Visiting family villages

I've considered doing this but have not worked it out....yet.

The closest immigrant relatives were my Mom's paternal grandparents who emigrated from a small town north of Milan in 1875-1880. The family "story" was always that GGgrandfather Zaffaroni "walked" to the big church in Milan every Sunday. Well, he couldn't possibly have done so...it's 25 miles from their town to the Duomo so he "might" have gone a time or two but not regularly. However, I was unprepared for the feeling I had when I stepped into the Duomo where he had doubtless been at least a couple of times. I was shocked that I felt a strong connection to this man who died in the 1930's. It took me quite by surprise.

I've done quite a bit of genealogy and have been able to trace my Dad's family back to a small German town in the Baden-Württemberg area in the 1750's and another line back to Norwich, England in 1645.

I think for me it's just a matter of acknowledging a connection and seeing where my ancestors came from. I clearly couldn't meet anyone associated with the family as any connection would be so, so distant. I'd take pictures but since I'm the oldest left on either side of the family it would just be to add to my genealogy stuff! (Which no one probably cares about but me!)

Thanks for sharing your story, Pam. I didn't think about the possible emotional connection as you mentioned regarding the Duomo. Interesting what can pluck the heart strings.

When I went to Dingle (loved it) I was able to see what once had been the family home of my maternal grandmother's family. It is now a business. Even though my direct ancestors left for America in the mid-1600's, I still felt a feeling of somehow belonging there. I was able to speak to someone who had knowledge of the family in general, as they played a big part in the history of Dingle..

" I didn't think about the possible emotional connection as you mentioned regarding the Duomo. Interesting what can pluck the heart strings."

This really surprised me, Maria. I barely even remember my grandfather, their son, as he died when I was 5 so it was not as if I had strong memories or anything. The family was about the only Italian family in their southern town so there was no sense of Italian identity or community passed along to my Mom. However, the feeling when I looked at the lovely pink marble on the floor in the Duomo just flooded me with a sense of place/family/roots/something which was completely unexpected.

I also felt that same unexpected sense in Bodnant Gardens in Wales. The river thru there is the Hiraethlyn which a Welsh guide says is roughly translated as the longing one has for home. I have Welsh roots but have not been able to get what I feel is a certain location from where the ancestors came thus the surprise feeling at Bodnant.

I have a lot of interest in history and particularly the soft history -- why did they do that?, what is the motivation?, what was live like at that time?, etc. I would be curious to see their villages, the farm (most likely), and the country side. Since one line came to the US in the early 1700s, and another in 1850's, and the most recent was 1890s, there is little likely hood of finding relatives in Europe but still it is interesting to see where they came from. However, the explosion of DNA testing could lead to interesting results.

Pam the Doumo left me in awe the First time i stepped into it as well and I have no connection to Milan whatsoever. It’s just designed to do that to people. But I can imagine that the personal connection elevated that experience.
Since my family never emmigrated visiting the ancestral village is much easier for me, I don’t have to cross an ocean, so it’s less of a pilgramige. But I do get the appeal! I have just started doing a bit of geneology and so far I have traces back 5 generations Living here in Copenhagen. It is fascinating trying to piece together an image of these people. Seeing where they lived only adds to that image.

I had a wonderful experience of meeting relatives of my great great grandfather who left Germany in the 1800s. I had his ship passage papers that listed his home town. With the internet’s help I found a person with the same last name, not a common name, in the same small town and sent them a letter, a copy of the document I had and an old photo. Long story short, when we visited the town 4 months later, 35 relatives showed up for a little get together the relative had arranged. No one from America had ever visited the ancestors in Germany. They had a lot more photos and letters written by my great-great grandfather to share with me.

My reason for making this pilgrimage was to try to better understand what it was like for a 19 year old to leave his family and never see them again. It was comforting to me to see that letters had been exchanged although he never saw his sisters, brothers (except one) and father again. His mother had died when the youngest children, twins, were born.

Bonus find: a younger brother had immigrated within a year of my gR gR grandfather and he had a small family still living one state away from mine and I was able to meet them and share this information with them for the first time.

