Lois R]

I could be wrong but I think Avalon is part of the Globus family.