One of my more interesting ancestors, who I must do more research about, is my six times paternal great grandfather, Carl von Fircks. Thank goodness my cousin Wolf Lackschewitz published the Fircks genealogical records, from which I have taken information below. Carl von Fircks was born, married, died and was
I am incredibly lucky that my cousin, Wolf Lackschewitz, compiled a detailed genealogy of my father’s family – the Fircks. Unfortunately for me, the collection he wrote is in German. Slowly I have begun to translate it. For this post, I thought I would go back to nearly the beginning,
„Gone, gone, the damage done“ are lyrics from a Neil Young song and, while the song is about drug addicts, the words could also describe the feeling my father, and I’m sure other Baltic Germans, felt when their properties were confiscated. I wrote about their estate, Nurmhusen, here and described
My mother’s family were not the only ones to have suffered the effects of history. My father’s family, who lived at the time in Courland, were also thrown into turmoil in the years after 1918. I find the history of that time in Courland, which is now Latvia, difficult to