On the other hand, in some of the more "contentious" parts of Europe, one does not want to go poking around the family history, you might just dig up something that is better off left buried 😉

My second trip to Budapest included a day trip by train to the little town of Tata in the northwest of Hungary where my grandmother was born. It's actually got some attractions--a lake, gardens and Esterhazy palace--and I wandered happily for a couple of hours, especially in the very old section where I imagined I was walking in the footsteps of my family--I'm the sort that likes that kind of thing :) I hadn't done any research, just wanted to see where my ancestors lived prior to coming to the US in 1899. I did sense people eyeing me curiously, it was that small of a town, but I was armed with my phrasebook as no one seemed to speak English and my efforts to learn Hungarian are moving very slowly...so I cheerfully returned their "Jo napot" (good afternoon) greetings. On the way back to the train station I spied a sign for the temeto and realized that meant cemetery, where I spent a good hour looking for Katonas--found one, died in 1983, had a wife & child, so it seems some of the family stayed there for many decades.

You might as well ask why anyone's interested in genealogy at all. I think it would be sad if your grandkids or great grandkids had no interest in who you were. There are many people who's roots in North America are not so deep as to be totally disinterested in finding distant or not so distant relations. And maybe that stern face will break into welcoming smiles when they know who you are. Having a link to a certain place and time in a foreign country makes a trip something special, if you value family.

My wife just visited the town her father emigrated from in 1922. Seeing his hometown and walking those same streets he must have, was priceless to her. People in the town (including a distant cousin) were pleased to see that someone was willing to make the effort.

One more practical reason is that if you can find birth records of a parent or grandparent (and get a certified copy), you can apply for dual citizenship, obtaining a EU or other passport. Might be useful for business purposes, future retirement plans, or even to pass on to future generations.

Let me add a different story....

A few years ago I was contacted by someone who claimed his grandfather came from the same village as I grew up in in Ireland, he even send me a picture of all that was left of the old home place. Now I was almost certain the broken down ruin he had pictured had only ever been a barn!!!

So the next time I was over from Switzerland I tackled the framer: "I know, I know, but I did not have the heart to tell him there was nothing left! And sure wasn't the yank happy going home. That is the main thing."

Make no assumptions about the locals, especially in Ireland, we are only too happy to play the 'yank game' as they say in the west of Ireland.

On my dad's side, we are English-Irish, with 7 of my direct ancestors in the Revolutionary war. I am not interested in the ancestry there, although my grandmother had done monumental research (64 lines, back 12 generations).

On my mom's side, we are Donau Schwaben, which are auslanderdeutsch who lived in what is now Serbia, Romania, Bosnia-Herzogovenia. Again, on this side, I have pretty good records. However, after WWII, the Yugoslavs threw out the Germans and destroyed the cemeteries. For more information about that, read "Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War" which details the ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Tracing those families is far more difficult due to the intentional destruction of church and civic records during that period 1945-1949. Another book that I am currently reading is "After the Reich", which discusses the activities in Germany, the MittelEuropa region, and other areas after WWII - 1945-1948.

I have been back to one or two of the villages in N Serbia near Novi Sad. It's quite interesting. I did find one family name on a grave in Feketitsch. That was pretty cool. It's interesting to see the locale. I actually have relatives (2nd and 3rd cousins) in Germany, and see them from time to time. Is there a reason? No, not really. Just a shared heritage.

My only intended trip overseas (turned into a love of travel) was to Ireland. There are stories and records about the Mollohan part of the family. I did some genealogy research but made no connection to any live person in Ireland nor to any specific village. I wasn't really interested in gaining a new family member. I just wanted to put my feet in the earth of my ancestors. Ireland is not a huge place so anywhere was fine. It was a great trip and it was very satisfying.

I am planning a future trip to the village in Slovakia where my sons' great grandfather lived (around 1880). The village is a Unesco Heritage site. There are people living there today with my husband's last name. We are the only family in NE Ohio with this name. I want to see this village and it isn't even my heritage. I wouldn't mind speaking with a few members that share our name, just for the fun of it. I will take some old photos with me. I don't want anything more from these people than a short friendly conversation, but I think it will be very satisfying. My husband won't go, but I may invite my kids to come with me. Probably will go solo.

I have visited all of my grandparents' original homes: Zagare and Kaunas Lithuania, and Kortrijk and Waregem Belgium. I don't know any relatives in either of those countries. (Zagare is a village, Kaunas a city, and the other two large towns.) Mainly it was just to be there. We did find some possible relatives' graves in Waregem; we looked but didn't find any in Zagare.

