Anton Schmitz

In our oral family history, it is said that Anton Schmitz (my great-great-great grandfather) was part of Napoleon's Grand Army when it marched on Moscow. If this is true, it is amazing that any of us are here today. Last August, I attended a seminar by a statics guru named Edward Tufte. As part of his presentation, he showed the graphic below.



Basically, it is showing the large size of the army that marched to Moscow and the very few people in the army who made it back. The tan line shows the march to Moscow, the black line shows the retreat. Out of an army of 440,000 soldiers who crossed the Nieman, only 10,000 made it back across the Niemen. Dad said that the story goes that the German regiment that Anton was part of kept their discipline and stayed in formation and that is why they made it back when so many others perished.

Colors of the site

Because Blogger.com allows some ability to customize the web site, I thought I'd try to give it colors of the Johnston tartan (ancient)—which is kind of pale blue and pale green checks with thin yellow and black stripes. (Reference the tie I wear whenever I am at an event that requires a tie.)

If anyone has trouble reading the text over the color background, let me know and I can change it.

At this point, everyone in the family has been invited and Emily has joined as an author. Yea, Emily! I am the only "administrator" at this point, but if anyone else wants administrator privledges let me know and I can set it up. Otherwise, you will have "author" priveledges, which I think is basically the ability to post.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Kickoff!

Today is the beginning of the new Schmitz blog. After considering names like Herb's House or FloJo's Folks, I thought Clan Schmitz kind of tied together the two halves of our heritage in a concise way.

I hope everyone will find an opportunity to post here once in awhile. When thinking about this site, I imagine that there would be some family updates, some news of events, some family history, and other interesting tidbits. I'm new to blogging, but I am hoping to learn very quickly how to upload images and make this into a worthwhile place for our family to visit.

Looking forward to reading any future posts!