The idea for this website was born when I started dating Kathi Muhlenbruck and she started talking about her family. My passion is Genealogy and it's very hard to resist. I created this website by piggybacking on my Fritze Family website.

The data is stored in Legacy Family Tree® and can be exported as a GEDCOM file (a format used for exchanging genealogical information) which can then be read like a simple text file. A program was developed using the C++ programming language to transfer the data to a database made up of native files. It was then only another step to create a C++ program that would generate the alphabetical index, the outline style index, the other indices, and the .html files for webpages for each family.

In this case, a "family" is pretty much spouse and partner, with or without children, except that single people who never marry and never have children are also considered "families". The reason for the extension is to provide the ability to show events in the person's life and the ability to show the sources of the various genealogical facts.

Major surnames on these pages include MÜHLENBRUCH (and various other spellings), HOLZE, FREIE, BRÖMMELKAMP, MEYER, DETTMER, PLAGGE, FOCKE, TÜRNAU, DOHRMANN, and TONNE. Also, MARTIN, GARRARD, MILLS, MULVANE, JONES, GOOD, BELT, TENNEY, HIZER, SUTTEN, and WILLIAMS. The tree is by no means complete; additional work is ongoing. Additional names will be added to this list as they are found.

A convenient place to start might be the family of Milo Dean Muhlenbruck and Marjorie Kay Martin

Contact

Comments, corrections, and suggestions are welcome! The website is not available for users to make changes. Please forward discussion of needed additions, corrections and questions via email to:

Donald R Fritze
Cedar Rapids, IA

Privacy in general, and privacy on the internet in particular, is a real concern these days. Showing too much information online can contribute to identity theft or worse.

A census, an index to a birth or death record, burial locations, and obituaries are all fruitful sources for vital statistics and are available to anyone willing to look and perhaps pay a small fee. That doesn't mean the risks should be ignored, however. It is our belief that the risks to children and older individuals outweighs the satisfaction of curiosity by "knowing that stuff."

Because of privacy concerns, birth and baptism dates are not shown on this website for people who are presumed living and under the age of 95. We do have many of those birth dates, however, and will share our source in an appropriate fashion with people who have a legitimate genealogical interest in that knowledge. Inquiries may be sent by email via the Contact link at the top of this page.

There are a few people who are represented in the underlying database and are either not shown in the webpages on this site at all or are shown with very limited information. This can be done using facilities in the Legacy Family Tree program to indicate that information on an individual is confidential. In a couple cases, the existence of the "invisible" people is based on private knowledge which will remain private. In a few other cases, the existence of "someone" without giving particulars is shown by using the word "Private" instead of a name. These people do not have family group sheets of their own.

The GDPR requires transparency in how user data is gathered and used for commercial websites. Almost all of the information contained on these pages is available through public sources which we believe demonstrates consent to gathering it and making it available. We periodically verify that that data is still available for people who are alive and living in the EU. The pages on this website explicitly are made available primarily for genealogical research purposes and no revenue is derived from any function on this website.

This website does not capture any user data from visitors with one exception. If you contact us in some fashion, we retain enough information to reply to you. Genealogical information you provide may become part of the pages on this website if you agree. We do not sell any information nor distribute data beyond the pages here. However, users should know that pages on this website are being actively scanned by search engines. Any request to make information private will be honored. Requests may be sent by email via the Contact link at the top of this page. This website does not create "cookies."

First, links and/or images are not yet available for all source documents and references. Please be patitent; we are working as fast as we can to add more but there's only one of us. More links will become available with each update. Some images will never be available here because of copyrights.

Copyright is a hot topic in the discussions about creating family tree websites, commenting on the origins of the various pictures and document images presented here seems appropriate. Every effort has been made to avoid using downloaded images from pay websites like Ancestry.com, fold3.com, and others so as to avoid copyright infringement. For these websites, it is often difficult to tell which images have copyrights and which do not. In general, as we understand it, simple images of documents or images that are not copyrighted are themselves not copyrighted. However, simple images of material that is not copyrighted and are modified or enhanced in some way are subject to copyright. If copyrighted images have been inadvertantly used, they will be promptly removed at the request of the rightful copyright owner upon presentation of support for the claim.