Not much of a story to tell, I'm afraid!

I doubt I'd ever find any close relatives in Europe because from what I know at present, they've been in North America for between 150 and 400 years. But I do have a "project" to at least go to the countries from which my DNA comes. Of course, that's from my mother.

I've been interested in my family history since I was a little kid. It may come with the territory of having Smith for a maiden name. My father's mother's family members were all about their British heritage. From the book they wrote, I learned about that side of the family.

When I did my 6 week trip to England and Scotland in 2016, I made sure to visit the area of England where my earliest immigrant (that I know of) came from. She was born in Charing, Kent in 1603 and died in Middlesex, Virginia 12 March 1629. No hope for any dual citizenship there!

Going back a little farther I learned that the major family name was Honywood, previously spelled Henewood and that they had been in Postling, "Earliest ref. to church: "2 small churches" mentioned in Domesday Book (1086) for Postling + Henewood manors." The church is St Mary and St Radegund and it still stands there. Archeological link. Another link.

Through the church website I was able to connect with a woman who lives in nearby Lyminge. She volunteered to pick me up there where the bus from Canterbury stops.

She graciously drove me around to see where the old Honywood lands were, now mostly the area near where the A20 and M20 cross. We couldn't spend a lot of time because it was an Open Gardens day and she had to be home for the visitors to her garden.

She dropped me in town and I had a great time walking around little Postling with my map of open gardens. I popped into the Postling Village Hall for some tea and cake and finished off at the church. She picked me up and we went back to her house. I sat in the garden and watched while people visited.

When a lull in the visitors coincided with the bus schedule, she drove me to the bus stop and I headed on back to Canterbury.

So that was my big ancestor adventure, not finding any potential relatives, but seeing where they had been 400-900 years ago. And meeting very friendly new people who live in that area now.

When I had my DNA done, I was surprised to learn that in addition to the 51% Great Britain, 26% Western Europe and 6% Ireland I expected, there was 8% Scandinavia and 8% Iberian Peninsula.

I have no geneological data for the last two, but I decided to at least go to those places. So last summer I did the Best of Scandinavia tour. I felt the same connection to Norway that I did the first time I was there in 1977.

This coming summer I'll be doing the Heart of Portugal and Best of Spain tours. I've been to Lisbon (2011) and several locations in Spain (1977 and 2009) without any special feelings appearing.
I'm looking forward to finding out if I feel any special connections to those countries this time.

Next year I'll finish the project with the Best of Ireland tour. I've been to Dublin, but felt nothing there. I freaked out inside Newgrange and had to leave. I hope the tour will be a more pleasant experience. I suspect my Irish ancestor(s) left Ireland because they were hungry, but it was long before the mid-19th century famine.

I have had the great pleasure of traveling to the towns in Italy where my paternal grandparents were from. My dad and I initially just wanted to see the towns. We visited the Municipal center and were able to get copies of birth records and, to our surprise, the address where my grandfather had emigrated from in the late 1800s, where we later realized family members still lived. The staff were so helpful and directed us to the Catholic Churches where we were able to see the baptismal records for both my grandmother and grandfather. This was so fascinating to see the very old, very large records and to hear from the priest about baptism customs from the 19th century.

And the greatest surprise of all was to discover that we had relatives still living in the town. The priest was determined to connect us with them. He had his secretary take us to a restaurant owned by one of several families with my surname. They were so excited to help us as well, trying to figure out who we were most closely related to. Soon, several neighbors came by and joined in, and though they spoke little English and we spoke only a small amount of Italian, together they found a first cousin of my dad's. It turned out he had several cousins living in the town, one of whom he had met in the US as a young boy.

This was the highlight of our first trip to Italy. We have been back to visit again and spend time with some extended family. My dad and his cousin were so excited to know each other as they were both the last of their generation.

For me, I was surprised to feel a kinship with the tiny town. I never knew my grandmother and barely knew my grandfather yet felt like a part of me belonged there. And both my dad and I could see why my grandfather had loved the farm he eventually was able to buy in the US. The hills and landscape of our family farm were so reminiscent of the farm where he grew up.

