Larry, I’m glad that you connected with European relatives. I arrived in Berlin to work in the rail operation in June 1969. By March 1970 I had tracked down our German relatives. We had an envelope with their pre-WWI farm address and luckily they hadn’t moved. It did take me a while to figure out the address. When I went to call on them I stayed in the village (the only guest in a 10-room hotel) because the last name was a common one.
When I went to their farm, they had a copy of the same photo of the family in front of their house as I did. It was from my great-grandfather’s one trip home in 1905. The old man of the family while I was stationed in Berlin was a two-year old kid in the photo. We had some soldier to soldier conversations (as it turned out I had relatives on both sides in the Normandy battles). It was great to visit them several times, including for Christmas 1970, so I could contrast their lives with life in Berlin.
I visited again in 2012 and my distant cousins took me on a tour that included windy Wilhelmshaven. They knew I was interested in transportation and Georg is a long-haul trucker so he knew the right places to see.
-- rwr