1 Million Grandparents

Each person has 2 biological parents and 4 biological grandparents.

If we assume that the average age of becoming a parent is 25 years old, over 100 years 4 generations would be born and a total of 16 great-grandparents (2 times).

For Christimas this year, my husband framed a beautiful copy of my family tree showing the last 5 generations. 32 great-grandparents. There's still some holes, but 32 family surnames is a lot to track and master.

But if I set my goal to understand the last 500 years of my families' histories I would need to document 1,048,576 great-grandparents (17 times). Well, that feels overwhelming! Makes my 10,000 persons accomplishment seem so miniculse.

10,000 people

 The tree has grown to 10,000 people!!! Crazy. 

There's so much data out there now, and it just grows and grows.

Unusual adoptions?

 I think I just uncovered a weird coincidence.

Two different children, biologically related to me, were given up for adoption. Those two children were raised together in the same home as siblings.

However, the two children are from different branches of my family, that at the time, didn't even know each other and didn't live in the same towns.

Still vetting and lots of questions, but the DNA is clear that they aren't related to each but are related to me, and the data is clear that they were raised in the house, both equally acknowledged in the obituaries of their parents.

Wild.

Genealogy software

Grrr....software applications for genealogy are such a nightmare right now. There aren't really great solutions. Here's some of the Pros and Cons of what's on the market.

Ancestry.com

Pros

• Excellent for finding source documentation and ancestry records
• Great matching of records so that you actually find your "John Doe" and not an unrelated "John Doe".
• Intuitive and easy to get started.
• Media is stored on their site, not locally on your PC. Easy to share records and media with others.
• Has DNA matches.
• Syncs with Ancesty and Family Search.

Cons

• Isn't really a good Family Tree application: inadequate reporting; inconsistent data management (same city can be listed multiple ways); lack of searching within your tree; hard to identify errors and manage database integrity.
• DNA Matches relate to living people, but living people are hidden in other person's trees. These privacy restrictions make true collaboration very difficult. Does not encourage registration using legal name; therefore, hard to map living persons to their correct tree. Lots of people also have Unlinked or 1-3 persons tree that provide zero value; requires weeding through a lot of duds before getting to the meat. Unable to extract a list of DNA matches.
• Media and records are subject to Ancestry.com's access restrictions. A great record attached only in Ancestry may no longer be available next year or 10 years from now. Losing source documentation isn't great and can require future rework to revalidate a previously proven fact.

RootsMagic

Pros

• The best of the worst! Is what I consider a "true" family tree application focused on building out relationships between family members, storing facts and pictures, and having good source & citation detail capture.

• Software installed on your PC and all data is held privately and can't be altered by others.

• Decent reporting and data extraction capabilities.

Cons

• Lost lots of data in 2024. Spent about 6 months going back and forth with their technical support about data that was getting lost. Insane amount of time trying to help them understand a problem they didn't believe existed. Finally acknoweldged the issue in December 2024 and they are pushing a code change, but I'm very hestitant gonig back to them after the prior headache.
• Media and records attached to the application can not be stored on the cloud. I'm paying for a backup of my hard drive and extra storage space on my laptop solely for my 5,000 records and media that are attached to my tree. Annoying because everything else I own digitally is stored on the cloud.

MyHeritage

Pros

• Has DNA matches that aren't on the other sites. Can upload Ancestry DNA to MyHeritage to not duplicate testing.
• Seems to have a broader international reach. For myself, most relatives on the site live outside the United States.

Cons

• Similar cons as Ancestry.com.

23 & Me

Pros

• Has DNA matches that aren't on the other sites.
• Has health data reporting. I've just submitted my sample, so I'll let update this post if I discover anything really exciting after my results come back.

Cons

• Not a family tree application. Focus is on DNA data collection.
• Can't update raw DNA from other sites; testing has to be redone and repaid for.

Legacy Family Tree

Pros

• Has really great search capabilities, decent reporting, and more general functionality than other applications
• Software installed on your PC and all data is held privately and can't be altered by others.

Cons

• Rough learning curve moving from RootsMagic to this application. 
• DNA matching reporting seems to be missing, but maybe I just haven't figured it out.
• Mapping of source details from GEDCOM files seems choppy. I had a very clean set of Sources & Citations in RootsMagic and have found capturing and reporting on that same data in Legacy as not possible, or not intuitive. 
• Reports frequently crash. I think my tree may be too large, and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to splice the data to make it more stable for extraction.
• Can't determine an easy way to sync udpates to Ancestry. 

Family Tree Maker

Pros

• It's the basic family tree application.

Cons

• Looks and feels like the exact same program that I used in 1987.

Untiedts emigration

In 1882, Heinrich "Henry" Untiedt, his wife, Magretha, and son, Paul Christian Sophius, lived in Hanerau-Hademarschen, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Hanerau-Hademarschen sits in what is now northern Germany, in the district of Rendsburg-Eckernförde, about 100 kilometers south of the Danish-German border. Paul Christian Sophius was born in 1870 in Alsen, approximately 20 kilometers to the east. Between Hanerau-Hademarschen and Alsen was located the village of Beringstadt, which had been the residence of Paul's future in-laws, Anna Wiebener and Jurgen Schwager. 

During the last generation, the Untiedts had migrated away from their ancestral home in Schönberg on the Ostsee coast. Likely the migration began around 1858 when this Heinrich's father, Hinrich, was enlisted in to the Prussian army serving in Rendsburg. As a carpenter, Heinrich probably traveled south of Rendsburg for work.

The Untiedts immigrated to the United States in two phases. First, in March 1882, Heinrich "Henry" Untiedt, age 34, boarded the 315-foot SS Allemannia in Hamburg, Germany. The ship held 760 passengers and 90 crew. Henry's journey from Hamburg to New York City began on March 19 and would not see land until April 7.

After Henry settled in America, wife and son followed in August 1882. Magretha & Paul, August 2, boarded the ship, Herder, in Hamburg, and would sail to New York City in just under 2 weeks, arriving to America on August 15, 1882. Two weeks later, Paul turned 12 years old.

9,000 people

 My tree has crossed the 9,000 person mark!

And how many of those people have I checked off as completely researched: 17!

17 out of 9000: only 99.8% left to complete and only 30 years in to this project. 

Another 30 and maybe  I'll hit the top 50. Yikes! But by then, 50 out of 15,000 isn't going to help my %.

Are Untiedts Danes or Germans?

The answer is "It Depends".

In 1847, when Paul Untiedt Sr's father, Henry Untiedt, was born, Schleswig-Holstein was part of the Prussian Empire.

The following year, 1848, Denmark tried to formally annex the area, which began the First Schleswig War.

In 1858, Henry's father, Hinrich, was serving as a Prussian soldier.

In 1867, Prussia took the territory back as victory for the Second Schleswig War.

Our last "German" Untiedt ancestor, Paul Sr., was then born 3 years later in 1870.

It is no wonder that both Paul & Henry (+ wife Magretha Peterson) left for America in 1882.

But this is why some ancestory tests will say we are "Germanic" while others refer to us as "Danish" or "Scandanavian".

So, why the fight?

They were arguing over whether they should be Danish or German. Back then, the question was whether to be part of the duchies of Holstein or Schleswig, and in many records you will see all of above referenced.