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Searching for my maternal ancestors, I traveled up and down the Rhine
River Valley and around the Lake Bodensee (Lake Constance) as shown on
this relief map. I flew into Köln (aka Cologne), Germany (shown as
red heart), on 23 Aug 2001, and then spent the next two weeks traveling
round trip, down the River Rhine (shown in red) and east to Osnabrück.
Midway, I spent several days in Wesel, north of Düsseldorf, where
my mother's grandfather, Heinrich GAILLIOT, was born and baptized. In the
next leg (in yellow), I traveled up the Rhine River Valley, south, towards
Strasbourg, stopping at Brühl, Koblenz, Baden Baden, and finally Strasbourg,
in Alsace, France. There, I took a side trip to Roeschwoog, former homeland
of my mother's Grosmütter, Franceska DUMOULIN. After Strasbourg, I
took the train (green trail) over the mountains of the Schwartzwald (Black
Forest) to Lindau, an island in the Bodensee- the largest lake in continnental
Europe. One day, I biked around the lake to Lauterach, Austria, where I
looked up an old family address- discovered they had moved away. I took
a ferry to Rorschach, Switzerland, then a train to Arbon and Burglen in
Canton Thurgau, from where my mother's maternal ancestors (AUSTEL and GUTGSELL)
emigrated in 1903. Stranded in Zurich, after my flight was cancelled following
the terrorist attack on World Trade Center in New York, I spent another
week in Schaffhausen and returned to Canton Thurgau for more research.
Arrived back home after 4 weeks.
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