Uncovering Our Pasts Gets Easier as Time Goes By

With millions of professional and amateur genealogist accessing the Internet each year it's easy to conclude that the Internet has become a genealogist's best friend. Numbers don't lie, most of the time anyway.

The Internet has become an extremely valuable tool for the genealogist. Prior to online services and home computers, collecting family histories meant trips to public libraries, national archives and cemeteries, which most often were not just around the corner places to get to. Following leads was a frustrating experience especially when the paper trail went beyond country borders, as happened in my case. The Internet allows those on a meager budget, like myself, to follow leads and acquire information about our ancestors that can be passed along to our future generations.

My father's great-great-great grandfather, Gottlieb Kroll, came to America from Germany sometime during the mid to late 1800's. The name may not mean anything to others, but for me it is a source of pride. My great-great-great grandfather, a carriage maker from Stuttgart, Germany, built Abraham Lincoln's hearse, was awarded the Franklin Institute's Longstreth Merit Award in Engineering in 1896, invented the Convertible Carriage, which was patented in May 1895, and authored a trade catalogue entitled Revelations in Carriage Building (ASIN: B000868FS0) in 1898.

Gottlieb's brother Joseph, who remained in Germany, owned and operated Kroll's Winter Garten, also known as Kroll's Opera House, in Berlin, Germany. According to the book Bei Kroll 1844 BIS 1957 by Hans J Reichardt my great-great-great uncle had been personally selected to do so by the then Prussian King Frederic William IV. The Prussian King took a fancy to Joseph's Breslau restaurant while having breakfast there sometime in 1841. The following year on 19 August 1842 he announced plans for an identical establishment to be opened by restaurateur Joseph Kroll near the Brandenburg Gate. In the presence of the king, members of the royal family and noted citizens of Berlin society, Kroll's Winter Garten opened in Berlin 15 February 1844.