I've enjoyed reading your experiences. Thanks for sharing. Roots are important for some, and possibly even more so in North America where often families are quite widespread and visits infrequent. I also live in a large city where a sense of community can be tenuous at best.
My sister lives in Mexico and she told me how one landlord said he had never had a close friend who wasn't a family member. I don't know many with that same sense of family, but when I think about it, it is the people who living in farming communities where community works closely together and you still have to rely on others to succeed; or smaller cities with family close by.
I have some family history research, but not had time to delve back further than my grandfather's time. Of we 3 siblings, there is a large age difference as well as physical long distance, and similar for my parents so we are not a 'close' family; which might explain not understanding the drive as others seem to. In these busy times, it is tough enough to keep connections with immediate family let alone historical relations, but glad that those long threads still reach to you and give pleasure and connection.

A friend of mine knew the small village in the Ukraine where his family came from. So he booked a flight, found an interpreter once he got there, hired a driver, and they were off! They started by finding the village church and asking around. It took just a couple of days to meet the first people he was related to! He spent about a week and one relative led to another and it just kept going from there. Most of them were welcoming and eager to hear what had happened to their ancestor who had emigrated to America and his descendants. The original emigrant had never contacted them once he left and they had all assumed he died en route. So they were happy to know that he had been successful in building a life. He had a great experience!

About five years ago, visiting Amsterdam, I took a day trip to Wageningen where one of my ancestors had come from in 1637. I knew there was an old castle ruin there and wanted to see something he would also have seen. Next to it was the local historical museum, where I found an English-speaking trustee with enough time and goodwill to show me what was left of the castle and turn me loose in the museum, with many artifacts as old as my ancestor. "Maybe he used that spoon," I thought, "or that dish." I wandered along the canal to a cafe, imagining (it took quite a bit) what my ancestor's life must have been like. Since he was an indentured farm worker in Manhattan, I was pretty sure he hadn't had a great affluent lifestyle in Wageningen. Then I got on the bus to the train back to the big city.

I made a donation to the museum and bought a print of a painting of the 17th-century town, which hangs in my house now. It was a moving and enjoyable day. Now I'm thinking that if I ever write a book about my Dutch ancestors I'll call it "Bulbs." ;-)

My grandfather was born in Austria, where I now, coincidentally, live. He emigrated to the US when he was 7 years old to join his mother in Philadelphia. She abandoned him after a couple of weeks and he was raised on the street of Philly and slept in an orphanage when it was too cold. He died in 1970, before genealogy research kicked off. My family, particularly me and my dad, always wanted to know more.

In 1988, we took a family trip to Austria to research. Spent lots of time in the church and town hall. Found out my grandfather was a year older than he thought he was. Found out that he did use the correct day and month, though. Fast forward 25 years. I’m now living in Austria and the internet has pointed us to a local genealogist. She dug deep and found lots of amazing details about my grandfather and his family. I now have Austrian cousins as friends.

We still have not forgiven my great grandmother for the abandonment, which still seems like a horribly selfish act.

Mom and Dad came to Wisconsin in '55 from CH. On my trips back, I've visited my grandparents. Now that they have died, I took pictures of their gravestones in the villages they lived at.
Every 30-40 years the graveyards are bulldozed and leveled for the next group of deaths.
My grandparents' graves are all gone now. So I'm glad I have that connection now.

My husband's German family actually reached out to him and invited us to a family reunion. We went and had a wonderful time learning about the family and the history behind it. We have also made really great connections that are fun to get in touch with when we are in Germany between reunion visits. I am looking forward to the next reunion as it will be in the place where it all started. (The reunion place rotates)

Another trip we visited the some of the places where my line is from and found where the sawmill that my great-great-great grandfather owned (it is now a swimming pool) and the name of the road is still named for him. That was one of the highlights from the trip.

I did learn the hard way to make appointments with people. We showed up at a townhall in one place and things got lost in translation. Where when I made appointments, we were able to get some really helpful information.

@Carlos. Good point. As TS Eliot said in Four Quartets, “But to what purpose disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves” Be ready for anything, and whatever one learns, be grateful for the life one now lives.

