The family Strieff.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life, and the lady Cards are number 2 in the women's NCAA basketball. How do you like that, number one and number two in the nation.  It must be something in the Louisville drinking water, no other way to explain it, other than they are the best. Way to go Cards!!!!

Now, the family Strieff.  It is quite interesting how I ended up following up on the line in the family link.  My dad's cousin, the daughter of his mom's sister found out that I was going to Germany to do some work for the Government.  She asked me if I could do her just one tiny favor while I was there.  It turned out to be for the whole time I was there, a little over a year.  She was wanting me to find a graveyard and some links to the name Strieff while I was there.  She told me that she had traced the Strieff line back to Alsace Lorraine and that the only other information was the Jacob Strieff's dad had served in the French Army during WW1 and was buried in some graveyard in a little village of Villars, France.

the company I was working for in Germany was a strict believer of never working on weekends.  So, they told me that I could use the company car that I had signed for which carried all of my electronic test equipment in the rear for my weekends anywhere in Europe as long as I paid for the gas with my own money.  Not a problem.

Do you realize how big Alsace Lorraine is?  It is fairly large once you are on the ground and that Villars is a common name of a few villages in France?  So, for the first two months, on the weekends I was on the road traveling through out Alsace Lorraine and France, walking through graveyards.  After about two to three months of this, I could the frugality of my search.  I needed more information if I was make any headway.  I got on the phone and let her know that I was not giving up on the search but was going to curtail it some.  Cut back on the number of trips.  She said that this was okay with her and if she got anymore information she would let me know.

She passed away before I finished my tour in Germany and before I could finally break through with this family.  Nobody else in her family was interested in finding out this family information but I believed I owed it to myself and to her to find out what I could.

After I came back to the US and semi-retired for health reasons, I became serious and bought a Delux membership to Ancestry.com. Even with this I was still behind the curve and could not break through.  Then one day I decided to Google in the last name, and up popped a French home page with the last name the same.  After working for a little with the translator, come to find out that he was a genealogist, looking for the same name I was working with here in the States.  After a few exchanges of e-mails, we realized we were working on the same family.  He had all the family tree from France and Germany and had lost the family after they came to the States.  Was I ever amazed!!!

The picture I am attaching today is of my paternal grandfather, Oliver Hiram West, on the left, and his father-in-law, Joseph Grosser on the right.  This being their relationship, they looked enough alike to pass as brothers.

Till the next time, live large my friends.

PS. If anyone of you have any questions just post them and I will answer it if I can.