For many documents, the image link provided through a picture icon ( ) displays a file saved on this website. The file will most often be a JPEG file, but PNG format may be used occasionally. A different icon ( ) is used if the document is a PDF file. Depending on your choice of browser, a PDF viewer plugin may be required to view the document.

A blue internet icon ( ) provides a link to a page on a different website. The other website is free to view. A red internet icon ( ) also provides a link to a page on a different website, but the user may have to sign in to view the page. Membership on the other website will be free. A dollar sign icon ( ) provides a link also provides a link to a page on a different website, but the user will have to sign in to view the page. Membership on the other website involves payment of a fee.

Many other documents are available from Family Search (FamilySearch.org), Castle Garden (CastleGarden.org), the Ellis Island Foundation (EllisIsland.org) and other free websites. Links may also be provided to sites like the website of der Verein f�r Computergenealogie (the Society for Computer Genealogy) (CompGen.de), Find-A-Grave (FindAGrave.com), and various US GenWeb pages (USGenWeb.org) pages. These sites do not have documents per se but rather have database entries with genealogical information we've referenced and that information can be viewed without charge.

Where enhanced Federal census images, in particular, could not be located on a free site (even though they probably exist that way somewhere), the appropriate individual page was printed from the PDF files available at Internet Archives (Archives.org) which were printed from the microfilms available at the Allen County Public Library Genealogical Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana (GenealogyCenter.org). These PDF files are printouts of original microfilm of the original paper pages from the National Archives and Records Administration (Archives.gov) and are in the public domain. The PDF file we created of the individual page was then converted to a jpeg file and cropped and the brightness and/or contrast may have also been adjusted (or not) for readability. This procedure should impute enough creativity so as to avoid copyright problems.

State census images are much more problematic. Most States have microfilmed the paper returns in order to save space. Following the logic above, since census returns are public domain, the microfilm images of them are also public domain. However, images of the films only seem to appear on pay sites where enhancing an image would make the image eligible for copyright. The films do not appear to be available at the Family History Library but are often times available for inter-library loan. Minnesota makes theirs available; Iowa does not. A trip to Iowa will be planned so that we can either get images of the documents or determine how to do so. Minnesota has a long list of restrictions for viewing the images at their facility which simply means images are taken at our local library.

Photographs posted on this site are generally family photographs which have been scanned to jpegs and are either, to the best of our knowledge and belief, not copyrighted, or were published long enough ago that any copyright has expired, or the copyright has become ineffective through lack of enforcement. Again, if images subject to an active copyright have been inadvertantly included, they will be promptly removed at the request of the rightful copyright owner upon presentation of support for the claim. Note that mere assertions of ownership without proof will not be honored.

An alphabetical index is provided which is sorted by surname. Clicking on an underlined name shows the Family Group Page, all the good known details about the family composition and where that information came from, for that union. From there, there are links to the family group pages for the individual's other marriages and to others, Parents and siblings and children, both bloodline and non-bloodline, who are connected in some way to the family tree.

Use your browser's "Find" function to search the Alphabetical Index page.

Clicking on an underlined name in this list shows the same Family Group Page that is found by using the outline index.

The "Outline Index" link will take the user to a decendency outline index starting with the family formed by the most ancient male in the Muhlenbruck bloodline. The outline number follows the d'Aboville system, a common generational indexing system, where the most ancient progenitor in the main (Muhlenbruck) blood line is assigned the number "1." His oldest child is numbered by adding a period and a number, i.e.-"1.1". His second child is numbered by increasing the last node, i.e.-"1.2". A node is added for each generation and the number in a node identifies the birth order in that generation. The similarity to an outline should be apparent.

Clicking on an outine number, like "2.1" (Karl H Mühlenbruch), will skip to the next higher index number at that same level, in this case "2.2" (Caroline Mühlenbruch). The sequential numbering within a node extends across multiple marriages. Note that the name of the spouse (or partner) in the bloodline is not numbered and is shown in italics. Children with a given spouse are shown directly below the spouse and the numbers for her children continue the sequence for that generation.

