Posted on Facebook on 14 January 2018.

In 2014 and 2017 I have visited several towns and villages in Thüringen where Weis(s)enborns have lived in the past four centuries. I have become aware that several of my facebook friends are interested in seeing these places for themselves. Some will want to do so and have time and means, while others may not - and never - get beyond wishing they could catch a glimpse.

I have a proposal to meet the wishes of both groups. I offer to make arrangements for a 5-day visit for a group of between 5 and 10 persons to show them the places in Thüringen which I have visited in 2014 and 2017, and a few more. The visit will include appointments at several archives and vicarages for a look in the original church registers and - a "must" in my view - a visit to the museum in Weißenborn near Eschwege, housing many remnants of the history of this village. I am thinking of staying as a group in a hotel in a central location, and hiring two cars or a van to drive to the villages and towns, which are then at most some 70 km away.

My proposal furthermore stipulates that all members of the group have means with them to record visual images, and that they use these means generously, as if looking through not one, but many pairs of interested eyes. I propose that these recordings will be made available to all Weis(s)enborn facebook friends and perhaps also other interested Weis(s)enborns, and may serve as a kind of collective Weißenborn memory.

A suitable time for me would be the summer or autumn of 2019. I own up that for this year I have planned to study the registers on film and microfiche in the Landeskirchenarchiv in Eisenach, the archive in the Evangelisches Augustinerkloster in Erfurt, the Landesbibliothek and Murhardsche Bibliothek in Kassel, the Landeskirchliches Archiv in Hannover and the Bistumsarchiv in Hildesheim.

Proposal to be developed further if there is enough interest. Can I have your tentative commitments and suggestions, please? Likes are OK too :), but more is needed for the proposal to materialize.