Thirty-five to forty years ago, I was blessed to be the recipient of volumes of information about descendants of Immigrant Michael Frantz. I received very little information regarding Immigrant Christian Frantz, brother of Michael. After publication of Frantz Families–Kith & Kin (1996), I traveled to reunions with descendants of Immigrant Christian Frantz (Pennsylvania, Virginia and Indiana). I begged for information about their ancestry, and their families. It seemed they enjoyed fellowship (on a pleasure boat on Lake Wawasee) and lacked interest in documentation.
Here I am, decades later, compiling that branch of the tree via the information on Ancestry.com. It isn’t easy; the records are sketchy and confusing. I find myself spending one or two days compiling a single family “branch.” (Descendants of Michael Frantz–on Ancestry–is almost effortless.) Descendants of Immigrant Christian Frantz is a challenge!! (Maybe an excellent way to keep my brain from lapsing into senility or Alzheimer’s?) Indulge me for a minute: From my keyboard, I travel back to Trotwood, Ohio, and/or Brookville, Ohio, (and neighboring communities) as I enter the localities where Frantz families, and collateral lines, lived and died. I go to Salem, Virginia, where I attended the Garst Family Reunion (2004), and Bridgewater, Virginia, where I did research in the Alexander Mack Library. ~~ At eighty-three, I’m “stuck” at home but able to travel via genealogy; fingers doing the walking


