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I dont know if I already told you, but I am involved in YDNA research and my YDNA resembles that of a lot of Mennonite families. Warkentin, Quiring, Wieler, Bergen, etc.

How interesting! Have the paper records indicated a relationship to Mennonites as well?

Not of my family in any way. We are roman catholic farmers of Brabant since at least 1300. But the Mennonites are Dutch - Flemish anyway. The YDNA confirms that.

That makes sense. The Russian Mennonites (the names you provided are all Russian Mennonite names) originated in the Netherlands and later migrated to Russia and beyond. Of course, Menno Simons himself started out as a Catholic priest....

My mother's family is in this picture. "Augusta" Loewen's name is actually Agnes Loewen. And four of her children (all standing together...the youngest is in a dark sweater with a stripe across it) are, from youngest to oldest: Katie Loewen, Fred Loewen, Agnes Loewen (behind Fred) and Helen Loewen (tall blond girl in white dress looking right). They immigrated to Canada in 1949.

Thank you .! Very kind .! : )

You are most welcome! We're glad you found a photo of interest from the Mennonite Church USA Archives!

Nice and towing a Ben Hur trailer it looks like.

Quite possibly a Ben Hur trailer -- it's from the right time period, of course!

Nice to see a photo from this region here.

Glad you found it! We have photos worldwide because of Mennonite involvement in international relief, service, and mission work.

Mennonite Church USA Archives I'm always interested in earlier photos of the area and the immediate post-war era is particularly interesting. Back then this was a british occupation zone. But in this case I would not be able to identify the exact location even if I printed out the photo and walked through the town of Kapfenberg because I'm almost certain these wooden barracks have been replaced by other buildings since then.