Timeline

Our family history book by John Schmitz traces the family tree backward from Nicolaus Schmitz (who immigrated in 1867). Everyone of the people who came before Nicolaus on the chart, was born and died in Kell, Germany. I think it is unlikely that we can find out any more information about these ancestors than John Schmitz has been able to turn up. I also think we can assume that for several hundred years before our oldest ancestors, the information would be the same: born, lived, and died in Kell. Still, our family tree does go back as far as the mid-17th century, which is amazing to think about. I decided to create a little timeline that shows the years and some events against the lifespan of our ancestors. (double-click to see image full size)


The lines underneath the names approximate the life of the people named. A bar at either end means that their birthdate or date of death was recorded. An arrow means that it is unknown. It seems that from looking at this information we can see that if you lived to adulthood, you had a decent chance of living to old age. I think infant mortality had a lot to do with the low lifespan that pre-modern people were accorded.

The most common last names in our German family tree seems to be Meurer, Siebert/z, and Schmitz. The most common boys names are Peter, Johann, and Anton. The most common girls names are Anna, Maria, and Margaretha.