The family behind Crookwell-based company Lindner Quality Socks is now preparing to meet long-lost relatives and visit Thalheim, the town where the family trade began, when they travel to Germany in August.

Mrs Lindner said they had long known that Mr Lindner's great-grandfather Max Lindner started making socks in 1925.

But after searching Facebook for Lindners in Thalheim and making contact with four men who resembled her husband and shared the same surname, Mrs Lindner said she had traced the family's line of sock-makers back much further, to as early as 1730.

"A fellow replied saying his great-great-grandfather was Max Lindner's brother, and that his father, Uwe, was very interested in family history," Mrs Lindner said.

"He gave me Uwe's email address and we have been corresponding regularly since November."

She said the family had so far learnt that Mr Lindner's ancestors were founding members of the local sock-knitter's guild in Thalheim, and that what they had believed to be Max's first factory was actually his third.

"It's still standing. It's actually an apartment building now," Mrs Lindner said.

"I've fiddled around a bit on Google Maps and it looks like there are a few shops there too - a hairdresser and things like that."

The Lindners and their children Dorothy, 4, and Arthur, 1, may yet discover more family members continuing the family tradition when they arrive in Germany.

They have set up a visit to a sock factory just outside Thalheim that bears the family name, and Mrs Lindner said while the owner was not sure whether he was another long-lost relative, he also had a striking resemblance to Mr Lindner's ancestors.

The Lindner family moved to Australia in 1987 and launched Lindner Quality Socks in Goulburn the following year.

For the past 20 years, the business has operated in Crookwell, selling socks made from Australian Merino wool.

It has also built up a following in Canberra, having run a stall at the Old Bus Depot Markets for a number of years.