Katherine Schober, Founder and CEO
Katherine Schober is German-English genealogy translator, author, and dedicated educator. As the founder of Germanology Unlocked, she brings over a decade of professional experience to her mission of helping individuals uncover and preserve their German family stories.
Katherine specializes in deciphering the old German handwriting, offering a range of services that include expert translations, engaging webinars, and in-depth classes and workshops. Her expertise has made her a sought-after speaker at major national genealogy conferences such as RootsTech, the International German Genealogy Partnership Conference, National Genealogical Society, and more.
Her contributions to the field have been featured on the History Channel and PBS’ “Finding Your Roots”.
Favorite Project: Baby Book from 1921, documenting the day to day life of the new baby and his parents in Germany
Cadri Cunningham, Operations
Based in Missouri, Cadri Cunningham utilizes her Bachelor’s degree in Business and Organizational Leadership to improve operational efficiency at Germanology Unlocked. She is dedicated to refining our team’s procedures, ensuring that our services not only meet but also exceed client expectations. Cadri leads initiatives that streamline project management and enhance client interactions, simplifying the process for our clients to connect with their German heritage.
Favorite Project: Developing methods that decrease manual labor, allowing our team to focus on assisting clients in deciphering the old handwriting of their German ancestors.
Marisa Irwin, Executive Assistant; Translation and Transcription Team
Marisa Irwin is a German and Russian to English translator based in Milwaukee, WI. She received her MA in German and Russian to English Translation at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In addition, she has a BA in German, Russian, and history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has been learning German since the age of four and has lived and worked abroad in Germany, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Marisa loves getting to play “history detective” and bridging the gap between the past and the present through historical translations.
Favorite Project: A series of postcards from a frontline soldier in WWI to his family back home
Charlotte Champenois, Transcription-Translation Team
Charlotte Noelle Champenois, a native of Denmark and a long-time resident of Utah, is an Accredited Genealogist® in Germany Northwest, Denmark, Sweden, and Austria and has a BA in Family History–Genealogy and German Studies (with minors in Editing and Scandinavian Studies) from Brigham Young University. Having previously lived in Germany for two years, she later spent three months in Austria, researching families in repositories in and near Vienna and online to document family trees back to the 1600s. She has presented at IGGC, SGGS, FGS, NGS, RootsTech, SDGS GIG, FEEFHS, and the FamilySearch Library.
Charlotte works as a German and Nordic Research Specialist at the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is also an Associate Records Analyst for the German Immigrants in American Church Records (GIACR) project (extracting information from church records written in the old German script and determining the standard spellings of listed German birth towns), has been a transcription and translation assistant for Germanology Unlocked since January 2021, and is a freelance genealogist and translator. Charlotte has co-published a book and two articles and has collaborated on twelve GIACR volumes. She is a native Danish speaker and an advanced German paleographer, and she regularly works with records in German and Danish; she also periodically works with genealogical records in Latin, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, and French.
Favorite Project: The Danish 1878 adoption file of my maternal great-great-grandparents’ previously unknown adoptive daughter (who died as an infant), which my mother and I accessed in the Danish National Archives reading room, along with the adoptive father’s daily log mentioning her birth and death
Nastassja Myer, Transcription and Translation Team
Nastassja “Stassi” Myer is a graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s translation program who specializes in 19th- and 20th-century documents. She has previously worked on WW2-era hospital records, WW2-era letters from the Eastern Front, and late-19th-century family letters within Milwaukee’s Pabst family. With a lifelong interest in history and genealogy, she uses her knowledge of German language and old German script to rediscover the past through family letters, church documents, and more. Stassi is based in the Bay Area in California.
Favorite Project: An 1880s letter from a young German girl to her relatives in America, asking for a golden watch