"A smuggler" and "Hansi", my great grandfather

Many years ago my great grandfather, a young German sailor named Hans Knuppel, worked aboard the North German Lloyd line of ships.  He crossed the ocean many times.  He travelled all around the world.  It was only recently that I discovered that it was these very ships that brought countless immigrants to a new world.  Now, as so many of us are searching again for that old world, I find it ironic that my job at The Lewiston Public Library as the genealogy specialist, is in a way completing the circle that my grandfather helped to create.  He brought people to America, and now I am helping to bring those families back together.  It's exciting and each new discovery is exhilirating.  There is no feeling in the world to compare to the satisfaction of being able to finally say the name of someone who made you who you are today.  Or to learn about the places from which we originate.  

I keep a photograph of my grandfather on the shelf in my genealogy room so everyone can see a piece of my history.  He is standing with a friend (curiously labeled only as "a smuggler" ) on board his ship and he's forever smiling at me.