I have been asked to share some of my research with the Camp Springs web-site. I am from the older generation who has heard my parents call the area Four Mile. So if I refer to Four Mile, I hope you will not be offended.

I am a descendent of so many familiar names from the early immigrants who came to find freedom and new opportunities in this part of what we now know as Campbell County, Ky. By their brave choice in a most difficult time, we were born in America. We need to thank them for their sacrifices to bring their family to a new hope for a better life. If only they could have known that their burdens have brought such great opportunities to the many, many descendents who followed them.

I also have to acknowledge the bravery of those of our families who chose to stay in Germany through the trials of the mid 19th century. I have met some of my distant cousins in Germany who are not unlike us. They too have found a happy life thru all the difficulties of their ancestors and the wars that became a burden to them as well as to us.

We have had cousins die in the German army as well as in the US army. A loss of a loved one can never be easy for the family.

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Albert Enzweiler of the German Army gave his life for his country, May 6, 1945.

Albert Enzweiler of Alexandria KY. - US Army also gave his life for his country, 1943 on the beach at Sicily. Did either family grieve less? I think not.

Before we can know our ancestors, it is necessary to know why they left Germany in the period of time from 1840 to1860.

So many of our ancestors emigrated from the Saar region along the border of Germany, France and Luxembourg. This area was 93% Catholic. The Catholic Bishops had secular power from 843 until 1803. Germany was going through unification from 1811 and did not come to an agreement until 1871. During this period this area was sometimes known as Prussia or Rhineland. You will see head stones with these inscriptions. During these difficult times Alsace and Luxemburg were part of Germany and then part of France and present day Luxemburg.

The hard times that swept over the Continent in the late 1840’s brought discontent in the German Confederation into a full-blown revolution.

Unemployment and serious crop failures lead to a major famine in the entire area from the Irish Sea to Russia Poland. In Germany the lower classes, which had been suffering from the economic effects, to the point of open rebellion, were involved in sporadic hunger riots and violent disturbances.

Some of our relatives were able to leave Germany with permission. Their names are recorded in the Family Book of their village. Others were escaping into France to avoid being called into the service of the Monarch. They perceived this to be an unjust control of the lower class of farmers. Some times we may have heard that we are from a family of draft dodgers.

Well for whatever reason or whatever means they found to come to America, they are our family.

I am told by our German cousins that our ancestors traveled, by foot, across the country of France to the port of Le Havre. This port was of great importance in the Normandy Invasion.

In the early 1850’s, most of our ancestors arrived in the port of New Orleans and traveled up the Mississippi river and the Ohio river to Cincinnati. When they arrived they found their way to Four Mile where their families had found a safe place to establish a new home and farm. Many of them had family and friends whom they knew in Germany. I wonder how they knew where to come and who to contact when they arrived.

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