The North Central Iowa Genealogy Society will meet at 1:30 p.m. March 12 in the lower level meeting room in Clear Lake Public Library. The event is free and open to the public. The topic of discussion will be researching ancestors of Pomeranian descent.

According to a press release, research in former Pomerania or Pommern poses many research challenges to Americans who are of Pomeranian descent. After World War II, former Pomeranians were expelled from their historic German lands along the Baltic Sea east of the Oder River. Families were dispersed and records were destroyed in the war, or otherwise lost, as almost all things German were eliminated from the land known as Pomerania. These lands are now part of Poland, so the language and even city names now reflect this change to Polish. Even the religion was changed from primarily Lutheran to Catholic, as former Pomeranian people were protestant Lutherans.

Chuck and Donna Schilling have traveled to this area, as well as to Chuck Schilling’s ancestral home along the Rhine, six times and have dealt with the challenges of German words and Polish language and finding Lutheran records in a Catholic seminary in Poland.

Donna Schilling is presently on contract with Family Roots Publishers Inc. to write a book on Pomeranian genealogy. She has 160 pages written thus far, and is now in the processes of editing and finding appropriate maps and photos to include in the book.

A comparison of ChuckSchilling’s easy genealogy research and Donna Schilling’s lifelong research to find her grandfather and his family will be discussed, along with suggestions for the researcher in all parts Germany.

According to a press release, their finds during their travels will be shared and their discovery of newly found “distant cousins” will be discussed. The Schillings hope is that anyone researching Pomerania or Germany will find the methods they used, as well as newer developments found, helpful.