All Blog Posts

“Biltz letter” from 1909 (3/20/2022) - It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here. Life in general has been keeping me busy and I haven’t been able to spend as much time on my family research as I’d like. However, I have been plugging away at it when I can find the time. And now I am completing a major […]
Don’t diss my distant relative! (2/24/2021) - Previously in this blog I mentioned the novel “The Chronicles of Manuel Alanus” written by Leopold Ernest Wyneken. Last week I happened across an old review of this book that appeared in the San Francisco Sunday Call on February 14, 1909 (second column in the lower half of the page). After reading the review I […]
A Biltz communion chalice (11/23/2020) - While doing research on my behalf into the Biltz family, Frau Eva-Marie Jülich looked into a lead that the church in Mittelfrohna possessed a communion chalice that was commissioned in 1820 in honor of a “Faktor Biltz” by this person’s children. I’m not sure whether the German word “Faktor” should be translated as “factory owner” […]
Erich Einegg (7/3/2020) - Yesterday evening I watched a DVD that I believe was sent to me a long time ago by a German Wyneken relative. I have vague memories that it might have been Erika, who sadly died last December, but I think I asked her once about it and she couldn’t remember anything about it, either. The […]
What goes around comes around (6/17/2020) - I was born in the Philippines as the son of a Lutheran missionary. One of the names I heard growing up there was Alvaro “Al” Cariño. He was the Filipino pastor who started Lutheran missionary work in the Philippines. The American missionaries that I knew while growing up there all came after him. It wasn’t […]
The Biltz house today (6/1/2020) - Thanks to Frau Eva-Marie Jülich in Chemnitz I now have current photographs of the Biltz house I wrote about in an earlier post, in another post about inheriting this house, and in an article about the Biltz owners! It’s been a long hunt, but I’ve finally tracked it down and now know a bit about […]
Franz Julius Biltz’ immediate family (5/24/2020) - In this post we’ll be taking a look a detailed look at the people Franz Julius Biltz was familiar with from his day to day dealings. Due to deaths and remarriages in the previous generation, Franz Julius and his various siblings are part of four marriages. There is the first marriage of his father, Christian […]
Another database update (5/17/2020) - I’ve just updated the on-line database of my Wyneken ancestors, starting with my great grandparents Martin Luther Wyneken II and his wife Eslinda nee Klein. Again it’s been a long time since the last update. I’m not sure exactly what new information there is in the current version, but I’m sure that I’ve added quite […]
Update to the All Wynekens on-line database (5/15/2020) - It’s been a very long time since I last updated the All Wynekens database so I figured now is as good a time as any to do so. It now contains the current information in my database. I really have no idea what has changed since the previous version. In addition to updating the content […]
New Biltz database added (5/13/2020) - After several months of research I am finally publishing the results of my new research into my Biltz ancestors and the Biltz family in the area around Mittelfrohna and Limbach in Saxony. It has been a lot of work but I have been able to gather a lot of new data about this part of […]
My ancestors and the beginnings of the LCMS (5/10/2020) - Just a warning right from the start: This post is quite long and, considering that the group of people interested in Wyneken family genealogy and other families from whom I descend is pretty small to start with, this article probably reduces the numbers even more. My father was a Lutheran minister in the Lutheran Church […]
Dot Bonavito – world traveler (5/3/2020) - I was actually quite sure that I had written about Dot (official name Dorothea Louise) sometime before in this blog. I just looked now, though, and it seems I only mentioned her in passing in this post from 2016. Dot’s maiden name was Schaller. She was born in 1922 in Portland, Oregon and died in […]
History of the Biltz house in Mittelfrohna (4/11/2020) - In the last two postings I talked about a house in the village Mittelfrohna in Saxony that was associated with my ancestor Franz Julius Biltz. I also mentioned the property records for the house that I was able to locate recently. Franz Julius was not the only Biltz that these property records mention, they also […]
Franz Julius Biltz’ inheritance (4/3/2020) - When F.J. Biltz escaped his guardian in Mittelfrohna with his half sister Louise, as I related in the last posting, he was only 12 years and three months old. They survived an arduous journey by ship across the Atlantic and a steamboat trip up the Mississippi river, finally to settle in Perry County, Missouri, close […]
The mystery of the Biltz house (3/21/2020) - The Biltz family group among my ancestors has until recently always been full of question marks in my mind. A lot of these question marks have recently been removed thanks to my recent dealings with a genealogist who lives in the area the Biltzes came from. The reason I’ve started a separate Biltz section on […]
New header on this website (3/11/2020) - I plan on writing about recent findings I’ve had concerning my Biltz ancestors. There is a new header “Biltzes” (look above on this page) that will contain only these postings.
