Hi,

Below are photos that Marsha Clinard took while visiting Maria Messina and her husband, Vince in Florida.  And  a fascinating story that Ellen Bubeck Laurent sent to me.

Classmate Maria Messina (center), and her husband (left) and Classmate Marsha Clinard (right)

Classmate Maria Messina (center), and her husband (right) and Classmate Marsha Clinard (left)

From Ellen

Thanks for the photos depicting our teen era.  I loved them.   They brought back some great memories.  By the way, in case anyone has any interest.  I noticed a lot of pictures of Elvis Presley.   I have been working on all of my family lines, maternal and paternal for about 25 years now.   Elvis and I share a great grandfather (and great grandmother) at some level above 7th.  His and my sixth great grandfathers came to the US in the 1740’s.   They were not brothers, because we know who both of their fathers were, but they were both Presslers, from the tiny town of Hochstadt in south central Germany (the Palatine), and DNA tests prove a common great grandfather around the 8th or 9th level, since we know they had different fathers at the level of my 7th great grandfather.   Our sixth great grandfathers came to the same town in PA, Host, now a sister town to Hochstadt.   I just came back from a visit to the town and met all the Presslers who were available.  It was great fun, and they all remarked at the resemblance of various town Presslers to the photos I took with me of our family males on that side.   My father’s younger brother was about the same age as Elvis and, in his teens, people were always commenting on how much he looked like Elvis.  At the time, we didn’t know about the link, since his family changed their name to Presley and mine changed the P to a B to make it Bressler.  I wish I’d known this all at that time.

Happy New Years,

JoAnn