I have spent a lot of time tracing my Irish roots (Sweeney, Horan and Brennan). This culminated in a trip to Ireland where we met cousins and saw the old family cottages. Recently, I returned to researching my Gaetz line (my mother’s mother). Wow, there is so much information and so many people sharing their Gaetz family research. If you believe the records, the Gotz family was from Zurich in the 1500s and went to Palatinate, Germany by 1600. The name became Gaetz. Then in 1751 they came to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia along with 2000 “foreign protestants” who left Germany and other parts of Europe. In 1918, my grandmother Florence Gaetz came to the USA with her sister.
When I visited Zurich last summer, I had no idea I was going home 🙂
On ancestry.com there are lots of people sharing their Gaetz family tree. Also, familysearch.org has an extensive number of Gaetz’s. All sources seem consistent which sounds like a good thing. However, I suppose there is also a risk that people are just reinforcing inaccurate data by passing it around. I’ll have to look more carefully at the real sources.
So many questions, so little time.
Martin Goetz (Gaetz) is part of my ancestry, I have family still in Nova Scotia…
My mother visited relatives in Nova Scotia back in the 80’s. I plan to go in the next few years. The name, Martin, occurs four times as a middle name in my Gaetz family tree. It also occurs in the possible Gotz line even farther back in Germany or Zurich.
Can you trace your family back to the 1751 arrival in Nova Scotia?
I’m akin by DNA with a lot Family’s, went 175X from Hessen-Darmstadt Aera, Germany, to Nova Scotia. My Direktline never went to the Northamerica Countrys. One of my “Cousins” from NC means, we are akin over Goetz. Also I now names Bernhard, Conrad, Goetz, Reinhard, Wambold (Pfungstadt/Zwingenberg).
Also I’m akin with many Mennonit’s by DNA, came early from Bern and Zürich to Germany and go later to Pennsylvania. But I never no, that we are Mennonites, so I think they intersect in Germany.
I just came back from Nova Scotia with reasonable validation that my ancestors, Johann Martin Gaetz and his wife, arrived in the Halifax area on the ship, the Pearl, on September 24, 1751. I believe they were part of the settlement in Lunenburg – the “Foreign Protestants” from Palatinate, Germany. They departed from Rotterdam.
I’ll be adding another post with more information from my trip.