*[Ein wunderschoener Tag heute!]
I had some replies to my questions about Black Sheep ancestors but I doubt that most of them would qualify the writer for membership. Some were serious but they occurred under conditions of war time which clouds the issues.
Let me introduce a new topic now. This particular strain of thinking is one that is pertinent for me considering my age. By now it is becoming very clear that I do not have time left in my life to do everything that I would like to do. So I need to put some priorities on my efforts. The first question is, “What is my number one priority for the rest of my life?” I lay aside some of the mechanical questions like cutting the grass, brushing my teeth, etc. Or maybe I should omit some of these?
My number one priority job is one over which I have no control. Klaus Wust spent the last decades of his life writing a book about German emigration, including, I believe, the movements of people within the Germanic regions prior to emigration to other lands. He claimed to have the book written when he died but he admitted that work was needed on the references.
When he died, the manuscripts of course became the property of his family. I volunteered at this point to help with getting the book ready for publication but the family preferred to keep it in their own hands. One of the principal workers is a grandson (a very bright boy it seems) who is in the midst of college right now. So work is slow.
When I used the plural word manuscripts, it was for a good reason. Apparently there were three copies of the manuscript that did not all agree. The first task of the family was to compile all of these into one which would become the master. At the same time, this would be the first time that the manuscript would in a machine-readable form (keyboards were the nemesis of Klaus). Probably the work has advanced to this point but the problem of combining or merging in the references will be a major task. I am afraid that the grandson views the book as a doctoral project which means it may be many years before it is finished.
I continue to volunteer but the family apparently feels that I couldn’t do much. In the last few months of Klaus’ life, Andreas Mielke and I visited with him and we talked about the book. We volunteered to help him but he felt that he did not need any help. I am afraid that he was overly confident about how quickly he could finish it.
So my priority project must be some other activity.
*[It’s a beautiful day today!]
(02 Apr 07)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.