We started the day, again with breakfast provided by Mrs. Anne Claussen-Mackeprang in her charming dining room. This is such a pleasant and relaxing way to start our day. We had rolls and brown bread with butter and different flavored jams each day, soft-boiled eggs and hot tea. Each day, there are different meats and cheeses.

Full from the good food, we returned to our room to work on the computer for about an hour. By 10 a.m., we went in search of the department store that Mrs. Claussen-Mackaprang recommended for purchasing some lace curtains. I see all the homes with beautiful lace curtains in the windows, and thought I would try to find them in a store. After driving around and getting lost, we found the store one block from our room! A sign on the door informed me that the store was only open from Monday to Fridays. This was Saturday! I looked in the door, and saw a whole display of incredibly beautiful lace curtains but the store was closed. Luckily, for John, I saw the humor in this and did not kill him.

John wanted to go back to the Burg Church to take more photos of the house marks on the ends of each pew inside the church. We parked the car near the church and purchased a parking ticket from the automat machine on the side of the road. (Tip—put in 2 DM coins and push the green button.) John went to the church, and I went shopping!

In the first store, I found a small Fehmarn flag for John (5 DM). I went into a "Dittman’s hobby haus" and found gifts for the grandchildren, a Fehmarn T-shirt and a few other trinkets for about 114 DM. Next, I went into a gift shop and purchased a selection of Fehmarn plaques, a mug, a teapot, a full-size Fehmarn flag and a few decals. Total damage was 112 DM, but I was in a very good mood now.

After leaving this store, I found John on the street taking photos. By now, it was 11:15 and we had a noon invitation for lunch at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gossel. We found their lovely home quite easily and arrived early.

The Gossel home is located next to the St. Jürgen’s Church on Kapellenweg. When we drove up, the front door was open and they were expecting us. We met a most charming couple and they welcomed us to their home. We sat down at a table on their back porch and had a nice talk about the island, it’s history, our family ancestry and other things. Mr. Gossel brought our several books with old photos about Fehmarn for us to look at. John was excited, as these were not books he had ever seen. In one of these books, John found a partial picture of our great-grandmothers house on Süderstrasse 22 taken at a time when they lived in the house. He also showed us a framed picture of the Gossel housemark. Then he took us inside, and showed us the Gossel housemark that was carved into his furniture. This was beautiful.

Mr & Mrs Karl Gossel

Mr. Gossel showed us some family photos that are displayed around his home, and John finally saw a photograph of his website friend, Dorothee and her family. Dorothee was kind enough to arrange our room accommodations with Mrs. Claussen-Mackeprang for this trip and we are most grateful. Mr. Gossel has many old, wonderful family photos on display.

John showed Mr. Gossel our family tree information, and we started to talk about ancestors. He explained that he was a genealogist in America, and he’s helping others find their Fehmarn ancestors through the website. He explained that he has a database of 29,000 individuals from the island Fehmarn and they proceeded to discuss this.

Mr. Gossel told us about his ancestors and family living on the island. He also told us about Mrs. Ruth Mackaprang, who was going to visit at about 2 p.m. and asked us if we would like to meet her. She has done much work, during her lifetime on the Mackeprang genealogy and they thought we would like to meet her. John was thrilled, as he has been working on this line for over two years.

Lunch was ready, and we joined them in their dining room at a beautifully set table. They first served us spargal with a cream sauce. This delicacy is a white-type of asparagus, available only from May to June. We also had a cut up sausage-type meat, sliced salami, boiled white potatoes, and hot coffee or tea. The food was excellent. "Guten Appetit", Mrs. Gossel said and we ate and ate. Then she brought out ice cream, whipped cream and a very large bowl of the most wonderful smelling fresh strawberries.

During lunch, we talked about our families. The Gossels have 2 grown sons, one living in Frankfort on a farm with his family and the other son living on a farm in Illinois, USA with his family. They are a very well traveled family, and have visited Australia, Thailand, America and many other places throughout the world.

At 2 p.m., Mr. Gossel helped us place a phone call to our family in America. We had explained the difficulty that we had in trying to place a call from their public phone booths. A special card is needed from the local Phone Company to activate the phones. He dialed direct to our father’s home in Florida, and we spoke to him and assured him that we were well and having a great time. We asked him to call my husband and our Mother and pass on the message. This was going to be our one and only phone call, as it is too difficult to try again. Mr. Gossel was very gracious and refused our offer of payment for this call. We are most thankful to him for this kindness.

