Geneology and history

Just thinking I should get into it someday. I was a History minor in college and frequently thought I should have dived into it more deeply and double majored.

Mom also brought up my German grandpa's grandpa, who is the [hard to spell last name here] who came to the US from Germany. She said early 1800's, but I thought it was more like 1870 (which would fit better with Grandpa's age, Mom). Anyway, they were having themselves a war and my Deutsche ancestors wanted out. 1870-ish was the time of the Franco-Prussian war, but in spite of having a few history classes that focused on France, I don't remember a whole lot about it.

Wikipedia: Franco-Prussian_War

Ah, learning lots of stuff. Various German states were annexed by Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, then Bismarck wasn't getting along with Napoleon III (not many people were, and Nap3 wanted a war to try to rally France behind him, so was trying to start a fight.) (I remember from French Lit classes that Victor Hugo had his finger in the anti-Nap3 propaganda. And weren't they making a total colonial hash of Mexico at the time?).

Basically, the Germans won and united Germany, Nap3 was captured early on and a new French Republic was declared, then the Germans laid siege to Paris and the Third Republic lost. Alsace-Lorraine went under German control again. The French wanted it back, which helped lead to WWI, then the humiliation of the Germans at the end of WWI helped lead to WWII, which led to the Cold War and the division of Germany. Etc etc.

And maybe I'll go back and read the whole Wikipedia article someday. It's heavy on sieges and dates. Anyone know of good historical fiction or even a readable history of this time and place? Then if I could place my ancestors - dates, places, times, etc - we could find out better if my brother's facetious claim that they were Prussian draft dodgers was true or if they were getting out because they were tired of getting blown up, or if it just seemed like a good idea at the time.