Willkommen! Kys ta shiu? Bonjour! Croeso! Witaj!

Well, here is the latest (perhaps the third for those of you following along) incarnation of my web pages. People who are new to these pages will find that I have no real interests beyond genealogy and languages.

More specifically, I'm interested in genealogy to the extent that I can learn the village or even just the country that my ancestors are from. I wanted to know which languages my ancestors spoke. This has got to be a unique or nearly unique reason for tackling genealogy. By the way, the short answer to the question after thirty years (off and on) of my genealogical "research" and basically most of these pages is German. That's pretty much it. German.

Much on these pages is really only for my own amusement. I'm not really even quite sure why I publish anything on the internet. You're free to take a look, but just remember I warned you... (Plus, remember: the answer to all of this is German. It's kind of like the answer to everything in the universe, according to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, is 42.)

I just started the page July 17, 2006. I am always updating when I get a chance - little things here and there.

Chceš-li znjemdrjenych widźeć, rěč do wočow wěrnosć.

(If you want to see people crazy, speak the truth to their face.)

Sorbian proverb


Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd.

(Do the little things in life.)

A quote from St. David, the patron saint of Wales. The full quote is "Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. I will walk in the path that our fathers have trod before us."

It just dawned on me recently that there are a couple of pages to which there are no links at all! The poor orphaned things! The divisions above ("Home," "Lists," etc...) generally work, but the list of links below may make more sense (or not). So, here is an index:

• Home—is where you are now. How Zen!?
• Lists—Lists of things usually having to do with languages
• Heritage Languages—This is stuff having to do with the languages my ancestors speak.
  • The new Heritage language page is a more detailed page on heritage languages' grammars.
  • English is a page for notes about English for me but usually just reminds me how little English I really know.
  • German is a page of notes that makes no sense except for me.
  • Manx is a just page of notes for me.
  • Sorbian is page of notes on one of my heritage languages. It won't make sense to anyone but me.
• American Languages—This is stuff having to do with American Heritage Languages. These are languages spoken nowhere else except in the United States.
• Genealogy is a little about my genealogy. There isn't much detail. A lot of it is just copied over from Ancestry.com's WorldConnect. And, while I try to be as accurate as I can about my genealogy, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there are some incorrect lines.
  • Ancestry Chart is just another chart of my ancestors.
  • The Zehner Page is brief history on my great-grandmother's family.
• Links—A few links to places I don't often go to!
• Photos—There are no photos here. I don't have a digital camera. There are some flags of places ancestors came from.
• Miscellaneous—This is mostly language stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.
  • The time and temperature in Burbank, Ohio. Putting this page together gives me an excuse to play around with java—something I have no business doing. Of course, it is handy to get to the weather in Burbank if I'm at a computer without having to click through fifteen links.
  • Slovak and Slovenian has to do with the differences between things Slovak and things Slovenian. It's not easy to tell the difference sometimes. There's also some stuff on other Slavic languages.
  • Punjabi (Pañjābī) is a language I come across is quite a bit in my life. This page has more info.
  • Languages U.S. presidents spoke is a page on the languages U.S. presidents spoke or had some sort of contact with.
  • Pinyin is a page with some common Chinese names and places in Pinyin with tone marks.
  • New Testament Books—This is a page on the order of books in the New Testament.
  • Norze is a language I made up.
  • Savoyard is another language I made up.

This is another section of the original template I chose. There really isn't any kind of "behind the scenes" anything. Generally, early in the morning or late at night (the only time I really have any free time) I put together my webpages. So, since I'm either just getting out bed or just about to go to bed, I often write while wearing nothing but underwear! And I'm middle aged and flabby. Sorry to put that image into your mind.

You'll find that this page can be kind of bloggish. This stuff may in fact fit better on a blog, but I'm so boring and I do so little outside of the house that there just isn't enough to justify a blog. Of course, that hasn't stopped a lot of people from having a blog...

Here is my email address. I'm not sure that it will work. In any case, it will take days or even weeks before I get back to you.