I started family research with a 1970s grade school report, then serious research in the 1990s in all the usual places, in all the local collections, and online.

I'm a 7th generation Milwaukeean of 100% German working-class immigrants, all economic refugees, arriving in chain or caravan migration from 1842-1881.
In 2007, being stymied by a HUGE gap in ALL of Milwaukee's collections, I vetted an original idea for a German-American resource among them. Then I began creating "Milwaukee's German Newspapers; an index of death notices and related items" (1844-1950).
In exchange for legal "Deed of Gift" protection, the work was cataloged and shelved at my public library. A computer database for public use was refused as an option, but from 2008 until 2012 my printed updates were added to binders there, as I had originally planned and promised.

Sadly, it was the resentment of genealogy ladies, library staff, and local history "experts", that fueled an open antagonism by the Milwaukee Public Library toward my work they had first welcomed; as one brazen library 'professional' said to me: "We thought you'd leave."
So I ended my updates there in 2012, but still continued making additions and edits to my data file, since 'Troubles' fomented at the library.

Back to family trees where it's all about accurate research, right?
Since 2022, I'm devoted to cleaning up simple mistakes and omissions to online trees, but mostly the crappy online research of relatives and extended family; Find-A-Grave, with its link to the online Boomer games called 'Ancestry', and 'FamilyHistory', and now 'Geneanet', is helpful in accomplishing that important goal.

Gary R. Rebholz
Milwaukee, WI USA

I started family research with a 1970s grade school report, then serious research in the 1990s in all the usual places, in all the local collections, and online.

I'm a 7th generation Milwaukeean of 100% German working-class immigrants, all economic refugees, arriving in chain or caravan migration from 1842-1881.
In 2007, being stymied by a HUGE gap in ALL of Milwaukee's collections, I vetted an original idea for a German-American resource among them. Then I began creating "Milwaukee's German Newspapers; an index of death notices and related items" (1844-1950).
In exchange for legal "Deed of Gift" protection, the work was cataloged and shelved at my public library. A computer database for public use was refused as an option, but from 2008 until 2012 my printed updates were added to binders there, as I had originally planned and promised.

Sadly, it was the resentment of genealogy ladies, library staff, and local history "experts", that fueled an open antagonism by the Milwaukee Public Library toward my work they had first welcomed; as one brazen library 'professional' said to me: "We thought you'd leave."
So I ended my updates there in 2012, but still continued making additions and edits to my data file, since 'Troubles' fomented at the library.

Back to family trees where it's all about accurate research, right?
Since 2022, I'm devoted to cleaning up simple mistakes and omissions to online trees, but mostly the crappy online research of relatives and extended family; Find-A-Grave, with its link to the online Boomer games called 'Ancestry', and 'FamilyHistory', and now 'Geneanet', is helpful in accomplishing that important goal.

Gary R. Rebholz
Milwaukee, WI USA