2025 Spring German Genealogical Seminar
Presented in-person and via Zoom
On Saturday, April 5, 20259:30 am – 4:30 pm
Featuring Ute Brandenburg.
On-Line Registration
Click here to review the topics and speaker's bio.
The seminar will be a hybrid event.
A recording will be made available for 30 days to those who register.
In-person attendees who register by 17 March will be eligible for lunch with Ute.
There will be lots of door prizes for both in-person and virtual (ZOOM) attendees.
In-person:
Highlands Ranch Senior Center
200 E. Highlands Ranch Parkway.
Highlands Ranch, CO 80126
REFUNDS ONLY IF SPEAKER IS
UNABLE TO ATTEND
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Virtual - via Zoom
An email with Zoom access details and handouts -
which can be downloaded – will be sent 2-3 days before.
NO refunds will be permitted once the Zoom Link is sent
|
* marked fields are required.
Registration is $50.00 per person.
QUESTIONS or for membership info, contact Sandy Carter- Duff at sandy@carduff.com or call 303-478-0876. Questions about the seminar, contact Sandy Ronayne at sandyronayne@comcast.net
2025 Spring Seminar Topics and Speaker's Bio
Topics:
- Dodging Brick Walls: Most roadblocks we encounter are avoidable. Learn how to recognize and overcome the most common issues that can cause an impasse in German research.
- The Status Designation in Church Records: A Mirror of Local Society Level: German church records contain detailed information about individuals’ social statuses, such as citizen, inhabitant, neighbor, and more. But what exactly do these terms mean, and why was status so significant? This presentation explores the importance of these designations and their implications for understanding historical context.
- Hidden Gems in German and Polish Archives: Many researchers are unaware that there are manifold resources ranging from wills and court records to mortgage registers, tax lists, emigration records, and more, held by local and regional German archives. In addition, Polish archives are of great importance when researching Germans in the former Eastern Provinces, for which church records sometimes have not survived. Archival materials can help fill in blanks in your family tree, but also provide details not found in parish records, allowing for a deeper understanding of an ancestor’s life experience. This presentation will show samples of records from different areas of Germany and Poland, analyze their value, and show how they were found.
- Escape and Return in Jewish Vienna - A DNA Case Study: Michael N. was born in Vienna in 1949. The search for his unknown father takes us on a riveting journey around the world against the backdrop of the Nazi occupation of Austria.
Ute Brandenburg's Bio
Professional genealogist Ute Brandenburg is a bilingual German American living in Iowa City, Iowa. Educated in Germany, she combines her lifelong immersion in German culture, history, and geography with in-depth knowledge of migration history as well as genealogical sources of both Germany and the United States. Among Ute’s research interests are German immigration to the Midwest, research in the former Eastern Provinces of Prussia, and Jewish family history. Ute uses DNA to solve some of the most challenging cases of unknown origin of German immigrants. She is an expert on solving unknown parentage cases in Germany. In partnership with Ursula C. Krause, Ute presents German genealogy workshops with a focus on the life experiences of our ordinary ancestors in their time in history.