Concerning Heinrich Christoph Wyneken’s last will (2/9/2020) - One of the places my family and I visited in a trip to northern Germany in 2001 was Verden because that’s where my great-great-great grandfather was born. His father, Heinrich Christoph Wyneken, was the pastor of the St. Andreas church there. St. Andreas is a small church located close to the cathedral. It is pictured […]
A breakthrough can make you feel so very elated! (10/8/2019) - After twenty years of wondering how all the scraps of information I have about my Biltz ancestors fit together, I’ve finally hit pay dirt! My Franz Julius Biltz (1825-1908) was my great great great grandfather. He was born in Mittelfrohna in Saxony, Germany and emigrated to Missouri in 1839 with his older half-sister Louise Völker, […]
Another little “family reunion” in Freiburg (8/31/2019) - Fifteen years ago when my family was vacationing in a town on Lake Constance I drove our three children one evening half an hour or so farther eastward along the lake to visit a distant relative who lived there. We had a pleasant evening and a nice meal there and did a lot of chatting […]
Family trees in scroll form (5/13/2019) - I was very lucky that my daughter, Niki, had been visiting us for the past few months. That means she was here when the two huge trees arrived in the mail. … Boy, was I lucky! When the trees arrived I took one look at them and said those are not very practical the way […]
Wyneken family tree project coming to an end (3/24/2019) - I am overwhelmed by the response I have gotten to my offer of printing out the three updated Wyneken family trees! All in all I have received orders to be delivered to 35 different addresses. Most of the orders are for complete sets of all three trees. Everybody ordered the overview as I had suggested. […]
Invitation to lunch in Spain in October 2019 (picture *not* from La Montoliva) (2/21/2019) - Here is a message from Wyneken descendant Eduard Cabré in Spain. Good Morning family, This is to inform you about the next great meeting of our Punyed family. Let’s meet for lunch on the 6th of October 2019 in La Montoliva restaurant, next to La Selva del Camp in Tarragona, Spain. The whole family is […]
Ordering for the family trees ends tomorrow (2/14/2019) - I’m thrilled to report that I’ve been getting lots of orders for the trees! Twenty six relatives from all over the world have ordered a total of 96 charts. This is roughly equivalent to 32 complete sets of all three trees. I say “roughly” because a few of the people who ordered have only ordered […]
Pedigrí actualizado – Precios y Pedido (1/31/2019) - El último árbol genealógico completo de la familia Wyneken fue compilado alrededor de 1877 / 1878. Desde entonces y dado el tiempo transcurrido, han cambiado muchas cosas en las diferentes ramas de la familia en Alemania, Estados Unidos, España, Chile, Inglaterra y Rusia. Por ello, he creado una versión actualizada e impresa (en inglés) que […]
Aktualisierter Stammbaum – Preise und Bestellung (1/22/2019) - Der letzte vollständige Stammbaum der Familie Wyneken wurde um ca. 1877 / 1878 erstellt. Seitdem hat sich bei den verschiedenen Zweigen der Familie in Deutschland, den USA, Spanien, Chile, England und Russland sehr viel getan. Ich habe jetzt eine aktualisierte Version des Stammbaums erstellt (auf Englisch). Bis Dato liegen mir 8 Bestellungen dafür vor, und […]
Ordering the updated tree and prices (1/21/2019) - The last complete family tree of the Wyneken family was compiled around 1877 / 1878. Lots has changed since then in the various branches of the family in Germany, the US, Spain, Chile, England and Russia. I have finished the work on an updated version and I already have orders for eight copies. Now I […]
Please be aware of this important information! (1/20/2019) - It is important to note that not all Wyneken descendants appear in the upcoming comprehensive tree. Because the trees turned out so large I had to make a cut-off point: Everybody whose last name is Wyneken is in the tree. Everyone whose mother’s maiden name is Wyneken appears in the tree. If your grandmother’s maiden […]
Last tree complete (12/26/2018) - I have completed the third and final tree of the new set of trees that show all the Wynekens that have ever existed, at least as far as I’m aware of. A full-sized version of the above tree is available here. As I’ve mentioned before, the idea is to provide a complete update to the […]
Tree project: Progress report (12/9/2018) - I finished the second tree! I’ve added pictures and explanatory text to the chart depicting the Rüstje branch of the family. I’m planning on creating one more tree, the smallest of them all. It will show the beginnings of the family in the 1500’s and provide an overview of how the other two trees fit […]
