My interest in family history began shortly after I married, moved to California, and began my own family. I soon learned that my father's parents had recorded considerable records on their families and ancestors, many going back to their emigrant ancestors before the Revolutionary War. In August of 1969, my three children and I joined my parents on a vacation and research trip to Franklin County, Pennsylvania. For the first time I was able to visit the old family homeplaces, and meet several of my father's Cell, Croft, and Wertz cousins. These cousins introduced us to many records on our ancestors that were recorded in Franklin County, and to the very large chart on the Wertz family created by Estelle Ryan Snyder in the 1910 to 1915 years. Estelle and her husband, William Snyder, who then lived in Chicago, had estabished a Wertz
Family Association, mostly for the purpose of trying to prove any possible relationship between any of the American Wertz families and the Field Marshall Paul Wurtz, whose large estate in Europe was then unclaimed. The complete story of their project and its conclusion is on our "Family Wertz" CD. But I'm getting ahead of my story.
Following our 1969 trip to Pennsylvania, many cousins sent me records collected by members of their family, and I began to record and organize them all. Soon I had a considerable collection, and determined that some more permanent way to share these records was needed. Since the Wertz records were already well documented back to the 1500's, writing a book on this family seemed the next logical step. Estelle's chart had names and dates, but few places of residence. I took on the project of checking census records and anything else available in the public domain, adding as much detail as I could find. In 1990, Heritage Books, Inc offered to publish my work, which with two detailed indexes, resulted in a 435 page volume. It included all the Pennsylvania Wertz families for whom I had found records.
Shortly after publication of this book, titled "Wertz, Wirt, Wuertz, etc. Families of Pennsylvania, 1400's to 1990", I began receiving correspondence from many Wertz cousins and others seeking information on their families. Some contributed considerable records on branches of our clan that I had only briefly scanned. Others wondered why I had missed their branch of the family. All contributed corrections and additions that needed to be noted. Thus in January 1991 I began to publish a quarterly Wertz Newsletter. This work has followed me as our family moved from California to Florida to Washington State, and now Colorado. Last year we updated and revised the 1990 Wertz book, indexed the first thirty newsletters, added documents, pictures, journals, and many other records collected over the past ten years, and recorded all of these on the "Family WERTZ" CD now available to all those interested in their Wertz Family History.
A family history is never complete. So the newsletters continue, quarterly. The internet has helped us to locate more and more interested Wertz researchers and family members. And hopefully this web page will help to build these ties, add new cousins to our research clan, and provide a gathering place for all of us to come together, seek some help, and share our knowledge and discoveries.
Carolyn Cell Choppin
