Meetings

NEXT MEETING: Friday, September 11, 2026, 12:30pm (Pacific Time).

Please note, this presentation will not be recorded.

Topic: 1816: The Year Without a Summer & Its Impact on German Migration. The eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia unleashed a volcanic winter that reverberated around the globe, earning the year 1816 the name "The Year Without a Summer." Immense quantities of volcanic ash drastically altered weather patterns and created unseasonably cold temperatures that caused crop failures and food shortages. This crisis prompted many Germans to seek new opportunities abroad, both in the U.S. and in the Russian Empire, which offered both land and religious freedom.

This presentation discusses the intertwined environmental, economic, and social ramifications of the Year Without a Summer, highlighting its pivotal role in the history of German emigration.

Presenter: Carolyn Schott, CG®

Carolyn Schott CG has researched her German ancestors for 30 years, following their wanderings through Eastern Europe before arriving in the U.S. She is a founder of the Black Sea German Research Community (www.blackseagr.org), a former board member of the Germans from Russia Heritage Society (GRHS), and author of the book, “Visiting Your Ancestral Town.”

Schott’s research has required her to research records in the U.S., Germany, Ukraine, Moldova, Hungary, and Poland. The Black Sea German Research Community, which she helped found, is a website dedicated to helping people with hard-to-find information on their ethnic German ancestors who lived in areas bordering the Black Sea.

She has been speaking on genealogy-related topics since 2007 and has been a regular speaker at the International German Genealogy conventions, the Foundation for East European Family History Studies, the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, other genealogy societies.

Please note, this presentation will not be recorded.

We meet virtually on the first Friday of each month except July and August at 12:30 pm Pacific Time or 10:30 am PT, if the speaker lives outside of the United States. (To convert the meeting time, consider using https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter and Seattle, Washington as our location.)

Visitors are always welcome at our meetings but attendees must register for each meeting. Registrants should save the Zoom registration email containing the meeting link. Attendees can join the Pre-meeting chat 15 minutes prior to the beginning of the meeting.

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