Its been awhile since I have sent out a newsletter. Thought it might be a good idea to let you know what I going on.

Plain History Genealogy Group: Spurred on by the new Kraemer Library & Community Center, I've been working with a group to try to fill the new local history part of the Plain Library. Since everybody in Plain is related to everybody else, this should fill in some of the holes of my research. Some of the stories from other family ancestors also gives an additional insight. Check out the combined website Haas/Bauer & PHGG (address at end of newsletter).

Trip to Salt Lake City: This was on my list of things to do for a long time. The Family History Library of the Church of Latter Day Saints is a gold mine of information. One of the interesting pieces of information was that John B. Haas was engaged to another woman before he married Kunigunda. I also found the Adam Bauer's 2^nd marriage documents. (He was Franziska Bauer's father.) In a future newsletter I will be writing about my findings in more detail.)

Hired a Researcher: While in Salt Lake City, I met somebody at the library who knew the German language and could read the old German script. I hired her to translate the marriage documents of John B. Haas and his father. I gave her a fairly large budget to work with.

She said that she could get the 50 or so pages translated in 3 weeks. After not hearing from her in over a month, I emailed me. She wrote back that since I had contracted her that she had taken a trip over to Germany. Knowing about the Haas family from the translations that she was doing and being in the Bamberg diocese archive, she did about 3 hours of research on the Haas family. She was able to take a maternal line of the Haas tree back to the late 1600's. This was in November 2001.

She took another trip to Germany in March 2002, to return to the USA in May 2002. She sent me a progress report and the words YIPPEE SKIPPEE come to mind. See the summary of her research below.

• Translation of Haas marriage documents. In Germany, you had to do quite a bit of paperwork before you got married. You had to go the local authorities and prove that you could support you and your wife. These documents contain interesting facts like: physical description, grades in school, and the wife's immediate family. There was also a land "transfer" contract. The information in this "transfer" is absolutely amazing.
• Her second visit to the Bamberg archive seems to have been very successful. She hasn't given me a lot of details, but just enough to get me excited. She said that she made 50 copies of records in Bamberg about the Haas's.
• She also visited the Regensberg archive for the Bauer family. Again not a lot of detail, but she said she made 12 copies related to the Bauer family.

I do not want the following comments to be taken as a request for money. The cost of the researcher is not small. For example, she was charged $5 in Germany for each of the 62 copies that she made for me. I will be making all of this research available to anyone from the "familes" who want it. There is no need for you to incur costs to check the same records. (Instead of checks, I would prefer that you send me stories about the families. (growing up, grandparents, holidays, school, etc.)

If I get off my butt ( and stop playing Pinochle on the internet ) an update to the CD disk set should be ready by September 2002.

Two Christmases ago, I prepared a book of my research and sent this to my brothers, sisters, aunts & uncles. When I get the Researcher's work, I will be preparing last Christmas's book.

I would appreciate constructive comments about these newsletters and stuff
Email garylhaas@yahoo.com
Website solo18.abac.com/garylhaas/

Gary Haas
2400 E Bradford #904
Milwaukee WI 53211