I totally agree. My ancestor left Germany for believe it or not, Ireland (Rathkeale) in 1709. He was forced to change the spelling of his name to an anglized version however fortunately the sound of the name remained the same. The name went through three spelling, I have the second. A generation later my line came to New York. After the Revolution we were forcibly exported to Canada and lived with in a few miles of my QTH. In 2000 I went to Germany and did a bit of searching. I discovered a few members of the original family still exisited and by 2001 had made contact. I was warned that only the young ones understood any English and so a friend in Germany from another hobby taught me deutsch by email. Surprisingly it was a big help and when I was invited to the family yearly reunion I was able to struggle thru. two years later I could talk for hours on almost any subject. I will never be perfect but I can function fairly well. That year, 2001, we were reunited as a family in Metzingen (Schwaben area) for the first meeting in 292 years. An experience I will never forget. It is recorded both in the Uni Heidelberg Virtual Bibliotek under The Great Adventure or Der Grossartig Abentuer and in the book Return to Deutschland available from the IPA museum store in Rathkeale Ireland. Learning the language (which I am sure you understand what I am about to say here ,) that was sort of installed at birth by my genes or blood, as it came easily to me, has paid huge dividends both in my career as an race engine builder and as a ham radio operator. I have switched to German several times in a QSO with areas of the world having a similar deut based language when English was not cutting it. So far instant success in every case I tried it. I suspect but have never tried it, that I would be ok with it in CW as well. The doors it has opened for me since would fill a book. I wholeheartedly applaud your efforts to relearn your old language. It should never have been lost by either of our families.
don
