Genealogy is a never-ending puzzle. The Gartner family history project was begun by my father, George W. Gartner, Jr., in about 1980. Dad visited the Mormon Genealogy library in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he discovered a copy of a ships log, showing a Johann George Gartner arriving in Galveston after departing from the German port of Bremmen. With that information, he was able to determine that Johann George Gartner came from the little town of Schney, Germany (near Lichtenfels).
The next big leap in putting together this family tree came when Gary L. Gartner, and his wife Susan took a trip to Germany. They happened upon the town of Schney and actually made a personal connection with Heinz and Ruth Gartner. Heinz explained that we were indeed related, but the connection was 5 or 6 generations back. After Gary and Susan left, Heinz received a call from a local woman (Uschi Franzke) who was conducting genealogy research on her family. She had discovered that her great grandfather was Johann George Gartner, and wondered if Heinz might have any information about him.
In 1997, I took a trip to Germany, and made contact with Heinz (thanks to Gary and Susan's previous trip). Heinz took me on a tour of Schney, and our tour ended up at the home of Uschi Franzke. I had no idea who this woman was, but noticed an immediate family resemblance. As we sat in Uschi's dining room, I began pulling out some of my family photos from my briefcase. Uschi, with great excitement, began pulling out photos from her research. Our photos were the same! We knew then that we had made the link!
This project continues, and with the help of MANY family members, I have now begun this homepage.
I have also incorporated my mothers side of the family (The Allen family) into this project. Much of the work on the Allen tree was done by Belzora Allen, my great-grandmother.
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The Gartner Family of Texas