Site Feedback - We'd Like To Hear From You!
Since we started this family website in 2000, we've received
quite a bit of interesting feedback (mostly positive, some negative or bizarre)
from visitors. We thought that it might be helpful and educational to share some
of these comments.
Of course, we'd love to get your feedback on our website as well - we just have
a short feedback form that we'd like to ask
you to complete.
Or, please click here to send us
email if you need an immediate response.
This page holds some of the best feedback, including some of the more
provocative sorts, that we received in 2001 - the year after we started our
website. We also have separate pages for the best comments that we've received
each year.
12/21/2001
Loved the whale pics! Last March I
went swimming off the coast of the Dominican Republic with the humpback whales
and I'm going again this March. Off this boat, Bottom Time II, I think I was
the oldest person to actually go off the small boats and into the water with
the whales... It was thrilling. I was very much closer than most of your
pictures and took underwater pics myself.
I always wanted to be an astronaut and go up into uncharted space. Because
of when I was born, that opportunity has been closed to me so instead I went
down and met these marvelous creatures who allow us to play with their babies,
humpback whales being the only wild animal I know who allows this...
12/3/2001 [A response to my
father's paper on his
family's ancestry in Montenegro.]
I came across your very interesting family site
while doing some research on Montenegro (Crna Gora). I am British and lived at
one stage in Belgrade (1969 - 72) where among other things I was a
correspondent for Copley Press (San Diego Union)
I thought you would be interested in an
anecdote from 72, when the Yugoslav government gave permission to a character
from Reno to open a casino at the Milocer Hotel. Sveti Stefan was then a
showcase for Yugoslav tourism and a lot of extra cash was spent on converting
the Milocer Hotel (formerly a palace) into a casino. To mark the opening, a
planeload of high-rollers flew in from the United States, including the man
who gave the world Star Trek: Gene Roddenbury. Another 'highroller' was an
investment banker from San Francisco who would not approach the dining table
without his briefcase, which contained 8 varieties of ketch-up. Of course, the
locals all viewed this with great amusement. I accompanied them all to Cetinje,
where we discovered that the last King of Crna Gora had actually married the
daughter of a London horse-tram driver having met her when she became a
showgirl in Paris. Gene Roddenbury went wild about this and for a few days
kept talking about a film. Alas, it never came off.
Yugoslavia in my time there was a little like
something out of Alice in Wonderland -- and I am about to go back to carry out
some more research for a book I am putting together.
Did I meet any Ragenovics (or Radenovics)?
There was one character of this name at the time at Sveti Stefan. Did some PR
work for the property and became friendly with Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti.
He used to swear he was teetotal and made a point of ordering orange juice at
the bar, into which he would discreetly tip a tot of homemade slivovitz from
an ornate hip flask.
Once again, congratulations on the site.
11/19/2001
I stumbled upon your
family tree research page & read the history of the name. I thought this
would be interesting for you to know: Montenegrins use the Cyrillic script,
similar to Russian, in which the equivalent of the Latinic character "d" looks
exactly like the Latinic character "g", both in the printed and the
handwritten, italicized version. If your ancestors, upon their arrival, were
not 100% confident in writing Latinic, that could have caused the misspelling
and the subsequent change.
8/27/2001
Your site was forwarded to me from someone interested in the Geer story. We
are both researching the Grim name and that name connected to the Geer name. I
personally am not researching Geer. I found your site well done and very
interesting as I am interested in similar topics, wine, books and genealogy.
I am afraid that I am a Napa/Sonoma Valley bigot. My wife and I have found
we both like Sauvignon Blanc. We are currently working our way through a case
of Rodney Strong, Charlotte's Home Sauvignon Blanc. I am starting to try some
New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. They were recommended to me.
I liked your section on Open Books. I gives a nice insight into the person.
So to reciprocate, my open books today are, The Portable Thomas Jefferson and
The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong.
I am writing a Family History which I hope will be of interest to my
grandchildren (as nobody else seems to care). It is a never ending project. I
think I am stretching the limits of MS Word. I am at 14MB. I would like to
break it into 2 volumes but I can't find a good breaking point.
8/13/2001 [Mail received after I posted my
grandfather's memoirs.]
How many people died at Liddice? Less than 140. How many thousands of
German women were raped to death by those awful Czechs? How many bodies
dangled from the streelamps? It is estimated and probably true that 1/4
million were murdered in most awful manner. Daily beatings and rapes and
dismemberments. German men had their arms and then legs chopped off and then
were dragged to their deaths. Nurses raped to death right in the streets, some
of them had their heels sliced and they were supposed to lick the boots of the
Czechs and clean the streets before they were finally murdered. Many of the
German people forced to go to the stadium in Prague and then the Russians
raped the women. Some Czechs cut open the stomach of a pregnant woman and put
a small dog inside. Many women raped right next to their children.
After a quick non-confrontational reply, I received the following
additional response from the sender:
I am not upset by your grandfather's recollections, as I already am well
aware of Czech crimes. I would like to know even more. Especially first or
even second-hand accounts of the events. But, his and your disregard for truth
is not acceptable. If he was present in Prague or the area in 1946, then he
witnessed the murder of many German people, which lasted all the way through
1946.
If your grandfather knew Bene, then he was likey a criminal himself. The
Czechs did not have to defend themselves against the German civilians. It was
the Czechs who were the persecutors. The ethnic Germans had to wear the Nemec
symbol and if not murdered right away were tortured for months before being
killed.
You don't seem to understand how many ethnic Germans were actually killed.
And how many Czechs took part in the killing. You are deceived if you think
friends of Bene were not involved. It was not until 1946 that Czechs made it
legal to kill German people. And your grandfather would then be part of one of
the most criminal sets of laws ever written; they are still on the books even
now.
