Family Links

This season, I'm exploring the life of my great-grandfather Paul, someone I never met. Episode 0 begins with a photograph, a suitcase full of family documents, and the question that started it all: who was this man?Paul's life spanned the German Empire, World War I, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, World War 2 Germany and a defeated and divided postwar Germany. This season, we walk through all of it with him.Extra Resources:* A good overview of the German Empire (1871-1918), the world Paul was born into: https://www.britannica.com/place/German-Empire* On the bombing of Dresden in 1945, which shapes later episodes this season: https://www.britannica.com/event/bombing-of-DresdenSound credit: church bell recording by hwwesthoff (Freesound.org, CC0)Episode Art by Tyler NagayamaMusic by Allison Kim

After explaining a little bit more of our hopes for this podcast, we dive into our research methods and ways we found out more about our family. As it turns out, the country our ancestors grew up in made our family record their own family history. We reference back to the Aryan certificate, talk about birth certificates and explain how they applied to our research. We discuss what gets in the way in the research… old lettering. We tease how AI might help us and finish the episode with another round of encouragement for you to dive into your own family research. Ariernachweis or Aryan certificate.  Here is an example: https://images.app.goo.gl/zGtxqxnALLbdgGYg8 Birth certificates provide some great information. Here is an example of an old german birth certificate: https://nat.museum-digital.de/object/184898 Here is an example of what Sütterlin looks like: https://archaeologyarchivesoxford.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/deciphering-sutterlin/ And an example of Kurrent: https://www.1001fonts.com/18th-century-kurrent-font.html

The hosts of Family Links, Tobi and Katharina introduce themselves and share a little about the podcast. We share our hopes and ambitions behind Family Links. We talk about our confusion of where we belong, the impact on exploring our family history and what we have been discovering. We share some of the problems we have encountered while exploring certain areas in time family members were part of and how to think about the language we are using about past events.  Finally, we share about the Ariernachweis or Aryan certificate that helped us find out about our family history how we will approach the next episodes.  Katharina mentions Klaus Kordon’s books. Unfortunately, his books are only available in German.  Ariernachweis or Aryan certificate.  Here is an example: https://images.app.goo.gl/zGtxqxnALLbdgGYg8

This is a very brief teaser with an introduction to the Family Links podcast. Episode 1 is coming out on May 15th, 2024.

Through some recently new discovered information, Tobi and Katha revisit their Great grandfather Paul Schubert again. While looking into his life, they explore the links to WW1, the Weimar Republic and the state that the country was in. On a personal level, they also discover a lot of life altering events in Paul’s life that had major impacts on his family. In conclusion, exploring this part of their family history, Tobi and Katha walk away with a new understanding on this Schubert side of the family.Extra Resources: Check out “The Rest is History” Podcast on two amazing series on The Murder of Prince Ferdinand (Ep. 1 / Ep. 2 / Ep. 3 / Ep. 4) and then theRoad to the Great War (Ep. 1 / Ep.2 / Ep. 3 / Ep. 4 / Ep. 5 / Ep. 6) Great books on WW1 are: The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark, July Crisis by Thomas Otte Here is the (german) source of the numbers and stats on Saxony’s involvement in WW1: https://www.slpb.de/themen/geschichte/1871-bis-1918/der-erste-weltkrieg Fun, 10 minute video on the Weimar Republic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO-_HXO7HwY