Reininger Research

I've been exchanging emails with Norbert Reininger over the past several weeks. He sent me an email a long time ago regarding my Panther family history. He is also descended from a Panther in the Ulm/Achern area of Baden, Germany. I looked at the records I have and could not connect his Panther family with mine. I'm very confident they are connected somewhere along the line but so far, the connection eludes me.

A couple of weeks ago, he wrote asking about the marriage of Ludwig Hodapp, which didn't match the marriage of Ludwig Hodapp he had. It ends up we were talking about two different individuals from the same area in the same timeframe. I asked if he had any other individuals from this area that I could look into. He asked me to see what I could find about the ancestors of Benjamin Reininger, his great-great-grandfather.

Did I ever hit the motherlode of information! I eventually connected Benjamin's 3x-great- grandmother as being the sister of my 6x-great-grandmother. Norbert's father and I share a set of 7x-great-grandparents (Simon Frischmann and Jacobia Eldinger). Norbert's father and I are 8th cousins making Norbert and me 8th cousins once removed. That's as distant a relation I've ever been in contact with.

I still have some research to do for Norbert's tree. No, I don't do this for a living. I do it for fun and leisure. I'd like to eventually have all of the Ulm/Moesbach/Stadelhofen/Erlach area's genealogy all mapped out, although that will likely take the rest of my life. In the meantime, I'd like to find all the ancestors I can for Benjamin Reininger. I think it's a bit of OCD but once I start researching something that I should have in my records, I don't want to stop until the information is exhausted.

New Genealogy Blog

I decided to give my own genealogy blog a try. What will I include here? I'll let you know about my breakthroughs, my research puzzles, my thoughts on genealogy in general, and about specific genealogy topics I think are important. One other idea I have is, when I don't have anything else to talk about, I'll post a biography of one of my ancestors along with whatever photos or documents I have that would be pertinent to that individual. In this bio, I won't make anything up. I'll stick to the facts and if I believe something that isn't documented, I'll be clear about that.

Previously, I'd post on familytreecircles.com. It's a good site but it seems that my blog-style posts get lost among all the "Help me find my grandfather!" posts. These research help message boards are important but it's not what I want in a blog site. Would I enjoy it if a distant cousin contacts me wanting more information or wanting to share information? You bet! What's more important to me is sharing my excitement at new finds, frustration at the puzzles I'm working on and information about research techniques I've found helpful. I've also wanted to create bios for all of my ancestors but didn't want to feel pressured to finish them all in a particular timeframe to put together a book. Is a book going to happen? It might. But in the meantime, I want to share what I've found with my relations and anyone else that might be interested.

I'm sure my focus for this blog will evolve and change from the purpose I've stated here but this is what I'm starting with. I'm hopeful my writing will be interesting to a few people. If not, that's okay. It will still have good use as a journal for my own thoughts and feelings on my family history research. I hope you enjoy.

--Matt