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Project News
The work of German Heritage in Letters depends on the help of contributors, archivists, citizen scholars, and other professionals. Here are a few snapshots of the people we have to thank for their help along the way. Our deepest thanks to our community of supporters! (Captions.)

Our news section shares new features added to the website, reports on past events, and information about future events. Below you’ll find excerpts from our five most recent news posts; click the links to read the full news item. A link to our complete list of older news posts is at the bottom of the page.

Learn more about our German Genealogy Book Contest!

Coming Soon: Migrant Connections!

• Washington, September 13, 2021 • Some exciting news to share: coming soon, we'll have a new look and a new name! Project team member Jana Keck previews our new digital history research hub “Migrant Connections,” which will allow us to collaborate with citizen scientists in new ways and also enable us to expand the variety of sources we use for research into the migrant experience. Learn more by reading the article on the blog “Public Humanities” here. Visit our complete news archive.

News: Citizen Scholars Going Above and Beyond

• Saarbrücken and Otterberg, July 14, 2021 • Sometimes, the citizen scholars who volunteer their time to German Heritage in Letters truly exceed our expectations and conduct their own research to shed light on the people and places mentioned in the letters they are studying. Two members of the transcription group from Saarland we profiled previously, Eva Tietjen and Regina Kunz, embarked on this path to learn more about the family networks surrounding Charlotte Fischer von Höfeln and Eugen Klee, two immigrants whose letters are included in our collections. We asked them both additional questions to find out more about their motivations as well as the results of their commitment. Interview and translation by Yella Nicklaus (auf Deutsch). Eva Tietjen conducted further research … Read More

News: Interview with Saarland Citizen Scholars

• Homburg and Saarbrücken, Saarland, June 22, 2021 • The German Heritage in Letters project depends on the assistance of citizen scholars, particularly the family historians who share the materials they’ve preserved with us and the transcribers who use our online interface to transcribe letters into machine-readable text. (If you want to get involved and help transcribe letters, learn how to get started here.) Some of our transcribers work alone, but today we'd like to share an interview with a group of four remarkable volunteers in Saarland who, working together,have fully transcribed the collection of Charlotte Fischer von Höfeln’s letters. Charlotte Fischer, who was orginally born in Nuremberg, immigrated to Illinois around 1851 and eventually married Andreas von Höfeln, an … Read More

Our Genealogy Book Contest Returns!

• Washington, D.C., June 1, 2021 • We are excited to share the news that our genealogy book contest is back! Thanks to sponsorship from Wunderbar Together we are once again offering people who contribute their letter collections to German Heritage in Letters a chance to win a package of books for researching German-American genealogy. Visit our contest link for more information! Left: Previous winner Lisanne Lange of New York shared letters sent to her ancestors Johannes and Maria Dietz by their relatives in Schaffheim, Hesse. Right: Previous winner Mindy Andreasen of Minnesota shared correspondence sent to her immigrant ancestors in South Dakota and Montana by family members in West Prussia. Visit our complete news archive.

National Genealogical Society Award for “German Heritage in Letters”

• Washington, May 18, 2021 • The German Historical Institute was honored to receive one of three “SLAM! Idea Showcase” prizes awarded by the National Genealogical Society to projects which are innovative models for family history research. The institute received the award for German Heritage in Letters, which was recognized in part for its collaboration with citizen scientists and its digital presentation. The SLAM! Idea Showcase, held during NGS’ 2021 Virtual Family History Conference, was designed to provide examples of innovative projects developed by libraries, archives, and historical institutions which might be adapted by other organizations. A short video developed for the showcase shares how German Heritage in Letters works with family historians in the United States who … Read More

To read older news stories, click here.
Captions: top row of photographs, left to right: Kurrentschrift transcriber Katherine Schober explains the text of a historic letter at our St. Louis Digitization Day; John G. Weinhardt with the collection of family letters he has translated and shared with the project; Heike Friedman, program officer at the GHI Pacific Research Office, discussing German Heritage in Letters at the International German Genealogical Project conference in Sacramento; staff and participants in the Joseph M. Horner Library's transcription group.
Bottom row of photographs, left to right: William J. Weinhardt shares a family photograph from the 1940s with his wife, Sandra; Horner Library archivist Maria Sturm examines a letter from the library's Klee Papers collection; citizen scholar Sonja Thiele, who in addition to being one of our most active volunteer transcribers is an avid rider.

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