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On a daily basis we are assisting researchers in the Starzinger Family Research Library Room.  Another branch of our Zion Roots Family Research Program is the Zionrootsgenealogy.org family tree project.  Give it a visit! Here is an update on the Wittenberg Church Records index project that Kathy Berkbigler coordinated after the last Immigration History Conference.  She put together a team and they have the index nearly completed. (Thanks, Kathy and team!) Here's Kathy's update: The pilot project for creating an index for the St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wittenberg, Mo. church records is completing a significant milestone.  Volunteers have transcribed all the records into a digital database, and the last of the transcriptions are now being reviewed.  The final phase will be to use the data to construct an every name index for all persons mentioned in the records.  Nine volunteers participated in the pilot project, transcribing nearly 900 records for the years 1903-1986.  Another indexing project will begin shortly...

We are honored to be hosting a multi-regional authors book signing today.  Bill and Sharon Hopkins-"The Deadly Duo"; Stan Crader; and Pat Nelson are here.  Come by and see us! It is a wonderful opportunity to check out all of our new exhibits and meet some very talented folks. Take Care, Carla L. Jordan

Dear Blog Readers, I will send those of you that I know an email to let you know that the Director's Blog is back!  The administration of the website has gone through some transitions.  I will not be able to add photography for a couple of more months, but after that we will have complete control of our content. I hope that all of you have seen the amazing changes around here, or are planning a trip.  We have created or redesigned every exhibit in the museum.  Thanks to wonderful donations we have recently opened the Starzinger Family Research Library.  The walls of the library have 11 new giant exhibit cases on the other side.  This enabled us to tighten up our interpretation, to put rare collections behind locked glass, and to reinterpret the large Main Gallery Space.  In doing this, the Big School (First Church Building) Gallery was also reinterpreted with St...

Just a brief New Year's blessing for all of you.  We have broken our record of more than 7,000 visitors/patrons this year!  Please come and see us soon.  Our research library is getting ready to have a brand new look in the next few months.  We will have a list of the 2015 exhibits in the next week. We will be closed Jan. 1 and then open every day until Easter morning.  If you need a great deep mid-winter boost come and visit our site:  look up your family information, browse Ancestry.com, stroll through the exhibits galleries, and have a nice visit with our friendly museum staffers. We wish you comfort and joy this year! Take Care, Carla L. Jordan, Director

Dear Blog Readers, I am finally back to wish you a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2015.  I am taking a moment to pause and remember all of our blessings this year.  Our year featured numerous exhibit rotations.  We have enjoyed "German-Americans in the Civil War," "The L&M Tool Exhibit," Kurt Mueller's "reVision" exhibit, and of course our 10th Annual Christmas Tree Exhibit. We will have a new reading room ready to dedicate in late 2015.  We hope to have it nearly completed by Easter-time.  The Starzinger Family Research Library will be located in the Main Gallery area and the walls of the library will be made up of gorgeous glass display cases.  We will not be losing any of our exhibit space due to this unique design, and will free up exhibiting space in the First Church/Big School gallery.  More soon... I had a nice Christmas miracle this week...

What an exciting day at the museum!  It started with the building committee and Lynn Degenhardt working with glass contractors and designing a proposal for a new reading room.  At the same time we were launching a wonderful mapping project.  It has only taken us 175 years to create a map(s) with all of the historic sites, churches, etc. affiliated with the 1839 German-Lutheran immigration to Perry County.  Our museum friend, April Isbell is a GPS expert and an administrator with Girl Scouts of America.  She took a day away from her job to go out in the field with Gerard Fiehler and Warren Schmidt.  They are obtaining longitudes and latitudes for all of the sites that do not have them.  Many of the sites are currently extinct, but it is nice to see where they fit on the landscape.  There are ways to find these sites using maps online, but the accuracy that we wish to have for this project requires hiking through the woods to find the exact readings.  The team just came in for a break, and they are having a wonderful time...

This is the Fuerbringer family plot of Rev. Ottomar Fuerbringer in the St. Lorenz Lutheran cemetery in Frankenmuth, Michigan.  Fuerbringer was one of the candidates 175 years ago who helped build the Log Cabin College at the original site in nearby Dresden, MO.  He married O.H. Walther's widow, Agnes E. (Buenger) and later became the third pastor at St. Lorenz Lutheran from 1858 until his death in 1892. Today Arndt & Margarete Liderley a distant Fuerbringer relative (through Ottomar's son Ernst Ludwig) stopped in for a visit.  Arndt was originally from Bremen, but they reside in Bavaria now.  Pictured is Arndt (right), his wife-Margarete (center) and museum staffer, Dorothy Weinhold (left.)  It was wonderful to hear Arndt's stories of his ancestors.  His English was excellent, but it was nice to have Dorothy's German language skills to help clarify our local history. Tomorrow we are looking forward to a visit from the Trinity, Cape Girardeau LWML and the "German Churches of Missouri" course of Dr. John Wickersham...

It is not everyday that we have the honor of hosting someone who has just celebrated a century mark.  Irma Lorenz Hoffstetter turned 100 on May 2.  She joined us today for a tour and a little family research with her family from California, Colorado, and Washington.  Her bright intelligent eyes and wonderfully strong voice are powerful to experience.  It was a blessing to spend time with her today. I just returned from my hometown of Baxter Springs, Kansas (19 miles from Joplin, Missouri) and nearby Quapaw, Oklahoma.  They suffered a lot of tornado damage a week ago Sunday.  I worked with my friends at the Neutral Lands Cherokee Headquarters in Baxter to help feed, clothe, and nurture victims of the storm.  I was not prepared to see the destruction caused in my wee town--not too much larger than Altenburg.  Please pray for my people.  They have a long journey toward recovery. We had a spectacular time with Ann Hazelwood's "Celebration of Red and White" quilt exhibit...

This is a picture of our museum friend, Lyndon Moore.  He and his wife, Margaret have visited us every Scenic Drive for the past nine years.  Lyndon and our Society president, Warren Schmidt are talking about historic tool collections.  I am happy to announce that the historic L&M Tool Collection will have an exhibit in our Main Gallery opening August 1 through September 30.  You will see extraordinary examples of one of the best historic American tool collections in the country.  It is an honor to have the exhibit scheduled.  My friends, Margaret and Lyndon also have a collection in their family of beautiful blood hound and lab dogs.  I got to meet and cuddle with 5 of their dog family members yesterday including Big Brown & Mama.  What a joyful thing for me! We are preparing for "Church in the Park" this morning.  Pastor Dressler and Rev. Dr. Harmelink-director of Concordia Historical Institute will be leading a service in the Log College Park this morning beginning at 10:00 a.m...

It has been such a delight to visit with all of the people who have traveled here to visit Ann Hazelwood's quilt collection, "A Celebration of Red and White."  Today, Mavis (pictured on the left) and Jane came prior to their trip to the annual National Quilt Museum in Paducah Quilt Festival.  Mavis shared with us a beautiful "poppy" themed quilt.  She found a vintage pattern (still in the original box) from Bucilla, c.1946 and decided that she was going to take it on, and the end result, as you can see, is stunning.  It was also great to meet the Griebel family from Owatonna, MN.  They came to see the quilt exhibit, but are descendants of Pastor Griebel who served both Immanuel Perryville, and Friedenberg.  Susan Griebel is a textile artist, and I look forward to spending more time with her if she returns for the immigration conference in October. Gerard and Warren spent the day representing us at the Walther Round Table at CHI and the Seminary in St. Louis.  I hope they had a wonderful day...