SUCCESS!

Because of my wonderful 2nd cousin Karina, in Latvia, my father managed to contact via phone his cousin, Helmut Gangnuss, in Australia! Apparently he did give my father his email address. I have written him and exchanged a few emails with his son. He told me a bit about his family, including the fact that S. Gangnuss is his wife. I KNEW there had to be a connection! I have sent the contact information for my Gangnuss contact in Germany to him, so if you are reading this Gustav, you will probably be getting an email soon!

Also, regarding Karina, I did just send her a letter via snail mail (no email usage at her end). In it I suggest an ongoing correspondence by letter and in them we can learn more about one another and our families and, in time, hopefully meet. As some who read this know, while I am traveling to Iceland, Sweden and Finland this summer, Latvia is not on the itinerary. I hope to visit in 2009 with my father. Maybe by that time I will have established a contact with the Tills, though that is a more distant relation. I suppose that with greater biological distance, the interest level on their behalf is more likely to be small. Bummer.