Multiple marriages are incorporated into the sequence as well, i.e.-if the links are followed, a person may appear twice in the chain, once with each spouse in sequence.

The highest order number, the one before the first period, identifies the bloodline and becomes the number of the most ancient male relative in that bloodline. So number "2." is the number of the most ancient known progenitor in the Mühlenbruch bloodline, Karl Mühlenbruch. His spouse, Caroline Holze is in the next bloodline. The next bloodline ("4.") for Emma Freie references the most ancient known male in that bloodline

The outline is paternal meaning children are listed as numbered individuals under their fathers and sublisted under their mothers. The mothers do appear in the outline under their fathers with an outline number. While multiple husbands in a maternal line are shown, the list of a woman's children sublisted by father is not shown as problems with the programming currently prevent doing this.

There is also a list of people who were discovered in the research who may or might not be related. For want of a better term, these people are referred to here as "orphans." They are listed in the Alphabetical Index with an asterisk (*) in front of their name and are enumerated in this "Orphan List" separately for convenience. If you have information which might help tie these people into the main family tree, please share it by contacting me through the contact form link above. People currently in this list are related to Karl H "Carl" Mühlenbruch, b. 1867, who died in 1937 and is buried in Latimer. The Karl H "Charles" Mühlenbruch, b. 1868, is related and in the Ouline Index. Both have Family Group Pages.

Lastly, there is an index that lists individuals according to location of any event associated with them. Note this means individuals are listed as many times as there are locations for events associated with them. Individuals who moved around a lot may be listed many times.

Selecting the index shows a list of countries. Each country is a link to a list of "States" (or the equivalent subdivision) for that Country. Similarly, each State is a link to a list of "Counties" within that State and each County in that list is a link to a list of cities. On this lowest level list, there is also a list of people. Clicking on a name will display a family group page for that individual's first union.

Note that when only the Country is known, the phrase "(No State)" will appear in the State column. In order to see the list of individuals, you must click on that phrase and then also click on the "(No County)" link on the next page.

The column headings on these pages are backward links. For example, on the page that lists individuals, clicking on the column heading for State returns to the list of States for the Country of the location.

The format of a Family Group Page follows the format for a genealogical Family Group Record. There is a section for the husband (or partner) which shows his name followed by a table with his primary vital events including birth, baptism, death, and burial. This is followed by lines identifying his birth parents and clicking on either of their names shows the Family Group Page for that union, the next previous generation in the patriarchal tree. The next few lines show the marriage events for this family and any other of his spouses. Then, a section is presented which lists facts and events in the person's life. Please forgive the cookbook style sentences; eventually we hope to present alternative sentence forms randomly so the whole thing is easier to read.

When the "Husband" section is concluded there is a section for the wife (or partner) which contains the same information for the other spouse except that the marriage information is not repeated. Clicking either of the parents in the "Wife" section ascends the martriarchal tree.

After the "Wife" section, there is a section for children of the union. Each child is named and his primary vital events are shown. Marriages, spouses, and other facts and events are shown by clicking on the child's name and going to the child's Family Group Page for their first marriage.

The last section on each Family Group Page shows citations for the various sources referenced to compile the genealogical information. Many of these sources were found on Ancestry.com or Family Search. Ancestry.com is a pay site currently owned by The Generations Network, Inc. It contains, perhaps, the largest repository of genealogical information anywhere except the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The FamilySearch.org website is a free site developed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints with close connections to the Family History Library.

Throughout, the user will note the source references as bracketed superscipt numbers following the name and the various events. Clicking on a reference will move the page to show that reference.

Similarly, the user may notice a "picture" icon at the end of an event line following the source references. Clicking on the icon will show the document referenced in the citation.

The user should be skeptical of the accuracy of geographic locations from Germany/Prussia, especially those from the 1800s and before. The author has attempted to use Internet resources such as Wikipedia.de to identify districts, States, and similar political subdivisions accurately, but German geography is more difficult for a foreigner than some other countries. This is especially true because Germany was in flux with feudal lords often exchanging territories and consolidating holdings from the Middle Ages through the mid-1800s. Work will continue from the present backward in time to adjust locations to time specific political accuracy. Simply use caution and please notify us if you believe a location is misstated.