I am a direct descendent of a European parent who lives there. I am unable to get dual citizenship because the country allows it for children of a dad or mom only if you were born after 1984. For those born before 1984 (me), you have to be descended from a dad of that nationality. Darnit

My late mother-in-law was an Australian war bride who came to the US at the end of WW2. We did some research at a local genealogical library and found the names of my wife's great-great grandparents who emigrated from Bristol England to Melbourne in 1841 (subsidized settlers, not convicts!) aboard the sailing vessel Ward Chipman. On that 100-day voyage, 22 people died, and seven were born. Last year we made our first trip to Australia and met several of my wife's first cousins -- all wonderful people, strong family resemblance ... but they all talk funny. It gave new meaning to the term, "parallel universes". The experience of meeting them, and seeing where my mother-in-law grew up, was well worth the trip.

Next year it's my turn -- off to Croatia (Pelješac peninsula) for my maternal grandmother's side; and Lithuania for my father's side, where the records from the beginning of the 20th Century are not nearly so complete.

I’ve been lucky enough to visit both cities in Italy where my grandparents are from and even discovered some very far removed cousins! The local communes were very helpful when dad and I were doing research to become dual citizens and it was so interesting to learn more about our family history!

With regards to the graves in much of Europe, at least in Germany and Austria: You don't buy them, you rent them. So the comment about bulldozing is not really what happens. You want 50 years? OK, so much. But most people do not get a long time. How much time do you want your bones taking up space? After the rent runs out, the bones are removed and placed in an osiery, which is a bone storage building. In Hallstadt, Austria, they take the skulls and paint them in a decorative manner, and have them in a little house. Most of Europe is like that. Fortunate that they do this - since people have been burying their dead for thousands of years, all of Europe would be covered in graves had they not made sensible choices about internment.

Of course, the important people get a long-term grave. Bach is in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Mozart is in Salzburg, along with his father and wife. His sister is in a neighboring town. So, to get a permanent grave, write 41 symphonies and 10 operas, along with numerous other pieces.

In the Vojvodinja, N Serbia, after WWII, in 1945-1946, the German people were ethnically cleansed - some sent to Russia as slave labor, some to Austria and Germany. The graves were desecrated. Some stones were dumped in the river, some buried. Today, many of the German graves (from the Donau Schwaben settlers there from 1784-1945) cannot be found. I did find one grave of a relative in Feketitsch. But in Savino Selo (previously Torschau), I found that the German cemetery was overgrown with trees and bushes, and could not be entered. The current cemetery was at the other end of town.

I am still following along. Interesting reading. What my family seems to have hit as stumbling blocks is discrepent spelling by record keepers, and that I think my father's family first landed in US then entered Canada so no ship manifests. Also, seems Dad's half brothers and uncles were not the marrying kind.....not strong family thread.
Interesting about renting gravesites. I ran into similar in Belgium.....graves with notices that rent was overdue and would soon be available. Given translation limitations, perhaps it wasn't 'overdue' as in abandoned by those paying, rather rent period was over and soon available.

I have also been interested in genealogy since I was a kid, because I was given some papers and mementos (old fashioned calling cards and such) from my great-great aunt that sparked an interest. As the internet resources have developed it has become easier to find information, and as I love puzzles and mysteries, genealogy fits the bill.

My dad's great grandparents and family came from Germany in the 1850s. The family records before that show the family lived in the same town continuously for a very, very long time. On my last trip to Europe, I rented a car and drove there. It's literally a bump in the road, no "town" to speak of, but I was able to see several churches (maybe my people's) and visited the cemetery. It was jam packed full of people with my very unusual last name - that was pretty trippy to see. I had not had time to look for potential relatives or people to visit, so it was just a visit to the location, but it was very beautiful and pastoral and much like where I live today. I loved making the visual connection even if there were no family connections (except I suppose those fine dead folks in the cemetery).

Visual connection - thanks for commenting on that.
I will say that when my parents passed, neither wanted memorials and both wanted cremation and scattering of ashes. Dad has no epitaph. I realized later that memorial services aren't for the dead so much and as my mother's ashes were dispersed near the 'family' church yard, I later ordered a columbarium slot with her details engraved - just so she would have a visual place in the graveyard housing her family members....as much for others as for her.

