Annette Adams lauded Karl-Michael Sala
: Last year I ran into a conundrum, I was researching my husband’s maternal line, that starts in Chicago, Illinois, but has roots in Bohemia, or Czhechoslovakia, or today’s Czech Republic. The document I had may have been miswritten and I had a birth place called Pod Nizbohr. I was friends with the Germany/Prussia Genealogy Research and the Czechoslovakia Genealogy Research and I was researching some handwriting questions as well, so I thought I would ask Karl-Michael Sala concerning this mysterious location. He seemed to know instantly where the location was, and what area to search for records, and others on the same site that work with him, chimed in, by telling me that the public Czech archives, had not digitized them yet. He also helped me know where to look in the vast Cook County, Illinois, Family Search Archives of for other relatives. I had no idea how much more information there was to access or where to look, and Karl-Michael Sala and his team pointed me in the right direction. I now have a village in Bohemia, and a lot of more promising research to be done in the Chicago area. Because of Karl and his team, I found numerous extended family, and can look forward to finding more in that particular region once that information is public. Karl-Michael Sala gave me exact archives to research, maps, and specific data to look up, as well as being friendly, helpful and super patient with me, as I learned to new information, and how to use key tools to finding what I was looking for.
Annette Adams continued: I plan to ask him for more help in the future. Part of the reason family history has been so important to me, is because I want my children to know of not only of my German heritage, but also of their father’s American, Czech, Polish and Austrian heritage. To me, it is important that my children understand who they are, and where they came from and why, and how that relates to history when they are at school, learning about WWI and WWII and the responsibilities that come with being an American. Everyone in this country speaks one unifying language, and yet so many different cultures flow through us, giving different insights, and accomplishments to be proud of. I now know, that many of my children’s father’s male forbears served in all branches of the military. Knowing about these extended family members, has enabled me to reach out to the extended family, and when I asked my husband’s aunt about a few people, whom I have never met, only seen records for, she said, “Why yes, I do know that name, I haven’t heard it in over 40 some years.” I think that Karl-Michael Sala and his family are extraordinarily gifted and endowed with the kind of intelligence gathering skills needed to find people who tried to blend in, and disappear, especially during a time, when their very cultural heritage placed them at risk, even though they were completely loyal to their new country, forsaking their own language and becoming “American”.
Annette Adams posted elsewhere: Just so everyone knows, Karl-Michael Sala and his team have helped me find my husband’s hard to track Bohemian ancestors, in a short time. When I have a little extra, I will be asking him for more help. If you have German, or Czech ancestors, he and his team are excellent to work with. 
