Librarians are my favorite kind of people.
They are exceptionally helpful … and altruistically so. Not motivated by profit, pride, or power, they offer their services with a generosity that’s, well, frankly, uncommon today.
Combine that with their intelligence and resourcefulness, and you have a cadre of bookish people who are your best friends when you’re in need of information.
I mention this because of two instances this year in which I turned to librarians with positive results. I’ve already mentioned the help I got from the Detroit Public Library when seeking the naturalization papers of my great-grandfather.
The second instance came a couple of weeks ago when I was seeking the locations of a village house and neighboring farm field of my great-great grandfather’s family in rural Bavaria. Although I had the house and field numbers of their 19th century property from a church death register, I couldn’t find a way to relate those numbers to locations today in Röckingen, Germany, which I’m visiting in July.
Last year I wrote the mayor of Röckingen to request assistance, with no tangible results. So this year I figured … ahem … I’d contact a librarian.
The nearest town with a library is Wassertrüdingen. I sent the librarian, Ms. Claudia Knauer, an email requesting her help in finding old maps or documents that would show the exact locations. After a few day’s silence, I figured it was a lost cause.
But as I said, librarians are resourceful, and Ms. Knauer forwarded my request to citizens in Röckingen who might have an answer. About a week later, I got an email from the mayor of Röckingen with an old map and the string of correspondence from people in town who kept the question alive until someone found the answer. Voila, a librarian came through again!
In July we’ll be able to stand in the courtyard where my great-great-grandfather Johann Schrotzberger was raised: the house on one side, and the barn on the other … undoubtedly the same barn where he, a master butcher later in life, learned about raising animals and butchering them from his mother’s father and brother, the Rau family butchers of Röckingen,
As TV’s Mr. Rogers famously advised, when in trouble “look for the helpers.” In my experience, those helpers are frequently the librarians in towns and cities across the globe. When you’re stuck, “just ask a librarian.”
The Schrotzberger family lived at house number 100 in Röckingen. This map identifies the location, near the church at the center of the village, and Google maps shows the area appears unchanged.
