MONTICELLO, Iowa — A gathering of German visitors and Iowans at the Jones County Fairgrounds was recorded Aug. 17, as part of a German documentary.
The get-together in the Youth Development Center was the third time Steve Hanken, of Monticello, has welcomed German visitors to Iowa since his own visit to Germany.
About 30 guests stayed in Monticello and met with Iowans, many of whom have German heritage.
Hanken noted that some of the visitors live in the area of “Ostfriesland” where many Jones County immigrants originated.
“In the past, we have had several people who actually found distant cousins simply by reading each others’ name tags,” he said.
One woman, who has been researching her family’s genealogy, traveled from Louisville, Kentucky, to see if she could find distant relatives, while one of the Iowans received a round of applause from the German visitors during introductions after noting he had provided the donuts they enjoyed earlier.
The German visitors also traveled to Nebraska and other Midwestern states.
A crew from Norddeutscher Rundfunk, or NDR, a public radio and television broadcaster based in Hamburg, Germany, has been recording footage of the trip to use in an upcoming documentary.
Director Volkert Schult said the documentary will likely air in December.
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