The story behind this blog project was my discovery that I had German nobility in my ancestry. I made the discovery via an odd path...from the genealogy research the National Socialist German Workers' Party (in German, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP)), aka the Nazi Party, conducted on my family on my Mother's side beginning with Alois Hartz (1880 - 1962). In 2012, my cousin in Germany sent my nephew a large envelope of NSDAP documents that consisted of 'official copies' and summaries of data from birth, marriage, death, and other records. My nephew digitized the documents and send them to me. More on those documents here.
Mind you, my family at the time was Catholic so not quite sure why the research was undertaken. I've been told that it was done on all public servants at the time and I do know that one of my great uncles served in the SS. I've also been told that the Nazi Party was beginning to harass and persecute Catholics, particularly politically active Catholic priests so perhaps my family's Catholicism landed them on the research list. Another possibility that was revealed to me for the first time in 2011 by my now late Mother Ingrid Hartz was that her Grandfather Alois Hartz (Gustav Aloysius Richard Hartz, 1880 - 1962), helped several Jewish families escape the country. If this became known or even suspected, that may have instigated the research. More on that story here.
One of the final pages of the document listed information for the death of my GGGG Grandmother, Johanne Dorothea Albertine Auguste von Watzdorf (1792-1827) who was married to my GGGG Grandfather, Heinrich Christian Hartz (1784 – 1865).
From their I found the Wikipedia.de page for the von Watzdorf family.
And finally, I found the von Watzdorfs in the Jahrbuch des Deutschen Adels. The Jahrbook lists Johanne von Watzdorf and Heinrich Hartz on page 749. From there, the von Watzdorf line is traced back to Heinrich von Watzdorf who died in 1261. More information on the Jahrbuch can be found on the Wikipedia.de page for the Jahrbuch.
I added all this information into Ancestry.com and additional 'von' ancestors started popping up, one after the other.
My hope is to do justice in exploring all of these ancestors here on this blog.
