I’m spending these three days (June 15-17) at the International German Genealogy Conference in Sacramento, California, having a great time sharing stories about the Rhineland-Palatinate, about the special wines from the Palatinate/Pfalz region, and about the importance of writing down our family stories for those who follow.
On arrival at the Hyatt 
Regency Sacramento, I passed this historic display in the hallway harking back to the time period of 1848-1858 when the California Gold Rush brought thousands from around the globe to dig for gold in the hills.
The sight jogged my memory, and I realized I have a distant ancestral connection to this place. According to one of my family letters, approximately 160 years ago my great-great grandfather’s uncle Jakob Handrich voyaged to this very town to seek his gold fortune. John Rapparlie described the journey in a letter to German relatives.
Cleveland 8 December 1858
Much loved brother-in-law and sister-in-law,
I can’t keep myself from writing a few lines to you about how it goes with us. We are, thanks to God, all still quite healthy like we are here, but we don’t know how our brother-in-law Jakob is in California. I have received a letter from him … on October 18, that he was in Sacramento Sutte but is still without work and he wanted to go from there to the gold digging places and try his luck there. He also wrote to me that because he doesn’t like it there and he doesn’t have an opportunity to work in his profession [blacksmith] he will want to see us again soon, that is, approximately within two years.
It may be the case that Jakob is very lucky as very many from here have become rich people, but it could also be the case that we will never see Jakob again. These are the words he wrote to me: “Dear brother-in-law, I am enormously far away from you and don’t know yet if I will be able to shake hands with you again or not,” and so on.
At the Fort Sutter Museum here in Sacramento one of the exhibits is a blacksmith shop. It’s fun to imagine my 3x-great uncle roaming these same streets so long ago. Little did he know a descendant of his would one day come to this place bearing a book that mentions his Gold Rush days. You just never know.