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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.

News: German Immigrant Letters Contest!

• Washington, October 15, 2020 • As part of our hunt for more collections of German-American letters, we’re excited to announce that we are starting a contest to collect more letters and we're offering a group of genealogy books as the prize! We look forward to learning about additional collections of letters sent to and by German immigrants in the United States between 1800 and 1920. If you are interested in contributing your letters, please share some information about your collection with us and you’ll be entered to win a package of useful books for researching German-American genealogy. Plus, the larger your collection, the more opportunities you’ll have to win! We are pleased to be partnering with two experts, James M. Beidler and Katherine Schober, who are offering their books … Read More

News: A Virtual Family Reunion

• Philadelphia, September 16, 2020 • One goal of German Heritage in Letters’s digital orientation is to make primary sources available in new ways to citizen scholars and academic researchers. Another goal is to bring scattered sources together by taking advantage of the unique features of a digital interface. An example of this is clear today as we begin adding letters from the Eugen Klee Papers, held by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, to our website. Eugen Klee (1869–1929), who immigrated to the United States in 1893, was an important choral conductor and an active member of the German-American musical community in both Philadelphia and New York from the 1890s to the 1920s. After his death, a substantial portion of his papers eventually became part of the archives of the … Read More

October 15 Talk: “From Family Research to Digital History”

• Washington, September 1, 2020 • Project manager Atiba Pertilla will be sharing German Heritage in Letters in “From Family Research to Digital History,” an online Zoom presentation sponsored by the German Society of Pennsylvania on Thursday, October 15, 2020, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The program will examine a broader shift in the historical profession from seeing private collectors as “sources” to “collaborators” in pursuing historical research, and focus on how the project works with members of the public who have contributed their letters to bring their stories to a broader audience. Often, family members have done a considerable amount of work with primary sources themselves, including transcribing and translating letters in their possession as well as extensive genealogical … Read More

New Feature: Letter of the Month

• Washington, August 19, 2020 • Our new Letter of the Month feature, which we're introducing today, highlights a particular letter from the collections that make up German Heritage in Letters. Our goal is both to share the individual family stories found in our letters and provide the historical context behind the text. We look forward to sharing letters that will shed light on topics from the state of the economy to religious traditions to ideas about gender and reactions to important events. We also hope that the feature will encourage new contributors to come forward with their own letters which will help contribute to a historical record that might otherwise be forgotten. Our August 2020 Letter of the Month is drawn from a collection of family letters contributed by Ruth Emmel. … Read More

Transcription Challenge: Who Was Friedrich Wilhelm Hess?

• Washington, August 11, 2020 • We have added another transcription challenge to our website: "Who Was Friedrich Wilhelm Hess?" In this challenge, we're inviting volunteer transcribers to help us transcribe letters sent to doctor and author Friedrich Wilhelm Hess by his family. In the 1850s, Hess, who was born Wilhelm Hassel, arrived in the United States and for unknown reasons took on a new name upon arrival. Is it possible that the letters his family sent him might shed light on the circumstances that caused him to leave Germany and how his absence affected his family members? Hess’s papers are now part of the Rattermann Collection of German-American Correspondence held by the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections at the University of Illinois Library. If you are experienced in … 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 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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