The family tree of brothers Neil and Alan Pritz presented on this website is a work in progress. There may be future updates depending on the availability of time and other resources and possible input from distant cousins. The tree assembled and presented here is for Neil and Alan's father's side - that is, the ancestors of their father Benjamin Lionel Pritz (1920 - 2010). Not only are paternal lineal ancestors of Neil and Alan recorded in this tree but many members of collateral branches of these ancestors are also recorded. These other descendants being for the most part distant cousins of Neil and Alan. While a number of close cousins from these common ancestors, that is "first" and "second" cousins, are included, the range of distant cousins in this tree includes 3rd and 4th cousins to Neil and Alan. The main documented ancestral lines or surnames in this tree are Britz/Pritz, Heineman, Butzel/Putzel, and Stix from which these cousins branch. Other distant cousins may someday be found who are descendants on ancestral lines not yet explored or documented in depth, such as Kirschbaum, Lowman, Werner, Troy, and others. Thus the tree presented in this website consists essentially of several interlocking, or overlapping, descendant trees of the following ancestors:
Additionally, included is the descendant tree of Koschman Hajmann (Heimann) (b. 1735) and "Frau" Hintel (b. 1737) . One branch of this descendant tree, that of Fanny Pritz (1845 - 1901) and her husband Jacob "Der Weiss" (The White) Heimann (1840 - 1927) are related, that is, they are aunt and uncle of Neil and Alan Pritz, and their children are cousins. Fanny was an older sister of Neil and Alan's great grandfather Benjamin Pritz (1853 - 1909), thus she is Neil and Alan's great grandaunt. And so her husband Jacob Heimann is their great granduncle (by marriage). Since Neil and Alan do not have any Heiman ancestors (lineal ancestors), the rest of the Heiman tree members not on Fanny Pritz Heimann's branch would be the proverbial "cousins of cousins" to Neil and Alan. A look at the Surnames List shows the number of people in the tree with the top thirty surnames. All of Neil and Alan's ancestry is Jewish. The greater number of Neil and Alan's paternal ancestors came from the from the Jewish community in the neighboring small towns of Demmelsdorf and Scheßlitz in the state of Bavaria. And the rest from other locations in Germany, such as from the state of Baden-Württemberg. The location in the USA with the greatest number of people in the tree (birth or death locations) is Cincinnati, Ohio with many Pritz and Stix. Detroit, Michigan also has a large number of people in this tree, especially Butzel/Putzel. And New York, New York, has quite a few people in this tree. The principal sources for information on the people in the tree were the plethora of genealogy notes and papers, charts, booklets, histories, and photos that Benjamin L. Pritz had collected over the years. Sons Neil and Alan are now the "curators" if you will of this collection. Two distinct parts of this collection are identified as separate sources in the tree data:
The rest of the collection, being difficult to categorize, is given as the source entitled "Pritz genealogical collection of Benjamin Lionel Pritz: Miscellaneous historical and genealogical papers and charts concerning Pritz, Heineman, Butzel, Lowman, and Stix families". The most unique, and likely the oldest, source for information on people in the tree is entitled "The Jacob Heimann Family Collection". This is a small collection of hand-written German documents from the 19th Century in Demmelsdorf that resides at the Internet Archive and has been digitized. A copy exists for viewing and download on this website. The documents contain the names and dates in marriage agreements and various contracts of Wolf Hirsch Britz (Pritz) and Karolina Golda Kirschbaum, Fanny Britz and Jacob Heimann, and children. Included is the signature of Wolf Hirsch Britz. |
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