All posts by Terry Pitts

Terry is a retired school teacher, retired Army Reservist, and retired civilian Department of the Army Civilian working about half the time as a pilot and flight instructor. He has been flying since age 19, adding gliders in 2011. He's been an FAA certificated flight instructor since 2013.
Biographical

German Ancestors From Near Wiesbaden

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MY DAD became quite the genealogist in the last 30 or so years of his life. He would tell me some of the things he learned, but it was never as interesting to me as he probably would have liked it to be. Now, I wish I knew more.

How will it feel to visit a place my ancestors walked out of to find their way to a sailing ship to the New World?

Years ago I gave my dad Reunion genealogy software for the Mac. After he died in 2013, I got a copy of the family history file from his computer. As luck would have it, as the actual purchaser, I was able to download the software and confirm the file was intact. A few months ago I purchased the latest version.

I learned yesterday the base library has a subscription to ancestry.com. This reminded me my dad had once told me we had some German ancestors. That surprised me, because I was under the impression that side of the family* was “all British.” Last night I started up the computer, opened the file and searched for German ancestors. I found a name and a town. I googled that combination. The top hit was for someone descended from the same person! (I’ve emailed her, waiting for a response.)

The town of Eisern in the German state of North Rhine Westphalia only had about 250 people when the whole Rehlsbach family left for Virginia in the mid 1700s and became the Railsback family. Some five generations later, I’m writing about it.  Eisern is about 1-1/4 hours from where I am now. Road trip!

I was born in the Navy town of Oak Harbor, Washington. We moved to Memphis, Tennessee when I was a month old. I’ve visited Oak Harbor maybe ten times since. Each time, I’ve thought “I should feel like I am at home here” but I don’t. It’s not my home, but it has significance. My brothers have all spent much more time there than me. Aside: This may be the only thing in my life I wish I could go back and do differently.

If my birthplace makes me feel odd, how will it feel to visit a place my ancestors walked out of to find their way to a sailing ship to the New World? There were no trains, planes, or automobiles in those days.

A screen capture showing back to my great-great-grandparents.

Back to the digital records. Each record includes some bit of information, at a minimum the person’s relationship with people before and/or after. The record also indicates my dad last updated his own record more than ten years before he died. Looking at it now it appears as if he were 83. It makes me feel sad to think about changing it, but it’s probably apropos his record is the first one I should edit as I take a small step towards learning about Genealogy myself.

*I had long known that I have a couple German great grandparents on my mother’s side. There’s not really enough German density in the family to explain why I like this country so much.

Cars

Saturdate with Gretel

YOU MIGHT be wondering who Gretel is. I do too; It’s confusing. Hmmm. Perhaps I should start at the beginning…

The summer of 2009, Melissa, Sean and I were in the rental car parking garage at the Munich airport. I had reserved a car with GPS (Navi or SatNav depending on which country my friends are from). Everyone knows what the GPS looks like, right? I was feeling pretty stupid because I couldn’t find it. I asked for help. The GPS was the size of a postage stamp and located in the rear view mirror. Yes, in the mirror. It turns out that she only spoke German. I was OK with “Die Route wird berechnet” but most people wouldn’t know what was going on. Eight years later Melissa still say “Rechts abbiegen” but I’m not entirely sure it’s actually part of her German vocabulary.

We listened to this German voice telling us “turn left” and “turn right” for several days. We eventually started referring to the voice as “Gretel.” Spring forward a few years to 2011. A friend at EUCOM found an abandoned GPS, used it for a short time, then gave it to me. It was made in 1996. The most recent maps are several years out of date. (OK for city-to-city trips, but when downtown has become a pedestrian zone, “she” goes crazy. Ask me how I know!) This little black box took on the Gretel name. Gretel was useful in the gold 1992 BMW station wagon (Combi, Touring, Estate Car depending on where you live). She returned to the US in 2013.

Gretel is on the way back from a Christmas 2015 trip to see one of my bothers and his family in Bavaria.
Gretel is on the way back from a Christmas 2015 trip to see one of my bothers and his family in Bavaria.

Gretel served faithfully in the US until heading back to Europe late in 2015. Gretel’s new car was a blue 1999 BMW station wagon (Same alternate vocab for the rest of the world). Somehow, Gretel’s name migrated from the GPS to the car itself. As most of my friends know, that car was replaced by a silver 2003 BMW station wagon several months ago. The name has moved on so the current car has become known as Gretel 2.0.

Yesterday, I spent five hours replacing the parking brakes (who thought it was a good idea to put drum brakes inside disk brakes just to park a car?) and rotors and pads on all four axles. The car stops. The parking brake is firmer. I’m happy.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of my Saturdate with Gretel. The next installment in the continuing saga will be replacing the valve cover gasket because 1) oil leaks are not allowed in Germany and 2) that occasional bit of oil on the exhaust manifold does not smell good.

Gretel 1.0's hood emblem was old and faded. I bought her a new one. Later, I was offered a really nice used one. When G 2.0 joined the family, the new one replaced her awful one, and the good used on went on G 1.0; those things are too expensive to leave on a car when it's sold!
Gretel 1.0’s hood emblem was old and faded. I bought her a new one. Later, I was offered a really nice used one. When G 2.0 joined the family, the new one replaced her awful one, and the good used on went on G 1.0; those things are too expensive to leave on a car when it’s sold!