Following is a copy of some note regaring my ggg grandfather, Johann Jacob Seitz. If anyone can give any further info or dircetion about how to trace further I would greatly appreciate it. Seitz Family Notes by Freya Alwina Goerner The name Seitz is the diminutive of Siegfried. Seitz, the name of your great, great, great grandfather, does not appear in Wuerttemberg until after the Thirty Year War (1618-1648). The first traces of it are to be found in the Rhine Valley and in upper Bavaria. One of the oldest church bells in Germany (Nuremberg) bears the imprint that it was cast by Seitz. Immediately after the Thirty Year War, during which all archives were destroyed, the name of Schiller, the family from which the poet sprang, appeared in Wuerttemberg, as did that of Seitz, and, later on, the two families were united by marriage. Johann Jacob Seitz, your great, great, great grandfather, was born in 1790, served as a member of the elite corps of King Frederick Wilhelm of Wuerttemberg and saw duty in the Coalition Wars against Napoleon in the capacity of secret courier, in which capacity he covered 65 missions into foreign lands besides many in his own country. The passports showing that he went repeatedly to St. Petersburg, Moscow, Paris, Rome, London, Triest, still are extant. In 1815 his missions took him three times to the Vienna Congress as well as to the headquarters of the commander of the British Army, the Duke of Wellington, to whom he personally delivered a message he had carried between the soles of his boots. At the time, Napoleon no longer trusted the Rheinbund contingent, then fighting with the French in the hope of obtaining the much propagandized freedom and equality. Napoleon, fearing secession of this Rheinbund contingent because of plundering and devastation on the part of the French soldiery instead of fulfillment of the glorious promises, ordered all travelers coming from the south to be carefully searched and examined. The task of Johann Jacob Seitz was to pass through the French lines without discovery of his mission on the part of the enemy. The undertaking was a most dangerous one. However, his linguistic qualifications stood him in good stead, i.e. posing as a French businessman, as described in his passport, he got through safely. All descriptions were fictitious, except only that of his person. The Rheinbund contingent had been separated from the main German forces and the message told how reunion could be effected. Goethe's "Hermann and Dorothea" treats of the return to the fatherland of some of these disillusioned Germans. After the close of the second Coalition War, Johann Jacob Seitz was ordered to proceed to Paris to collect Wuerttemberg's (there was no United Germany then) portion of France's contribution to the war debt. At the time, the Bois de Boulogne, through which he had to make the return trip to Germany, was so infested with robbers that there was little likelihood of bringing the gold coin, the medium in which payment was to be made, safely out of France. Accordingly, Johann Jacob Seitz formed the plan of buying a charcoal cart, disguising himself and the accompanying bank official as charcoal venders, and stowing the case containing the gold under the charcoal. Thus, was the treasure brought safely into Germany. Your kin on the other side of the big pond have in their possession various gifts bestowed on this great, great, great grandfather of yours by royal heads, among them a valuable snuffbox from Alexander I of Russia. Two of the sons of Johann Jacob Seitz excelled in the field of art: one, an art connoisseur, gathered the A.T. Stewart Collection and brought out the steel engravings "Washington and His Generals," "Lady Washington's Reception," etc.-- the other was the architect of several churches in Germany known for their pure Gothic design. * * * * * On page 51 of the large DuPont book published several years ago appears a picture of Frederick Christian Schoenbein, the inventor of gun-cotton. Family records show that he was born in 1798 in Metzingen (Wuerttemberg), the son of a postal secretary, and died professor of the University of Basel (Switzerland). Besides, he invented collodium and discovered the ozone in the air. His great grandfather Martin Schoenbein, born 1662, was a half-brother to Ann Marie Schoenbein, born 1675, who, in 1693 married Adreas Casper, a surgeon in Metzingen, and her grandniece, Wilhelmine Caroline, married, in 1818, Carl Dihm, another great, great, great grandfather of yours, who introduced photography into Wuerttemberg from France. Tante Alwine gave Arlene this information while she was attending the Wood-Ridge High School in the early 1950's. It would be interesting to try to get information about our other forbears. Hedwig D. Ludlam (1962) Note: Pauline Seitz was Hedwig D. Ludlam's grandmother Transcibed by Stuart D. Ludlam on 4 March 1995 File: ALWINA1.DOC.