Foto: DAG SiWi

From June 14 – 18 a group from the “Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia” (USA) , headed by the German-American Ulrike Meyer-Mello and by Barbara Price from California, visited the Siegerland  to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors.  For more than 50 years now, the Germanna Foundation has been the organisation of descendants of the first Siegerländer emigrants to Virginia from 1714 to 1750.

Following the reception by DAG-SiWi president and VDAC vice president Volker Schüttenhelm, the Americans with German roots visited the villages of Oberfischbach, Trupbach, Eisern and Müsen, which are now parts of the cities of Freudenberg (Siegerland), Hilchenbach  and Siegen. From these villages, at least ten families emigrated to the”New World” more than 300 years ago. For their descendants , nowadays spread over several states of the U.S.,  it was a moving moment to see their ancestors’ houses, some of which are still there even after close to three centuries have passed.

Foto: DAG SiWi

Trupbach was the home of Rev. Richter’s family, from which the American name Rector originates.  Here, the Germanna visitors learned that US astronaut Buzz Aldrin has a direct connection to the family tree of the Rector family: Hans-Jacob Richter (*10.10.1674/>Trupbach) and his wife Anna Elizabeth, born Fischbach (*15.04.1685/Trupbach), as well as the couple  Johannes (John) Fischbach (*12.07.1691/Trupbach) and Agnes Haeger (*26.10.1697/Oberfischbach).

Copyright by NASA, cropped by W.wolny [Public domain]

Buzz Aldrin was the second man to set foot on the moon after Neil Armstrong on the Apollo 11 mission.

While enjoying coffee and homemade cake at Siegen’s oldest restaurant Peuns, the group listened to a presentation about the history of the emigrant families by Barbara Price, who had collected a lot of knowledge and   photos from church registers and the Siegen city archive.