Tracing Family Roots

Tracing Family Roots One man’s journey to fill out his family tree ANNE TRAUTNER JOURNALIST In 1993, when John Henry Coulter-Vorpahl Jr. was at a Vorpahl family reunion, he heard a rumor that his family was Polish. The family’s surname supposedly had been something like Vorpinski or Vorpalski. John Henry wanted to know if that was true. “I started researching. Well, we are German.