I was a pre-schooler walking graveyards and visiting town clerk's offices with my mother tracing ancestors. I am addicted to genealogy. Most of my ancestors came to New England before 1650 and I enjoy figuring out which boat they arrived on and from where they came, and with what historical events they were involved. However, one of my grandmothers was the child of two Swedish immigrants who arrived in the 1880's and met in this country. One of my large bucket list items was to go to Sweden. It was my first international solo trip in 2015. It was absolutely amazing! I had picked Stockholm and one location for each side of the family: Umeå and Eksjö. Throughout my trip, strangers were welcoming me home. Strangers passed me along to others, researching my ancestors, and driving me to hidden homes that I wouldn't have imagined still existed. Also, they brought me to family churches, views my ancestors had, locations they worked. Another made a home cooked meal of reindeer, Vasterbotten cheese and potato in honor of my northern relatives. I had a taxi company googling sites I should see, providing tour guide information to the driver for an entire afternoon, with very little cost...only when moving...and laughter. The taxi driver and I hugged at the end, we both had had so much fun that it was like saying goodbye to a friend. I laughed and laughed with everyone that took me under their wing. Yes, I got in cars with strangers. Sometimes you have to trust. One woman called me and said she'd pick me up to go get the season's first strawberries and meet her husband. We ate the strawberries at her home after going to the farm that I'd never locate...I had a brief 'if something happened I have no idea where I am' but then just threw it out of my mind and continued to chat and laugh with her. We're still in touch on FB. (I did leave a note in my room indicating with whom I was visiting.) As a result of that trip, I am now in touch with very distant cousins from each side of the family, who were as excited to know me as I was to know them. The Swedes are very interested in what happened to 25% of their relatives who had to leave their country. Another remarkable thing is for the first time in my life, I fit in, completely; I didn't have to lead and I didn't have to keep my mouth shut. Apparently, I have their same reserve, humor and out look on life. And their addiction to sugar... LOL As a result of this trip (and genealogy in general) I have a better sense of who my ancestors were and who I am. This was the best trip of many wonderful trips to Europe.

As to renting gravesites and rent running out: I would pay for myself, my wife, and my parents. I would probably pay for my grandparents. But I knew only one great-grandmother, and none of my great-great-grandparents. Would I pay for them? I doubt it. IMHO, graves and memorials help us remember those that meant something to us personally. If that person did not mean anything to another, are they likely to pony up hard cash to maintain that grave? Doubtful. Thus, graves do become available, not because of neglect, but because of the natural course of human life.

I am doing a lot with my family (Mom and Dad) on both Ancestry and findagrave. It's been interesting but about 15-20 years back, there was a change in things. Before that, it seemed like everyone was buried. After that, it seems like all were cremated. My dad and my wife's parents are both in our closet, waiting for the right time and place for the cremains. My mom will donate her body to science. However, donating bodies to science is now popular. It's possible that they will have too many when she passes! The notion of the "resurrection of the dead" seems less relevant today. For myself, I see no reason to occupy a piece of ground with my body. I think this concept is more and more popular.

Don’t give up with hard to trace spelling issues. My family spells our last name with ue in the first vowel location but on the travel document it was a ü. When we met the German relatives one had a hand written family tree for me that went back to the 1500s. There must have been 6 other spelling variations on the tree. The relative pointed them out to me and said “the priests must have had bad ears” when they were recording birth records.

I did find a couple of family names on tombstones in the local catholic cemetery (and we’ve been Protestant in America—another family story). A person at the church said that all of the stones and people in the cemetery were from the same time period because they are dug up to make room for the next generation every about every fifty years. In that town it didn’t seem to be a rent thing although something could have been greatly lost in translation. This was a small town above Rhinefelden.

Given the bones museums around, they have been rotating graves for centuries in some places.
I visit grave yards to see history....not necessarily my own history. In the grub stake towns around gold rushes in northern BC, you could see when epidemics ran through the town. Particularly sad when a family lost 7 children in the course of 2 weeks....then the parents died. Or that people as far as Maine fought in the Civil War (okay, I have only a Cdn knowledge of that terrible event). So it is a little saddening that community history is lost when wiped clean every 50 years.

In the Vojvodinja, N Serbia, after WWII, in 1945-1946, the German
people were ethnically cleansed - some sent to Russia as slave labor,
some to Austria and Germany. The graves were desecrated. Some stones
were dumped in the river, some buried. Today, many of the German
graves (from the Donau Schwaben settlers there from 1784-1945) cannot
be found.