First tree is done (10/30/2018) - This past week I put the final touches on the first tree. I mentioned it in my last blog post here. It covers the so-called Bederkesa branch of the family, which includes the two American branches, the Russian branch, and three branches of the family in Germany. The picture at the left gives an impression […]
Progress report on the new tree project (9/15/2018) - I would like to announce that I have made some progress in creating a new comprehensive family tree. As I warned back in January, this is not going to be a quick project. My initial tries showed me that I would not be able to fit a whole tree in a single chart so I […]
Royal seal of Queen Christina of Sweden (8/12/2018) - A number of months ago Wyneken descendant Ben Phelps shared with me several scanned documents pertaining to the Wyneken family that he had acquired from various sources in the course of his research. Among them were such things as death records and last wills. One of these documents I find especially post-worthy for two reasons. […]
Birth record for FCD Wyneken’s mother (3/11/2018) - Continuing my processing of the material I recently received from Benjamin Phelps, today I worked on the birth and baptism record for Anna Catharina Louise Meyer, who was later to become the mother of Carl, Gustav and FCD Wyneken. The entry reads: des H Cornetts Hinrich Christian Meyer und seiner Ehefrau Maria Elisabeth geb. Sa[xxx]ow […]
“New Family Tree” menu on this website (3/6/2018) - Just a quick note to point out that I have added a “New Family Tree” menu at the top of this website. All of my posts that have to do with organizing, compiling, printing and distributing will be readily available when you select this menu.
A letter from my great great great grandmother (2/11/2018) - The other day I was starting to work through a large batch of new material that Benjamin Phelps had very kindly shared with me. One of the first things I looked at was a letter from 1885 in old German script. I gave an inner sigh because transcribing the old script is always very time […]
The last member of the Russian Wyneken family (1/31/2018) - I was searching the Internet for various Wyneken information when I ran across a page about Baroness Marka Wyneken. The name was very familiar but at first I couldn’t place it. Then I had a suspicion, and the suspicion was confirmed when I looked the name up in my database. Marka was the daughter of […]
Another Wyneken Lunch, Resulting in Very Exciting News (1/28/2018) - As mentioned last month, Katja and Ulla and I are keeping our eyes open for other Wyneken relatives in the general area that we can invite to our semi-regular lunch get-togethers. For January I was able to reach Christoph Wyneken, who lives in Staufen, a village just south of Freiburg. The three of us got […]
It’s time for an updated Wyneken family tree (1/7/2018) - The last “official” complete Wyneken family tree — a miniature version is pictured at the top of this page — was created and shared in 1877 / 1878. That was 140 years ago. A lot has happened in the family since then. If you say that a generation is on average 30 years, that means […]
Lotta’s Fountain in San Francisco (12/30/2017) - People who know me well probably know that I’m very partial to San Francisco. Thus I’m always pleased to find Wyneken connections to the “city by the Bay”. One such connection is Lotta’s Fountain, located at the intersection of Market Street where Geary and Kearny Streets connect. Most of the people who walk or drive […]
A new relative (12/17/2017) - Pictured above from left to right: Katja, Matthew and Ulla. Sorry, this is not a birth announcement. No new baby Wynekens here. … One advantage of having a website with one’s genealogy information is that every once in a while someone writes you because he or she has discovered a family connection with the help […]
A Wyneken in a movie (11/19/2017) - I flew to Philadelphia from Frankfurt a few weeks ago on family business. In order to while the time away on the flight I watched a few complimentary movies that Lufthansa offered. It came as a complete surprise to me when one of them turned out to have a Wyneken angle, even though that was […]
Hitting pay dirt (2/19/2017) - Every once in a while every family researcher will receive something new that makes his or her heart jump with joy. I just recently had such an experience. Months ago I got in touch with the pastor in Neuenwalde to ask if he could send me a picture of the page in his church records from 1683 […]
