[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Cousins diverge, then converge 300 years later

[margaret]

Jerry, What a lovely story.  I would love to have the same experience and 
find some cousins.     Margaret
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry Frank" <FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca>
To: <ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 12:01 PM
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Cousins diverge, then converge 300 years 
later


> Want to share a little story with you that came to light yesterday.
>
> I live in a +55 community in Calgary called Prince of Peace Village.  One 
> day last fall I was talking to my neighbour across the street, Ivan 
> Wagner.  Conversation turned to possible common roots and we were 
> delighted to discover that our grandmothers were first cousins.  Both were 
> from the GARTZ family which had migrated from Pomerania to Volhynia in the 
> early 1860s and then to Manitoba in the late 1890s.  Finding a 3rd cousin 
> across the street from me was interesting enough but the story does not 
> end there.
>
> Next step of course was to ask his wife about her origins.  Jean's family 
> were also Germans who had migrated to the Black Sea region of Russia.  Her 
> maiden name was KAUL which meant nothing to me, but then she mentioned 
> that a grandmother's surname was STEINWAND.  My eyebrows raised 
> immediately.  That name seems like it should be quite common but its not. 
> I had previously established a connection between the Steinwands in the 
> Black Sea region (later also in the Dakotas) and my ancestor.  My 
> Steinwand family had migrated to Kochanow, South Prussia (later Russian 
> Poland) in 1803 and then on to Volhynia in the early 1830s.  Here they 
> married into my maternal HEMMINGER family.
>
> Out came the charts to compare notes.  Unfortunately, there were two main 
> Steinwand lines that had migrated to the Black Sea region.  The first 
> which I knew I was related to was very well documented back into 
> Wuerttemberg.  The second was fairly well documented in Russia but there 
> was conflicting info about the person who had migrated and no indication 
> of the town of origin.  Jean descended from that second line so it looked 
> like it might be difficult to establish a relationship.
>
> So I turned to Mike Rempfer, a Steinwand cousin of mine in Bismarck, North 
> Dakota.  He too had been stymied by this second group of Steinwands and 
> took up the challenge to see if he could uncover their roots.  With the 
> help of Tom Stangl and using some very new uncatalogued material which 
> GRHS had microfilmed in Odessa Archives, he discovered some census 
> material which proved that these Steinwands had migrated from Dornhan, 
> Wuerttemberg directly to the Odessa region.  He then turned to microfilms 
> of Dornhan records and found the family including another verifying note 
> that the migration had occurred in 1817.
>
> Mike then traced the line back to the earliest known ancestor, Michael 
> Steinwand who had married Anna (?) 15 Oct 1648 in Marschalkenzimmern, 
> Wuerttemberg.  His son Johannes, born in 1658, married in 
> Marschalkenzimmern in 1682, is Jean's ancestor.  AND - yes, it's true - 
> his son Jacob, born 1660, married 2 km away in Weiden in 1689 is my 
> ancestor.
>
> Jean and I are 9th cousins!!!
>
> Now, I have discovered more distant relationships.  A 12th half cousin of 
> mine on the Hemminger line lives in Iowa.  But what are the odds of anyone 
> finding 9th cousins living right across the street from each other?  They 
> must be astronomical odds.
>
> 300 hundred years ago our families began to diverge.  Today they converge 
> on Ascension Bay in Prince of Peace Village!
>
>
>
>
> Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
> FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca
>
>
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