My grandfather loved his hometown of Berlin. The way he spoke about it, I imagined that he came from a long line of Berliners. The truth is that I didn’t know how deep his Berlin roots went… and neither did my grandfather (or if he did, it is a fact he took to his grave). As it turns out, his own biological mother was the first generation of family born in Berlin. His maternal grandmother came from Krojanke (Kr. Flatow), Prussia and his maternal grandfather came from Pinne (Kr. Samter), Prussia. I learned this information upon receiving his mother’s birth certificate from a Berlin Standesamt in January 2020. Receiving this birth certificate was essential for me to do effective research on his–our–family.