I, like the majority of Americans, am not from here. Parts of my family came on the Mayflower in 1620, and another part came in after World War II, as well as at various times between those years. I have the privilege of knowing where my family is from. I have the privilege of knowing when different parts of my family came to the U.S. and being able to provide pictures, documentation, or newspaper articles showing my family’s existence in the Revolutionary War or what my grandfather did as a part of his military service behind the Iron Curtain in the 1960s. I have property records and birth and death certificates, all of which didn’t require an Ancesty.com search or 23andMe. I am privileged to know and have those things, and I am aware of it every day.

The majority of my family on my mother’s side is English and German. English, through the Mayflower, and the wide spectrum of Germanic and Central European ancestry. Her father’s ethnicity was almost entirely Polish, having immigrated to Michigan, like many Scandinavians and Slavs, complete with a last name spelling change at Ellis Island. My mother’s maternal great-grandmother was an immigrant from Germany with the last name Bach. The Bachs of Germany were well known as a musically talented family with a myriad of composers, most notably Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the most famous composers of the Baroque Era. My great-great-grandmother was a descendant of one of his brothers; however, I couldn’t tell you which one, as he had twenty-one siblings from his father’s marriages.

I studied abroad this past summer in Germany for approximately seven weeks. Most of my stay was in Leipzig, where J.S. Bach spent the final 20 years of his life and was prolific in the music community. St. Thomas church was where he was the boy’s choirmaster and the cantor, or musical director, playing the organ during Sunday services. One of his quirks, so to speak, was his habit of composing sets of new songs for each Sunday in his spare time while teaching at the church’s boarding school, where he, unsurprisingly, taught music theory and composition. Leipzig is obsessed with Bach. There’s the annual Bachfest, a festival entirely centered on Bach and his music, along with a gift shop featuring Bach-themed merchandise, an exhibit in St. Thomas’ Church devoted to him, a museum across the street from it, and not to mention the statue of him in the courtyard.

As someone who is American, it was incredible to experience my family history in person and find traces of it in the centuries-old buildings and cobblestones in a modern German town. Again, I am very privileged to know my family’s history, a luxury that many Americans don’t have. Being able to see my ancestor’s mark, however small, was one of the best things I discovered in Germany.

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Learn more about this blogger’s study abroad program: World History on the German Stage