The Scenic Route to Citizenship

If genealogy is a study in patience, dual citizenship is a graduate-level course in patience, frustration, and occasional disbelief.

Back in April, I reached out to a court-approved translator recommended by the consulate to translate and certify the records I had painstakingly collected. I waited. Nothing. I wrote again. Still nothing. Hoping for another recommendation, I contacted the consulate only to learn they no longer provide them.

Well then.

Fortunately, a former client came to the rescue and recommended a translator named Paula. We connected quickly, and I emailed the documents needing translation and certification. Somehow, and I checked twice, my own birth record performed a disappearing act and failed to attach.

Of course it did.

Paula mailed the completed records via DHL on 18 May, with an anticipated arrival date of 21 May. Someday, likely in October, I will share the strange saga involving an email with the wrong address and entirely wrong city. Suffice it to say, the moment I spotted the problem, I contacted both Paula and DHL. The error was not on Paula’s end.

My adventure with DHL, however, was just beginning.

When Thursday came and went with no delivery, I remained optimistic. The package had reached Cincinnati. Surely it would arrive Friday. How long could it take to travel from Cincinnati to northern Indiana?

As it turns out: considerably longer than one might expect.

The package cleared Cincinnati at 6:57 AM Friday and headed to Fort Wayne, a short distance from my home and, in my increasingly hopeful imagination, the final stop. Instead of delivering it, DHL sent it to Dayton.

Dayton politely emailed me requesting that I verify my address again. I complied and selected Tuesday as my delivery date because, apparently, choice is an illusion and Tuesday was the only option available.

Then things became truly creative.

On Saturday, Dayton sent the package to Erlanger, Kentucky.

Why?

An excellent question. Customer Service did not know either.

Erlanger held the package hostage for two days before returning it to Fort Wayne on Monday, now a full week after it had left Croatia.

Fort Wayne then declared it had arrived at the wrong destination.

No, Fort Wayne. I live near you. We were so close to success. Had someone simply called me, I would have cheerfully driven over and rescued the wandering documents myself.

Instead, Fort Wayne sent the package back to Dayton.

Dayton placed it on hold Tuesday.

By Wednesday it had returned to Fort Wayne, which once again announced it would be delivered.

Hope springs eternal.

Unfortunately, experience had by then replaced hope with strategy. Before Fort Wayne could develop another urge to send the package sightseeing, I called Customer Service.

The shipment was finally received Wednesday at 6:54 PM.

Customer Service had promised delivery by 7:00 PM, and to their credit, they met that deadline by a remarkable six minutes, albeit nearly seven days late.

As genealogists, we love timelines. Postal timelines? Not so much.

At this point, I am fairly certain the Pony Express could have delivered the records faster and with fewer state lines involved.

The package was torn open but thankfully, the documents were intact.

And now for the painful epilogue.

This postal adventure cost over 150 euros for the original shipment. Thanks to my own missing attachment mishap, I must now spend another 150 euros to have the overlooked birth record translated and shipped.

Which means I will soon be playing the DHL Waiting Game once again.

Stay tuned.

An Island Without a Name

Photo by Lori Samuelson 4 April 2026

Did you guess where I traveled? It was Kos Island, Greece.

I’ve gone back in time, way back, to a place where my ancestors lived nearly 2,000 years ago. This journey didn’t begin with a record set or an archive, but with a story passed down by my grandmother. She said our family once left an island to the south, around the time of Christ. They were vintners. There were too many people. The land was dry. They left because they had to. She didn’t know the name of the island, only the reason they went.

For years, that story lingered as just that: a story. But when mitochondrial DNA entered the picture, something remarkable happened. My mtDNA traces directly across Kos Island, an island whose name my family has carried, in one form or another, since at least the 1200s, when I first find them documented in their later home in Croatia. Even more compelling, historical research confirms that Kos was overpopulated and experienced periods of drought roughly 2,000 years ago. The pieces fit, not perfectly, but persuasively.

What fascinates me most is not that the story was complete, but that it was true enough. Family stories rarely preserve dates, place names, or precise routes. What they do preserve are motives: hunger, pressure, hope, survival. In this case, the story of farmers leaving an unnamed island aligns with both genetic evidence and environmental history. That’s not coincidence, that’s migration memory.

This is why I never dismiss family stories outright. Even when details are missing or blurred, they often contain a core truth waiting to be tested. With the right tools, DNA, geography, climate history, and records, we can sometimes confirm far more than we expect. Migration leaves footprints not just in documents, but in names, occupations, and the quiet persistence of who we are.

Our Christmas Miracle

 

Photo by Lori Samuelson April 2023

Merry Christmas, dearest readers!

Christmas is a season of joy, wonder, and if you’re paying attention, quiet miracles. I have a holiday story to share that has just unfolded in my own family. Those of you who work in genealogy already understand that the strange, the coincidental, and the improbable often walk hand in hand with real life. Still, what I’m about to share feels like something more.

