April 2001  Volume 5   Issue 1
Issued Quarterly

Birthdays Happy Birthday Grandpa Schwenk Gossip/Klatsch (formerly Dies und Das) Two More Kids Bring Total to 85 A Word From Uncle Don Links Midi Music Mini Mall

Birthdays   For Birthday List for Konrad's Kids, click on cake >

It was sometime in the year 1601 in the weaving village of Laichingen near Ulm that our Konrad Schwenk was born. In the early church records which were resumed in 1657 (after the earlier records were destroyed in 1634 resulting from the 30 Year's War), his name usually appeared as Cunrad Schwenckh. And how do we know the year of his birth? Because when he died in 1686, the pastor wrote his age in the death entry in the church books. Here is a photocopy of that document:

And here a translation of that:
The 23rd Feb: died from a stroke, Conrad Schwenk, weaver, the older, and was
 on the following date, St. Matthew, buried with sermon and great ceremony. Age:  85 years"

So here we are a network of his descendants four centuries later all connected to each other by what we call the Internet. And each of us carry a tiny bit of his DNA. Pretty remarkable, huh? Happy Birthday, Grandpa Schwenk!
 
 

Gossip/Klatsch  (formerly Dies und Das) ing up stuff. (Editors' note: The underlined persons are Konrad's Kids.) Gordon Schwenk of Boise is no longer of Boise. On March 26th he moved to Bellevue near Seattle, Washington to be near his fiance Rebecca Green. Their wedding is set for this fall in the Seattle area...World travelors Gudrun Hilsenbeck and fiance Markus Kirsch of Neu-Ulm Germany spent three weeks in Cuba during March. They and her parents, Peter Hilsenbeck and wife Emma, will travel to the Black Hills of South Dakota in June to attend the Schwenk Reunion...Richard Schwenk and wife Caring now of Pasadena, CA retired last year from 40+ years as missionaries in SE Asia, most of those years in the Philippines. In recent years, they began assisting a primitive community in an area north of Manila with basic infrastructures such as a water delivery system and more sanitary latrines. In late February last, they flew to Manila to continue those projects. Here is an excerpt of an email sent  to his sons on  March 13th: We build a spring box connected about 250 yards of pipe to a cement storage tank.  I also built the first low water sealed toilet in the village of 48 Aeta families. Hope they have less disease now. Very stiff from the hurried 3 hour hike back to Sta. Juliana and then the 4 hour drive back to Manila, arriving at midnight.  ...His sister, JoAnn Schwenk Carlson of White Bear Lake, MN enjoyed the warmth of Florida in March...Her poor cousin Don Schwenk simply stayed home and endured the snowstorms and frigid temperatures of South Central Idaho...Milton Schwenk and wife Joann of Yakima, WA spent most of the winter in So. California and in Arizona near Phoenix. And they are still there golfing and soaking up the sun as we go to press!... Their son Kyle Schwenk and wife Beth of Seaside, Oregon are about to move into their new home in Seaside. A dense forest lies behind the house, and a view of the ocean is seen through their front windows... Charleen Laur Soos and husband Robert of Niagara Falls, NY own a second home in So. Florida where they spent a lot of time this past winter. What a life all these people lead!...The end of March, Rodney Schwenk, a carpet layer of Boise, Idaho, installed carpet free-of-charge in his father Don's newly converted bakery-to-bedroom guest bedroom in Bellevue, ID. What a guy! Rodney was accompanied by his wife Jacki and son Austin, age 6 months. What a guy!...Tyrone Schwenk assisted his father in the conversion of that since-1992-defunct bakery...Karlheinz Schoenfeld and wife Lore of Wappingers Falls, NY are coming to the Schwenk Reunion. But they won't be alone. Daughters Andrea, Ellen and Karen will be joining them as well as Karlheinz' brother Rudi and his wife Rita all the way from Leutkirch, Germany...Beate Schwenk Benz of the Isle of Corsica corresponds via email with her 2nd Cousin Lois Zimmerman Young of Bloomington, Illinois though they have never met. Their great-grandfather was Johann Jakob Schwenk born 1829 in Münsingen, a small city just west of Laichingen. And like most of us, it was the Internet which brought them together...Dieter Rehse and wife Irene Röcker Rehse of Laichingen (both descendants of our Konrad - 5th cousins) are traveling to Idaho in early May where they will be guests of Don Schwenk. They were likewise hosts to Don last June in their home. This will be a first-time visit to America...Jim Schwenk and wife Mary of Central Wisconsin spent some pleasant time during February and March in sunny Sunnyvale, CA playing with their three grandchildren, whose parents are Kathy Schwenk Axtell and David Axtell. Jim and Mary babysat the two smaller ones while the parents and older child vacationed in jolly old England. During this visit, Jim and Mary got together with their son David Schwenk  and his wife Karen of nearby San Francisco. David offered a great idea in an email in early January. "It reminds me that it might be a good idea to have a computer and a scanner set up at the reunion this summer. Have everyone bring old photographs that we can scan in and make ready for the digital age. Perhaps Jim Schwenk can bring that fabulous Agfa Scanner of his, I will bring the PowerBook, and a heck of a lot of extra storage!"...Peter Hayes near Albany, NY wrote in January, "Martha, Peter, Andrew, and Laura Hayes visited Martha's brother Augi in Cologne Germany over the holidays. It was nice to see a German Christmas, but not so nice to feel the cold damp wind of the Rhine valley. The Christmas Mass in the Cathedral was particularly impressive. Also enjoyed touring the Roman ruins."...Michael Schwenk and wife Maike of near Stuttgart  vacationed for 8 days on the Isle of Mallorca in the Mediterreanen near the end of March - that according to his father Heinrich Schwenk of Laichingen... Now one more promo for the reunion: We are counting on each of you to inform your non-computer Schwenk kin of this upcoming reunion of Konrad's descendants! The Black Hills is a spectacular part of America to see, to experience. Spend a week or so there, and two days of that vacation time meeting and mingling with your blood kin. Click here for a really great map of the region..And also, don't forget to send us news pertaining to what is going on in your lives...See you next time.

