Family history + Temple work is a core part of who we, Marnie and David Kuhns, are. After we wrote about our family history research, which led to our October 2024 Germanic family history trip and subsequent Arizona temple experiences, I realized our blogs, experiences, lessons learn, and data were somewhat disconnected and scattered.

This family history summary with links to the appropriate blog posts puts into chronological order all our experiences, including the genealogy research that made it possible to make the connections in Europe, Wisconsin, and elsewhere, that we did. These links also lead to lessons learned in traveling and in family history research.

Going Backwards in Family History: From Wisconsin Back to Bavaria

• An in-depth background post, explaining the family history / genealogy research I did between the early 1970s to about 2020, about the Kuhns / Kunz and Mark family from Hartford and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that led back to Markt Falkenberg, Kreis Tirschenreuth, Oberpfalz, Bavaria, Germany. It also is an overview of the research that led me to find the Kuhns / Kunz family home in Falkenberg
• A poem written upon finding the gravesites of the original Kunz / Kuhns family imigrants in Hartford, Washington County, Wisconsin, in 2015
• A summary blog post from October, 2024, of the experience of being in Falkenberg and Kreis Tirschenreuth, and connecting with family members there
• An in-depth and emotional blog post about not only finding German ancestors, but doing Temple work for them, January-February, 2025, in Arizona

Dave’s Family History Lessons From Marnie’s Perspective

• Marnie’s 2024 blogs about lessons learned in doing family history tourism, including:
  • Family history adventure: Discovering our roots overview
  • Preparation tips for family history trips
  • Exploring unique connections in family history
  • Embrace flexibility to discover hidden family history gems
• Marnie’s October 2024 day-to-day blog postings about our amazing days in the Falkenberg area of Bavaria, including:
  • Retracing Marnie’s Mama’s footsteps in Munich: Day 1 in Europe
  • Nach Hause: First day in Falkenberg: Church research, dinner with the relatives
  • Touring the Kunz home and the Vollath farm: Keeper of the scrolls Day 3
  • Spending time in Tirschenreuth with my relatives: Day 4
  • Finding and meeting Kunz relatives: Day 5 – The last day in Falkenberg

Visiting What We’d Known Through Letters: Starke / Dausel / Dehmel Family History From WIsconsin to Kreis Bunzlau, Schlesien, Germany (Now Boleslawiec, Poland)

Once we finished in Falkenberg, Bavaria, we headed north, through Dresden, into western Poland. My father’s maternal grandmother, Bertha Starke (Geerdts), left Kreis Bunzlau, Schlesien, as a teenager in the late 1800s, imigrating to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she met and married Gustav Geerdts. Part of this trip was to return to the land of her nativity, which is now in western Poland.

Fortunately, “Granny Geerdts” wrote a lot of letters to her mother and relatives in Germany, and to her husband as they were apart. In the late 1990s, I translated and posted these letters, including:

• The home page of the letters, leading to all the different types of letters she wrote. This also includes photos and maps of the “old country”

Once we arrived in Krasnik Dolny, Boleslaweic, Poland, we were able to meet some folks who could potentially be relatives. These are summaries of our meeting:

• Meeting at the large Dausel headstone, Krasnik Dolny (Nieder Schönfeld) cemetary (my overview)
• Marnie’s October 2024 day-to-day blog postings about our time in Nieder Schönfeld, Ober Schönfeld, Altöls, and other “Dorfs” in Kreis Bunzlau, now Boleslawiec, Poland; and then going to Freiberg, Germany; and Prague, including:
  • Dausel family connections – Day 6, first day in Poland
  • Look at the backside of gravestones: Altöls, Boleslaweic, and heading to Freiberg LDS Temple
  • Freiberg LDS Temple and Prague, Czech Republic: Day 8
  • Meeting Dave’s Czech DNA Relatives in Prague: Day 9

Mi Vorvater, Di war Schaffhüse und Zuri Lüt: Marnie’s Family History In Switzerland

An unexpected bonus of this trip was discovering new and deeper information about Marnie’s Swiss family history. In planning the trip, I’d simply wanted to take her across the border into Stein am Rhein, a wonderful town near where I’d served my mission in 1977-78 for the LDS Church. So it was truly a miracle to discover Marnie’s ancestors came from Stein am Rhein.

Further genealogy digging led us from Stein am Rhein to the Grossmunster in Zurich; the Reformed Church in Lustdorf (Kanton Thurgau); Schloss Kyburg in Kanton Zurich; Schoss Von Sulz in Tiengen near Schaffhausen; and more! Marnie’s day-to-day blog posts tracked her family history discoveries, including:

• Day 11: From Salzburg Austria, through Germany, to Stein am Rhein, Switzerland. One of the best family history moments: Marnie connects and feels her ancestors: The first night in Stein am Rhein
• Marnie’s Swiss family history explodes: Day 12, more Stein am Rhein
• Great. Marnie is royalty and influencer connected: Von Sulz Tiengen, Reformation in Zurich (Day 13)
• Private tours of the Kyborg Schoss and Lustdorf Church, where Marnie’s ancestors worked (Day 14)
• St. Gallen Dom, where Marnie’s ancestors were; Neuschwanstein, where Marnie’s Mama was (Day 15)

We hope these links will help you discover some of the joy we felt doing a family history tour, as well as the spiritual fulfillment we felt in connecting with our ancestors and doing their Temple work. If you have questions, please contact us at SpiritTreeFarms.com

Special thanks to FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, the Hartford (Wisconsin) Historical Society, the Freiberg, Tucson, Mesa, and Gilbert temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my father Gene L. Kuhns, the Gerhard and Doris Rasp family, Helmut Köstler, Monika Fisher und Agnes Kunz, the Kreis Bunzlau Facebook Family History Page, Alfred Kunz (RIP), and Marnie Kuhns, aka CreationGirl, each of whom played a part in this amazing family history discovery trip!