One of our adult children has always wanted to be a mother. For years, she prepared for a child she hoped would someday be hers, cross-stitching bibs, knitting booties, quilting blankets, and crafting tiny handmade treasures. She remained hopeful, positive, and forward-thinking throughout it all. As her mom, though, my heart often ached. No matter how old your child is, it’s painful to watch them work so hard for something that doesn’t seem to be coming.

I’ve written before about my Granny, my Croatian immigrant great-grandmother, who, in the late 1800s, made a pilgrimage from her small village of Dubranec to Marija Bistrica, a Roman Catholic shrine believed to be a site of miracles. When my husband and I visited the area years later, I was stunned by the distance she traveled. The terrain is mountainous, and for a woman of that era, the journey there and back would have been difficult and dangerous.

Yet Granny believed in miracles. She was hoping for a child who would live. According to my grandmother, Granny’s daughter, triplets had died. In truth, they were likely three separate pregnancies. English was their second language, and surviving records show two boys who died in different years. I suspect the third was a miscarriage.

While standing in that church during my visit, I lit a candle for my own child. It couldn’t hurt, right?

Last January, after modern medicine could not help her conceive, adoption became the next step. A consultation with a lawyer in May was discouraging. The message was blunt: if an adoption happened, and that was a very big if, it would likely take three to five years. Her age worked against her. International adoption was explored, but it was even more expensive and less promising. It all felt like a closed door.

Undaunted, she decided to become a foster mom. She was told she’d likely be placed with a teenager. Her response? That was fine. And if that young person someday became a parent, she would give them all the baby items she had lovingly made over the years. Generosity, it turns out, is another of her gifts.

She was approved as a foster mom the day before Thanksgiving and prepared a room for whoever might arrive. Then, last week, she received a call: would she be interested in a newborn? If so, she needed to attend an interview on 22 December. Of course she was interested but getting away from work was no small thing. In her profession, you don’t simply take the day off. With help from a few trusted colleagues, her schedule was carefully shifted so she could attend the meeting during her lunch hour.

She was told she would hear back the following day. Instead, four hours later, the phone rang. She was informed that she was a new mom.

The day she was selected came one day after my Granny’s birthdate. Go figure.

The next day, after paperwork, we met our newest family member. Our daughter named her after Granny, with a middle name that also carries deep family meaning another story for another time.

And yet, the coincidences continued.

I had never been inside this particular hospital before, but I knew it well. When we relocated from Florida, I had inexplicably chosen a hotel right next to it. Every time I needed to access the main highway, I turned into that hospital’s parking lot. Later, I realized it was the same hospital system my paternal grandfather had used when he lived in the city.

So there was a thread connecting my maternal and paternal lines but it didn’t end there.

When we entered the NICU, I noticed the baby’s whiteboard listed a very distinctive first name: the name of my husband’s maternal grandmother. I asked if that was the baby’s name. The nurse said no. One of the staff had simply thought of it, without knowing why, and wanted something to call her until an adoptive mom was chosen.

That name belonged to the woman who had, in many ways, raised my husband.

I don’t pretend to understand how all of this came together especially during a season known for wonder. I only know that we are profoundly grateful to have this strong little angel in our lives.

We are especially thankful for the biological mother, the DCS and NICU staff, and the community members who have stepped forward with support. If you’re so inclined, we would be grateful if you’d keep this little one in your prayers.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.

12 Genealogy Lessons I Learned in 2024

 

AI Image

Wow! Last blog of 2024 and what a year it’s been.

The best thing about genealogy is that you are constantly learning and growing. No one can know about every record set, historical period, or nuances of language over the years. Today I’m reflecting on some of the A-Ha moments I had this year:

• AI has been the biggest game changer in my life. I use ChatGPT almost daily now and occasionally with Claude and others. It saves time and helps me think outside the box to solve problems.

• Realizing that the Viking Pagans held on to their symbolism after converting to Roman Catholicism was amazing to me. Who would have thought the church would have allowed it? Even more surprising is that the pagan baptismal fonts are still used today by the Lutherans.

• I also didn’t know that grapes don’t grow in Sweden so the Vikings traveled in the summer to the Mediterranean to buy wine. My family had vineyards there so maybe they bought Zinfadel from them. Always been a small world, right?!

• Had no idea when the potato famine hit Ireland it also affected crops in Europe, hence many from the French German Palatine area migrated to the U.S. at that time.

• While researching Ohio River pirates for an upcoming presentation, I learned that one of the most notorious, James Mason, got a Spanish passport because President Benjamin Harrison had given him a recommendation. Dear Ben’s sister had married the honorable brother of James Mason. Just goes to show you how different siblings can be even back in the day.

• Did you know that identity theft occurred in the 1890s? It did and I’m still working on solving that one!

