Barbara (Mrenna) Geisler

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Barbara (Mrenna) Geisler visited 13 nations including India, Argentina, Ukraine, Kenya, Haiti, Malaysia, Egypt, Panama,Cameroon, Estonia, Syria, Greece, Luxembourg in the 15 Nations Tour.

Barbara (Mrenna) Geisler has Slavic Roots.

Barbara (Mrenna) Geisler has Slovak Roots.

Barbara has written and improved fifty profiles for the Biography Builders Challenge.

Biography

Barbara grew up in Beaver, PA and attended Beaver Area High School. Upon graduating she attended the University of Pittsburgh in Oakland, graduating Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Engineering. It was there that she met her husband, also a Chemical Engineer.

Barbara worked two summers for Gulf Research in Harmarville, PA, as a research engineer, and was immediately hired upon her graduation. She worked there briefly before quitting after the birth of her first child. She and her husband have raised four children.

Over the years, she was the home room mother; the Girl Scout leader; the Girl Scout Cookie Chairman for several years and a Church Decorator for nearly 20 years. She became certified as a Substitute Teacher in the local school district, where she loved to stand in for Math and Science classes, once having a 2 week stint teaching Chemistry for 9th graders. Unfortunately, substituting eventually involved glorified babysitting, at which time she decided to retire from that role.

Interests

(written in the present tense)

I became involved researching the Missing in Action Status of my husband's uncle, Frederick W. Goempel, in the year 2000. My mother-in-law had requested my help in locating any information. It would take me well over a year to learn the real story. That search would take my husband and me to Luxembourg, where we met some life long friends who were willing to help me in my search for information. Although no resolution was ever made regarding what happened to Pvt. Goempel, we were able to tell much more of his story and clarify truths from fiction. I am a stickler for substantiation and detail.

That led to my meeting a group of similarly devoted people who then joined forces and formed the MIA Recovery Network. My role involves helping families with MIA research. I feel that these stories need to be told, and I try to set up a profile on wikitree for individuals as I work on various cases.

Ancestry

I come from a long line of Slovaks with 7 of my grandparents coming from various areas of Slovakia. The 8th was from Bulgaria. I have traced a shepherd from Gonc, Hungary, to northeast of Kosice. It took a lot of time, patience, and many many hours spent analyzing Hungarian Church Registries.

My brick walls are due to lack of access to records, primarily missing vital years, as well as years written in Cyrrilic when can be extremely difficult to decipher, depending upon the priest doing the writing.

I am a volunteer at the local Family History Center and I enjoy delving into the Hungarian/Slovak research and try to help others whenever I can.