Two More Kids Bring Total to 85

Since the last newsletter, two more online descendants of our Konrad have come to the attention of your editors. Here they are in the order of their discovery. Welcome aboard!

Ed Rapp of Whitsett, NC, was born in 1920 in Cleveland, Ohio. He is # 84. We did not know of his existence until a few weeks ago. See the accompanying article below.

Floyd Pope of Niagara Falls, NY, and born there in 1962, is the son of Shirley Mack Pope who joined our "Klub" only a few months ago. He descends from Konrad though many generations of the Schwenkbeck line. Floyd recently came online. Here is the descent tree of his mother.

To both of you, welcome to the Klub!
 
 

Now and the an email arrives from someone who has visited my Website and informs me he or she has Schwenk ancestry. Are we related, they usually ask. Only once in a blue moon does it turn out that we are blood kin. But far less often the person tells me he/she has Schwenk ancestry in Laichingen or Feldstetten. When that happens, my ears really perk up. And that was the case on March 17th last when  I got email from an Ed Rapp of North Carolina. He said his great-grandmother was Anna Maria Schwenk of Laichingen who had married his Johann Georg Rapp in next door Feldstetten in 1851. They then emigrated to America a few years later. Are we related was the paraphrased question he asked at the bottom of this email. I replied and said I would lay odds we are, and further that I would soon go to the local LDS Family History Library and see where Anna Maria's Schwenk ancestry might lead. I told him that in the 1600 and 1700s, about every tenth person in Laichingen carried this family name, that there were several Schwenk clans there, but that the chance was pretty good that Anna's ancestry would lead back to my Konrad b. 1601. A few days later, two hours of pleasureable time studying the microfilmed church records of Laichingen proved my hunch correct. As it turned out, Anna's father Johannes Schwenk, b. 1777 was already in my database, my tree, though I did not know this until I returned home.

Here is Ed Rapp's family tree showing his descent from our Konrad Schwenk.

And while I have your attention, here is another interesting anecdote I discovered a few days later after he mailed me documents on his Rapp ancestry. His great-grandfather Rapp mentioned above was born to F. Michael Rapp and Dorothea Hezler. She was  b. 1792 in Feldstetten. When I saw her family name, I said to myself, "I'll bet that her father was Jacob Hezler, the brewer and innkeeper in Feldstetten who married my gggg-grandmother Anna Ursula Ostertag Schwenk in 1781, the widow of my Conrad Schwenk b. 1702 and then died in childbirth there in 1789." Bingo! Dorothea, her siblings and her father and mother were already in my database.

But here is what I found so interesting. When Conrad Schwenk b. 1702 died in 1775, he left behind little Conrad, born two years earlier. Then his widow Anna Ursula married a local brewer and innkeeper Jacob Hilsenbeck who died a few years later. Her third marriage was to Jacob Hezler. Little Conrad (my ggg-grandfather) must have been traumatized, not knowing what to think about these changing step-fathers. But he did grow up in the household of Jacob Hezler who taught him the skills of brewing and running an inn. And so until 1797 when he left home for Mundingen at the age of 24, little Conrad lived with his step-sister, Dorothea Hezler, the girl who would become Ed Rapp's gg-grandmother. Click here for a tree which will illustrate these relationships.

Links
 http://www.fontfiles.com/ Fonts are fun. Here you can download a great variety of them, many of which are free.
 http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=donschwenk This is Don Schwenk's online family tree. More than 11,000 individuals appear in this tree, including, of course, all of Konrad's Kids. All the names are linked to their parents, and descendants - if any. We think you will find this very interesting and informative.

 http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=laur1 This is Charleen Laur Soos' online family tree. It contains more than 17,000 individuals. It works the same as explained above.

http://www.terraserver.com/  Here you can find topographic maps and aerial photographs of places in the US. Check it out. Very interesting!
 http://www.kbb.com/  This is Kelly Blue Book's Website. Here you can check on the retail and wholesale value of your car.
http://www.laichingen.de/ This is Laichingen's official homepage. Check out what's happening in our "cradle community." In the German language, naturally.

http://www.infospace.com/  Here you can locate phone numbers and addresses of people in many countries of the world.
http://www.thumbsplus.com/ will take you to the homepage of ThumbsPlus (Cerious Software, Inc). ThumbsPlus is a remarkable image viewer and organizer program.
http://www.paintshoppro.com/ - This is where you can download as shareware an excellent image editing program.
 
 

Midi Music Mini Mall

Some Webpages contain hidden imbedded links to midi files. That is, soon after you open the page, music begins to play which is usually entertaining, but the visitor has no control over this. Here, we will give you the freedom of choice. If you choose, simply click on the links and adjust the volume according to your preferences. A tip: If a large window opens containing the midi file, simply minimize it so as to allow the continued reading of the newsletter while the music plays in the background. If that doesn't work, right click (Windows users) on the link, then select Open in New Window.
 

Email to Don

Email to Jim

Note to AOL users: If upon clicking those email links above you find the symbols %20 in front of the address, simply delete those symbols.