About the Family Meeting 2005

September 3rd, 2005 was the big day: Grossberndts, Grossberndt-relatives and people interested in family history met at Landgasthof Textor in Trendelburg for the first big Family Meeting 2005.

From 11 o'clock onwards, people kept arriving, some had even arrived the day before and stayed overnight in Trendelburg. Many of them had undertaken long journeys, e.g. from Schwäbisch-Hall, Leinfelden-Echterdingen near Stuttgart, Rangsdorf near Berlin, Dortmund, Iserlohn, Lüdenscheid, Mülheim, Langgöns, Osnabrück, Mainz, Marburg and Bad-Soden-Allendorf. But there were also Grossberndts from Trendelburg and around (Friedrichsfeld, Gieselwerder, Hümme, Langenthal, Kassel).

Everybody arriving was "decorated" with a name sign - with all in all 67 participants this was as well helpful as necessary as most people did not know each other yet. In a big poster on the wall everybody who had signed in before could find themselves and could find out, how people were related and follow the line back to the first known ancestor Bartold Grossberndt. With the help of coloured marks in the poster and on the name signs you could easily identify your family line and the family line of the person you were talking to.

Youngest participant of the meeting was Jerrit at the age of about 4 weeks, he had come with his mum Nicole, sister Lara, grandma Brunhilde and great-grandma Magdalena!

After some words of welcome and about the afternoon's programme everybody settled down for lunch. This was already the first opportunity to get known to each other. After the meal two guided tours and a walk through Trendelburg were offered to those who wanted a little exercise. Shortly before two the first group started for the old watermill at the foot of the townhill to meet Herr Schmidt of Trendelburg tourist office. He led them uphill to Trendelburg castle, where they could even see the inside, which is normally only open to hotel guests of Trendelburg Castle. Then they walked round the small city, through Pfarrstraße where some old timberframe houses still show inscriptions with the name Grossberndt to the town hall and the church. Another walk round the town was led by Albrecht Hoffmann from Marburg.

Back at the Gasthaus it was time for coffee and quarter to five Christine Großberndt started her talk with details about family history, e.g. the family tree, the ancestors with their professions and - if available - even photos and more or less praiseworthy anecdotes taken from Trendelburg chronicles. She also presented this homepage and informed about the possibilities to access results of the family research activities. Following this, photo sequences with sound compiled by the Grossberndt family from the Ruhr area introduced many members of that branch of the family tree.

All the time everybody had access to family history data on the computer and exchanged information. Photos were shown and scanned and together people tried to identify relatives and ancestors. The children could colour sketches of coats of arms which the painter Paul Grossberndt had desigend especially for the occasion.

Some participants met later in the evening - after the "offical end" - for a trip to the neighbouring village of Deisel, which that weekend was celebrating its 1000 years jubilee with a medieval market and lots of activities.

We hope that the meeting was fun for everyone - and that we all stay in contact!

To the top - Imprint