Theodore Schwan (1/15/2017) - I would like to introduce someone who saw a lot of involvement in quite a number of significant American military happenings in the second half of the 19th century. He was not a Wyneken descendant, but there is a very close Wyneken connection. Theodore Schwan was born in Germany in 1841, emigrated to the US […]
Riding the coattails of fame (12/23/2016) - There aren’t many Wynekens you can really call “famous”. Actually, to tell the complete truth — there aren’t any. Some might be kind of well known in certain circles, or at a certain time and place in history. For example there are: FCD Wyneken (1810-1876), who has a fair amount of renown amongst Missouri Synod […]
Are the Wynekens dying out? (10/30/2016) - I must admit that every once in a while I get to thinking that it won’t be much longer and the Wyneken name will have died out. I go through in my mind the list of young Wyneken males that can conceivably father sons to pass on the family name, and I see a problem […]
A pleasant visit from a California relative (6/19/2016) - On the second Sunday in June I went down to the train station here in Freiburg to meet up with two people. The people I was meeting were Mary Ann Wood née Schaller and her husband Don from California. They were finishing off the German part of their mixed business and pleasure trip before they […]
A Wyneken and a king (5/30/2016) - Carl Johann Conrad Wyneken, 1763-1825 (not pictured at the top of this page) was one of the many Lutheran pastors that have come from the Wyneken family. In the course of his career as a pastor, Carl Johann Conrad served in at least six different churches in various towns or cities in what was to become […]
New Page: Karl Wyneken’s diaries (1/18/2016) - I have just added a new “fixed” page to this blog entitled Karl Wyneken’s diaries. It is available in the Information menu at the top of every blog window.
A Wyneken “hair picture” (1/14/2016) - The other day I received an interesting picture from our distant relative, Mary Ann Wood née Schaller. She described it to me as follows: This was a popular way of showing off your family in Victorian times. The cross in the middle is FCD Wyneken and the bible is his wife Sophie Wyneken née Buuck. […]
Diary from the end of World War II (1/13/2016) - NOTE: I’m not sure what happened here. I thought I published the following posting in my old blog. It was probably on May 25, 2015. However, it doesn’t look like it made it to the new – WordPress – blog. Did I maybe overlook it when I copied everything over? In any event, here it […]
Possible Swedish ancestors after all (10/26/2015) - There is a long held and often cherished belief that the Wynekens originally came from Sweden. My cousin Nick, for example, was very disappointed when he found out from me many years ago that we probably are not descended from vikings. He has always been extremely proud of that, and from what I gather is […]
Big changes in the Wyneken information sites (6/22/2015) - I have closed down my previous blog at http://wyneken-genealogy.blogspot.de/ and the site at http://top10.physik.uni-freiburg.de/~mpw/Wynekens/ that used to contain my Wyneken Genealogy information. The blog and the informational site have been replaced by https://wyneken.wordpress.com I was unable to move the actual family database areas to the new site so they are still physically located on top10. There are, […]
The role of one Wyneken at the outbreak of World War I (2/17/2015) - In the Facebook group “Wynekens World-Wide” I recently posted a link to the Google English translation version of the Russian Wikipedia article for “Wyneken”. Background information: There was a George von Wyneken who emigrated to St. Petersburg in the 19th century to join his Stieglitz relative in the Russian bank business. George and his three […]
19th Century Wyneken Family Tree (9/26/2014) - Link to the scanned tree Around 1997 or 1998 I visited Dick Wyneken in Ripon, California during one of my trips to the US to visit my parents. In the course of our conversation he mentioned that he had a long roll containing an extensive family tree in German. His grandfather, Herman Wyneken, had received it […]
The Wyneken manor in Rüstje (9/22/2014) - Those familiar with my family history work might be familiar with the two major branches of the family that I refer to: the Rüstje branch and the Bederkesa branch. These names are based on the places in Northern Germany where the members of these two branches lived in the 1700s. The modern day Wynekens from […]
