Tschantzes to share family research stories

The County Line Historical Society of Wayne/Holmes will host a free program at 1 p.m. June 20 at the historic Shreve Presbyterian Church, 343 N. Market St., Shreve.

Special guest speakers will be Ann and Dave Tschantz of Smithville, who will present The Wild and Wacky Adventures of Family Research.

Dave and Ann Tschantz have had many experiences while pursuing their common interest in genealogy. Some highlights of their presentation will include how they discovered Ann’s Revolutionary War ancestor’s house in New York, as well as her grandmother’s family farm near Reedsville, Pennsylvania.

Along the way they discovered Ann has ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Civil War. They also have explored her Amish Mennonite roots and located ancestral graves and homes in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Dave Tschantz has been able to visit battlefields on which Ann’s ancestors fought in Alabama.

The interest in genealogy on Dave Tschantz’s side led to the preservation of his family’s 200-year-old log cabin at Sonnenberg Village in Kidron, where it still stands on the original family farm — now surrounded by other buildings and carefully looked after by the Kidron Community Historical Society. This work led to becoming acquainted with distant relatives who share the family name. The owners of the Schantz Pipe Organ Company in Orrville helped restore the cabin.

Not only have they done genealogical investigations in the United States, but several years ago, they, along with Ron and Joanne Amstutz, visited Dave’s and Ron’s families’ ancestral home area near Bern, Switzerland during a vacation trip. Dave also has been able to confirm a longtime family legend his maternal grandmother was a descendant of original Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, whose romance was the subject of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Courtship of Miles Standish.”

They also have undertaken efforts to preserve family gravestones, overseeing the re-engraving of a number of gravestones that have become illegible over time. Most recently, on a vacation to Germany, Dave Tschantz discovered, right before the trip, that one of his great-grandfathers had been born in Berlin. On the trip Tschantz stayed in a hotel in Berlin right across the street from the site of the hospital where he likely was born.

Two years ago Dave and Ann Tschantz, with the assistance of other Tschantz/Schantz family members, were able to erect gravestones over the graves of his great-great-great-grandparents in Kidron that had been unmarked for many decades.

Ann Tschantz is the daughter of Joe and Evelyn Gresser of Smithville and a graduate of Smithville High School, Ohio State University and Ashland University. She is a retired elementary school teacher from the Green Local School District.

She is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and is an organist at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Sterling. She also plays an organ in the Stocksdale Band and is actively involved in Wayne County Rural Youth, a square dance organization.

Dave Tschantz is the son of Grayden and Nancy Tschantz of Louisville, Ohio and graduated from Louisville High School, Kent State University and the University of Akron School of Law. He works as in-house counsel for Markel Inc., an insurance company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. He is a member of the Kidron Community Historical Society, the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and the Camp Tuscazoar Foundation and also is a board member of Wayne County Rural Youth.

Parking is available across North Market Street from the church.