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I know of just 4 Maldonis family members plus my grandmother who died before my birth. They reside, or did, five years ago, in the Beloit, Wis., area. My grandfather Matas (Dominikus), my father, Raymond Dominikus, my father's only brother, Peter Paul, and my first cousin, Phil, are all deceased, leaving me and my son, Timothy Paul, my wife, Carol Ann and my daughter, Carol Marie, the only people left with our MATAS name. Dr. James Vasilos is a first cousin, he is the administrator of a mental health facility in Hot Springs, Ark. My remaining aunt married a Grusunka (?), Frank, from near Green Bay, Wis., and had 17 children, all of whom I have lost track of, some of whom I have never met.
I can trace my mother's mother's family REITZ back to 1726, two generations before Johannes Reitz II fought with and then against Napolean, helping defeat him at the battle of Waterloo. My Mother's father's family SCHMIDT, can be traced back equally as far -- along with other family names such as Seibel, Loehr, Waldschmidt, Krug, Wagner, Schwartz, Immel . . . . to a village of 500 to 800 people in Bavaria, known as Kleingladenbach, where in 1982 the mayor, Adolf Reitz, was a descendent of Johannes "Ludwig" Reitz III, the brother of my great-grandfather.
I have 80 pages of names of Reitz relatives as Johonnes Reitz II had five sons who came to Fond du Lac, Wis. One had no children in America but the other four had 33 between them, starting about the time of the American Civil War. I just heard from a gal in Washington who is descended from Johann Jacob Reitz. Jacob had 12 children and his oldest child had 15 and she is down that line. The branch went to Washington and the West Coast. One to Nebraska, left his wife and child to search for gold in Colorado and was killed out there. His cousins live in Abilene, Kan. Ministers and missionaries in the family spread members out but for the most part the family remains within 100 miles of Fond du Lac, Wis. The Schmidt family is nearly as big and its story is parallel. The Reitz, Schmidt, Seibel, Meyer and Loehr families seemed to be mixed in Germany and numerous members of each family came to FDL and continued to mix there. There is also Petri, Dilling, Pfeiffer, Vetter and other names such as Hinn mixed in generously.
The lost of 80 pages of names was created in the 1960s, updated in the 1970s and 1980s and I am trying to update it again.
One problem is that people like yours truly, born around WWII who reached adulthood in time for the 1960s, 70's and 80's version of our family tree are now, in some cases, great grand parents themselves. The masses of Reitz and Schmidt family members would preclude gathering them in one spot.
In contrast, my grandfather Matas came from Lithuania with his wife's relatives, the Maldonis family. Grandtather had two boys and two girls and just two male Matas family members remain. However, I have fouind Carol Matas, an author in Winnepeg, Canada, with ties to Denmark, a Dr. Rudolf Matas, the father of vascular surgery and a couple companies name after a person with the Matas name.
The nationality mixture is vastly contrasted also.
The German Reitz and Schmidt people basically married other Germans and within their own religion. They were divided among Lutherans, Catholics and a few Methodists or reformed people.
My Lithuanian Matas family consisted of my father, who married a German, his brother who married a Norwegian, his younger sister who married a man from Greece and his older sister who married a Polish man. I am half German and half Lithuania. Dr. Vasilos is half Greek. The Norwegian is deceased. The remaining 17 and their descendents started out as half Lithuanian and half Polish. Incidentally, my grandfather came from a part of Lithuania close enough to the Polish border or to Poland that he did speak Polish as well as his native language.
I would be most interested in finding family members.
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