My coat of arms

I had a pretty amazing day. A year ago in October I got interested in our family history. I signed up for the free 2 week trial at Ancestry.com. I figured that would give me two full weeks to discover all of our secrets if I really booked through the information. Ha! It's a bit overwhelming when you first start doing searches and reading through census records. I realized I should have done as much reasearch on my own as I could first before I started the trial. Ask around to relatives to see how much information I could get from them. Even knowing the first names or spouses or their children's names help when you are trying to match things up. After the trial was up I wasn't nearly as far as I had hoped to be and I was pretty burned out. I closed it up and hadn't looked at it for over a year. 


I don't know what got into me today but I decided to try searching with Google this morning. The amazing thing is I was able to fill out a HUGE chunk of my family tree! I now know that my Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather's name was Hans Klotz (and that our name has been spelled MANY different ways over the last 500 years!) He was born in  Oberjettingen, Wurttemberg, Germany in 1535. Here is some more information I found about my heritage (I don't know how much of it is true since the furthest back I could trace my direct line was 1500, and most of my family were farmers but I still found it interesting.

"First found in Hessen, where the family was closely identified in the early period of history with the feudal society which would become prominent throughout Europe. The Klotzes would later emerge as in influential noble family, having many distinquished  branches, and well known for their involvement in social, economic and political affairs. The earliest known bearer of the name was Berchtolt Klotz, who is registered in the "Furstenbergisches Unkunderbuch" in 1343."

Here is my family coat of arms!!

It was such an amazing feeling to be able to trace my family back to it's roots and to think I might even be able to visit some of the places they lived and are buried. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it but I had tears in my eyes. I had to share this good feeling!