Get-together with the Spanish branch (8/8/2014) - At the beginning of August I received an e-mail message from Eduard Cabré Serrano who lives in a town outside of Tarragona, Spain. He introduced himself as a Wyneken descendant. I looked him up in my database but he had to give me a few more details before I could pinpoint where he fits into […]
Small family reunion of three Wyneken branches (11/7/2013) - On the 13th of September I was part of an historical event. For the first time in who knows how many years, descendants of the three Wyneken brothers Carl (1803-1867), Gustav (1805-1885) and Friedrich “FCD” (1810-1876) got together and chatted over lunch. Matthew, Katja and Karl I have been corresponding with Karl Wyneken from Fresno, […]
Finally, updated! (7/10/2013) - I finally updated the two on-line versions of my database: https://wynekens.de/WynekenDatabase and https://wynekens.de/Wyneken-Klein These new versions include all the changes and additions I have entered in the past few years. If you sent me any corrections, maybe you could check to see if they are now reflected in the online information. You might notice that […]
Loose Ends (3/11/2013) - San Francisco In my last posting I mentioned the architect Leopold Ernest Wyneken in San Francisco who has no direct connection to any of the other American Wynekens. Interestingly, there was another man, Friedrich Alexander Wyneken, who lived in the San Francisco Bay area, having studied in Berkeley, California and working later in San Francisco. […]
A Wyneken novel (12/9/2012) - A few months ago I read a novel by a Wyneken. I’m sure you’ve never heard of the novel, or of the author. The book is entitled Chronicles of Manuel Alanus: A True Story of Old San Francisco. The author’s name is L. (Leopold) Ernest Wyneken. In this blog entry I present some background […]
A visit to Burg Großfurra in Thuringia (11/11/2012) - I am pleased to welcome to the pages of this blog my wife, Cindy. This past August, she and I went on vacation in parts of Germany that were, for the most part, new to us. When I travel in Germany I like to try to insert activities that have something to do with my […]
Visit with my closest German Wyneken relatives (8/4/2012) - On the last Saturday of April 2012, my wife, two daughters and I visited my closest Wyneken relatives living in Germany. Katja and her family live in a little village ten minutes north of Freiburg. Katja’s parents, Wyneken and Katja, were visiting from northern Germany. Note that “Wyneken” here is the first name of Katja’s […]
Transcription of the inscription on the saber (4/24/2012) - The original German text is: Dem Oberstleutnant Wyneken bei seiner Rückkehr aus China – die Kameraden des Regiments von Manstein Translation: (Presented) to Lieutenant Colonel Wyneken upon his return from China – the comrades from regiment “von Manstein”
A brief update about the saber I wrote about in the last blog entry. (4/23/2012) - The Bavarian gentleman who currently is in possession of the saber was kind enough to send me photographs, which I am posting here.
A Wyneken Saber in World War II (2/22/2012) - In February of 2012 I received a phone call from an elderly gentleman in Bavaria. He told me that he hoped I would be able to assist him, and that he had in his possession something that might be of interest to me. He related a story told to him by a cousin of his, […]
Apologies (9/7/2009) - It’s been a very, very long time since the last time I posted!!! I’m sorry for the inactivity on the Wyneken Genealogy web site. I assure you that I haven’t been inactive during that time, it’s just that I haven’t found the time to update the web site. One is due very soon, though. The […]
Family history databases updated (5/24/2006) - Updated the complete Wyneken database and the database of my ancestors. Both of these on-line resources now reflect the state of my working database as of 24 May, 2006.
Two external links added (1/24/2006) - Added to the Interesting Links page: a link to the von Wurmb family site a link to the Sherbondy genealogy site administered by Jeanette Sherbondy.
Stay informed of changes to the Wyneken site (6/30/2005) - You no longer need to come back to the Wyneken Genealogy Web site every once in a while – faithfully or not so faithfully – to see if anything has been added or changed! Why not? Read on … The Wyneken Genealogy blog (i.e. this page, see also previous posting below) is available as an […]
German term paper on Gustav Adolph Wyneken (6/12/2002) - In the summer semester of 2002, Caroline Jahr, a student majoring in Social Pedagogy at the Fachhochschule Jena, wrote a term paper on Gustav Adolph Wyneken (1874-1964), a controversial German educational reformer. This paper is only available in German but it does provide a quick biographical overview of one of the most well-known Wynekens.