Merry Christmas from the Cincinnati Adlers!
I wanted to give everyone a quick update on the reunion’s progress before we enter the New Year.
Attached are the genealogies, baptismal, marriage, and funeral records of the first five generations of our German ancestors from Viernheim in Hessen that go back nearly 400 years! These were found, copied, and translated by the esteemed genealogy researcher, Thomas Moorman from Cincinnati, who searched for these records for five years. I have instructed Mr. Moorman to keep searching further back in history because Fr. Hilary Meny told me that he had heard that way back there was an Adler in Bethlehem that rented out his stable...
These records should be copied or downloaded for posterity and saved in your reunion booklet of events and stories yet to come. Please show them to our relatives who do not have computer access.
I am hoping that the reunion website will be available on New Year’s Day. On it you will find the reunion invitation and RSVP form. We will be adding a series of historical vignettes that describe the lives and events of our ancestors leading up to the reunion in June 2014. There will be multiple links to articles of interest regarding the family history and, hopefully, pictures of the past generations as we find and identify them. I will notify all of you by email when the website is ready.
I am finished tromping through graveyards. But I will be contacting and visiting many relatives to ask for copies of photographs and artifacts from the past. I thank you in advance for allowing me to visit with you in the next few months to compile this history before it is lost. Please start searching through your attics and old boxes for anything of interest that I can photograph from generations 6 and 7 and 8 (Mathias/Juliana/Nicholas Adler and their children and grandchildren). The generations after that are current enough for each of the families to compile their own memories.
Once the website is activated, I would appreciate any stories of the early days of the Haubstadt and Evansville families that you can send me to pass onto the family. I will also make contact with remaining relatives in Viernheim, Germany, to see if anyone is left there. It sure would be neat to find Kaspar Adler’s grave.
Who knows?
So the New Year will be busy as we all prepare for the reunion.
May the holidays be holy and safe for you and your families!
In the spirit of Saint Nicholas (who I hear also had Adler roots), may Christ’s love and His Church continue to bless our generations!
John Adler (son of Raymond, son of Adam, son of Nicholas... Generation 9)