• My husband is constantly kidding me about being a princess (which I’m not) because I’ve now seen the family castles in Croatia, Germany, and Great Britain. People are so worried about being safe today but it’s no different than in the past– we just don’t have a moat around our houses anymore.

• I didn’t realize that there were jobs for lawyers regarding keeping a person’s coat of arms protected. Who would have thought that would still be needed today?!

• Every time I look at my cats I just can’t get over their ethnicity and I wonder which ancestor in my husband and my past was adopted by my cat’s ancestors. Yeah, it’s weird, I know!

• A good reminder that there is someone out there who knows the answer to whatever question you might ask and you just have to be persistent and patient to get the answer. I finally found a knowledgeable person who knew how to read old German script AND understood the cultural heritage. I needed to find someone who had both these skills to understand one little ole word in a 1834 newspaper article written in German in Cincinnati, Ohio. He learned that the custom had been brought over to the US which was also news to him. Collaborating with others helps us get the info we need and in turn, we help them gain insights.

• Loved the easy peesy way to do genealogy in French villages – take a walk and look above the doors of the houses. Back then they engraved the date the house was built and who the owners were. I was able to quickly find my ancestral homes.

• I am reminded almost weekly of how much our life has changed since the pandemic. Zoom seems to have been around forever but I didn’t use it before 2019. Makes me wonder what’s next on the horizon.

That’s one new thought for each month of 2024. Can’t wait to discover more new and exciting ideas next year.

As usual, I’ll be taking off next week and will be back in January with my top ten blog list from 2024. Have a wonderful holiday and I’ll blog with you soon!

Creepy October - The Castle Connection

 

Fountain at the bottom middle. Photo by Lori Samuelson

Last week I wrote about the painting that resembled my mom in our first hotel room in Croatia. My grandmother also chose to haunt us on that trip!

We had signed up for a Gate 1 tour that began in Zagreb, Croatia and took us also to Slovenia and Monte Negro. My grandmother had visited Croatia with her singing group in the summer of 1960 and brought back the picture above of a castle. As a child, she told me the story of our family defending a castle but made it clear the castle in the wood cutout picture was not the same one. I had no idea where she bought the picture but a clue in the bottom corner said Bled.

On our third day, we arrived in Bled and sure enough, there was a castle that closely resembled the picture I inherited from my grandmother. We toured it and learned it had been built in 900 AD. We shared a glass of wine with a monk on the top floor, visited the museum with artifacts from over the centuries, and shopped in an adorable beehive-themed room that had a live beehive in the middle.

I remarked to my husband that my grandmother must have also visited this site as in the gift shop were wooden angels that resembled the type of wood used in the castle picture we have. I inquired if they had available larger wooden pictures but they no longer do.

We returned to our hotel, which had the exact same view as the one from the picture I had and I remarked to my husband it was uncanny. The only thing missing from the woodcut was a large fountain that had been in front of the lake that our hotel faced. I mentioned this to a hotel employee who told me the fountain is still there, across the street from the hotel, behind a fence. Hubby and I went on an adventure to find it. Sure enough, obscured by overgrowth, water trickled from this ancient fountain:

Photo by Lori Samuelson

I then learned that our hotel, built in 1980, had replaced a hotel that had been on the same site. Likely, we were staying on the same land that my grandmother had stayed in 1960! Nothing like following in the footsteps of your ancestors, even when they were just on vacation.

And because it’s October – here’s a night picture of the castle:

Photo by Lori Samuelson

Creepy October Begins - Mom's Return!

 

It’s Creepy October and of course, I’ve had several weird, unexplained happenings as I researched my family this past year. One of the creepiest was on April 13 when my husband and I checked into the Zagreb Croatia Sheraton and were assigned a room with the painting shown on the left. Our flight from Munich had been delayed by over 5 hours and we were exhausted when we finally made it to our hotel room. I had wanted to spend the afternoon researching at the Croatian State Archive but unfortunately, with the flight delay, that wasn’t an option. As I unzipped the suitcases to take a quick shower before we went out to explore Zagreb, my husband said,“Lor, you got to see this.” I looked up and he was pointing at the picture. I immediately noticed the resemblance to my mother. It was her birthday eve, too. It was one of those pictures whose eyes seemed to follow you wherever you went in the room. Although those Halloween pictures creep me out this one didn’t. It was comforting to think of my mom, whose parents were both from the nearby village of Dubranec from where we were staying. Pic on the right is of my mother from her communion at St. Marks Roman Catholic Church in Gary, Lake, Indiana..

Her hair darkened as she aged and she always wore it short. Her brown eyes seemed to get bigger and brighter, too. Her long face, slim nose, and lips that never smiled broadly reminded me of the painting. The white attire also caused my brain to make a connection. Of course, I had to take a picture of the picture and share it with all of you!