This happened in many parts of Central-Eastern Europe, most notably in Poland, which took over a part of Germany.

This happened in many parts of Central-Eastern Europe, most notably in Poland, which took over a part of Germany.

Let us not conveniently forget that this also happened to Poles themselves, as after WWII half their country was annexed by the Russians (including the important city of Lviv) who then expelled the Polish people that had been living there pre WWII. In turn, the Russians "gifted" the Poles the absolutely destroyed parts of eastern Germany, that's why one finds so many eastern Poles living now in western Poland.

Just a small correction to Paul-of-the-Frozen-North: you are mostly right, but for the detail of the Mozart grave. W.A. Mozart is one of the most famous persons whose tomb got lost; due to the somewhat disorderly state of his family at the time of death, he was buried in a mass grave that nobody was able to locate after a few years. It did not help that the person taking care of his burial - his widow was apparently desperate and unhelpful - had been sacked from his job that very day by the Emperor. Mozart relatives were buried in correct order, but the most important one is missing.

Let us not conveniently forget that this also happened to Poles
themselves, as after WWII half their country was annexed by the
Russians (including the important city of Lviv) who then expelled the
Polish people that had been living there pre WWII. In turn, the
Russians "gifted" the Poles the absolutely destroyed parts of eastern
Germany, that's why one finds so many eastern Poles living now in
western Poland.

The Russians didn't "absolutely destroy" Eastern Germany. Many parts of Silesia for example weren't even affected by the war. The heritage was destroyed after the war, between the early 50s and early 80s. There's an interesting book about this topic, called "Uprooted: How Breslau became Wroclaw" (partly available online), which describes how the memory of the city was erased. Cemeteries, monuments and plagues werde destroyed, street names ethnically and geographically cleansed, distinctively German buildings or buildings important to the German history (like the monastery that invited the first settlers in the Middle Ages) were abandoned until they collapsed etc..
As a Pole, on the other hand, you can visit Lviv and still see Polish plagues, cemeteries with Polish graves, Polish monuments and memorials etc..

I don't judge, I just state the facts. It's a almost unknown episode of the 20th century, and no one cares anyway.

The Russians didn't "absolutely destroy" Eastern Germany.

The Russians (and Germans) most certainly destroyed much of eastern Germany during the East Pomeranian Offensive, various Silesian Offensives, and East Prussian Offensive. Breaslau (now Wroclaw) for example, was leveled during it's fierce three-month-long siege:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SiegeofBreslau

It's destruction was further expedited by the Germans themselves by declaring the city a Festung, basically the city must defended at any cost. By the end 90% of the city was destroyed, there was nothing left for the Poles to "ethnically and geographically cleanse" as you put it.

After much renovation work post WWII, one can visit these German era sights in Wroclaw:
The Prussian Royal Palace (Stadtschloss)
White Stork Synagogue
Cemetery of Italian Soldiers
Main train station (Breslau Hauptbahnhof)
Old Jewish Cemetery
Oper Breslau (19th century opera house)
Jahrhunderthalle (UNESCO World Heritage Site)
19th century Breslau Zoological Garden
etc.

Martin, you may want to actually visit Wroclaw one of these days, last time I was there (2017), there was quite a few German tourists there too 😉

This happened in many parts of Central-Eastern Europe, most notably in Poland, which took over a part of Germany.

Yes, the German peoples who lived in Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia were mostly all deported. We were in Brasov, Romania, in 2014. We found a German bookstore. Mein Deutsch ist schlecht, but I did talk to the owner. The 25000 (roughly 25-30% of residents) before WWII have been reduced to 1000. My aunt grew up there, and she is auslanderdeutsch. Now she lives in Frankfurt. This happened in her lifetime.

2 books that I have read explain this for the interested reader in English (in German, there are hundreds). "After the Reich" discusses the 2-3 years after the war. Chilling and horrifying. "Orderly and humane" covers the ethnic cleansing of the German peoples from the countries I have listed above.

Poland is now a substantially Slavic country. But Poland is the country that we used to call "Prussia". Prussians were a Germanic people, and are now pretty much expelled from Poland. The wheel turns....