Mrs. Ruth Mackaprang arrived about 2:30 p.m. She is a very kind, elderly woman, who reminded us so much of our late grandmother. She arrived carrying hand written records, photos and other Mackaprang family history. She had foldout family trees from each island village all linking back to the first Mackaprang on the island. Her English is limited, but she asked how John found his Fehmarn information and he explained that he researches his information through the church books. At this point, he turned on his laptop computer to show them his Family History information in the database. John explained some of our family ancestors and she was most interested in this information. We looked at her hand-written charts and discovered many common ancestors. Then, John got very excited, when he realized he could add 6 additional Mackaprang generations, going back to 1450, in our family history.

John Kostick and Ruth Mackeprang

Mrs. Mackaprang impressed us with her knowledge of all the Fehmarn families and their ancestry. Within her notebooks, she had an unbelievable amount of information tracing many family lines back to the early 1600’s. She knows so many details and facts about the families and this island, that we enjoyed conversing with her so much. At this point, John was overwhelmed with the realization of what he was looking at. He realized that she held the key to many missing links to the older Fehmarn genealogies. Her multi-volumes of Anethefels would be very helpful to the other families that John is helping back home. Mrs. Mackaprang’s documentation was much more that he could hand copy, so he asked her if he could have copies made of some of her charts and old typed reports. She was most gracious in offering to do this on Sunday for us. You had to be there to experience the delight and excitement that we felt at that moment.

At 4 p.m., we sat down to a traditional "kaffee und kuchen" (coffee and cake). The table was set with fine china, and Mrs. Gossel served us a delicious multi-layered, chocolate cream cake with our tea. Upon finishing this, she brought out a sweet layered candy-type cookie and some small cream puffs. Again, she went into her kitchen, and brought our biscuits with cheese and salami on them! Eat, Eat, Eat!!! The Gossel’s are very gracious hosts and made us feel very welcomed to their home.

After more delightful conversation with the Gossel’s and Mrs. Ruth Mackaprang, we packed up our computer and papers and bid them good-bye. We thanked them again for their hospitality and offered to drive Mrs. Ruth Mackaprang to her home. We couldn’t possibly let this wonderful woman walk down the street, carrying this heavy tote bag of books and papers. She accepted our offer, and we drove her to her home, which was only at the other end of the block. We again thanked her for the pleasure of meeting her and for all her enthusiasm for this project.

Shortly after returning to our room, we decided not to go out to dinner, as we had eaten so much food at the Gossel’s home. We were exhausted, and thought we might rest. Just then, Mrs. Claussen-Mackaprang came upstairs with the telephone. Michael Mackaprang, Ruth’s son, was calling. He had looked at the business card for the Fehmarn Genealogy Website that John had given to his Mother. During the course of the conversation, I could see that John was getting very excited by what he was hearing. Can you believe…. Michael and his brother, Peter, have put all of Ruth’s hand-written reports about the Mackaprang family tree into a database on their computer. They graciously offered to share this information, and invited us over to Michael’s home to meet them. They had planned a Saturday afternoon Bar-B-Q get-together with some friends and invited us to join them.

We drove to Michael’s house, which is next door to his Mother’s house. We encountered the two brothers, waiting for us outside and we were welcomed like old friends. Michael invited us inside to see his Mackaprang database on the computer. He uses an excellent DOS program, which has an enormous amount of information linking all the Mackaprangs to a single common ancestor. He has all the families organized, complete with notes and sources. Peter told us that they have also entered the information from the books on the Machaprang-Witte brotherhood. At this point, he offered to e-mail a copy of the program and the files to John via the Internet.

Shortly after, their friends began to arrive. We went outside and met their friends, Wolfgang, a doctor and Detlef Lafrentz, a computer programmer. Peter gave us his business card with his e-mail address, and we discovered he is a divemaster and as he put it, "is retired". We talked of Mackaprangs, and other Fehmarn ancestors, especially the ones we have in common. It’s so nice to meet others with a passion for this Family History. They were surprised by the knowledge that John has about the island and it’s ancestors. We had good conversation, drinks and food with these four interesting men and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

We went back to our room about 10 p.m. Another busy day of following John around, and as you can see, we don’t slow down. The sun had recently set, and being very tired, we went to sleep early that night.

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The FEHMARN GENEALOGY Site
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John Kostick, 131 NE 172nd Street, Miami, FL 33162