This page contains family trees and pictures.  I have eight great grandparents, of which there is a wealth of information on many of them and only their names are available  on others.  Many of the family trees are password protected. See  a summary. Don Sondergeld's paternal grandmother was a Louis and related to the Knopp family.  Don's maternal grandmother was a Kinsel, nee Sutter.  One of Don's mother's sister married a Burton so that is why you see the Burton genealogy below.  Don's wife Mary was a Towne so there is a large Towne genealogy included below. Mary is also related to the Flagg family.

Most of the material below is genealogical with pictures.  At the end of this page you will find many pictures related to the extensive  traveling done by Don and Mary.

There was a relationship between the Sondergeld and Hagemann families in Germany.  Also, Don's paternal great grandmother was a Hagemann. Also note the relationships between the Knopp Sondergeld Louis and Kinsel  families.

Sondergeld Family:   Martin Sondergeld is the father of the Northern Ohio Sondergeld Family. Martin and his first wife Elizabeth arrived in New York Harbor on May 7, 1855 from Bremen on the "Coriolan".  Extensive data on his descendents, his German roots, and the Hagemann Family is included below. Don's father is Walter, Don's grandfather is Jacob, and Don's great grandfather is Martin.

Martin Sondergeld (5/18/1823-11/26/1884) & Anna Barbara Hagemann (9/1/1834-11/26/1924)   

Jacob Sondergeld (10/31/1867-1/28/1943) & Magdalena Lewis (4/15/1875-10/9/1951)           

Walter Sondergeld (11/10/1901-5/29/1981) & Marie Kinsel (2/2/1901-2/20/1982)                    

Donald Sondergeld (11/13/1930-         ) & Mary Towne (6/11/1934-          )

Did any of Don's German Speaking relatives sing: Mein Hut Der Hat Drei Ecken?

My Grandmother Kinsel taught me a poem about a cat playing in the snow.

Hagemann  Family:   Don Sondergeld first published both a Sondergeld and a Hagemann  genealogy in 1988.  A Katherine Hageman had also done work on the Hagemann genealogy.  The Sondergeld and Hagemann families came from Unterhaun near Bad Hersfeld in Hesse, Germany. Don is descended from his great grandfather Martin Sondergeld and great grandmother Anna Barbara Hagemann, Martin's third wife. Barbara arrived in New York Harbor on the "Elise Mathilda" on 6/9/1862 from Bremen.

Sondergeld Family in Australia:  Martin Sondergeld's brother, John, emigrated to Crows Nest (near Toowoomba) in Queensland, Australia in the same year (1855) that Martin emigrated to Ohio. He sailed from Hamburg on 9/30/1855 on the "Johann Caeser" with his wife and two year old son and arrived at Moreton Bay, Queensland on 2/3/1856.  Neville Sondergeld from Toowoomba, Queensland compiled a genealogy of Neville's great grandfather John, which is included below.  When Don and Mary visited Neville in 1994 we went to Crows Nest which has Sondergeld farmhouses and a Sondergeld Road that are similar to the Sondergeld farmhouses on the Sondergeld Road in Ohio.  Don knew what Charlton Heston felt like at the end of The Planet of the Apes. 

Other Sondergeld Families in the US:  

Louis Family:    Don's  grandfather Jacob Sondergeld's wife was Magdalene Louis Sondergeld.  Greg Knopp's great grandmother was  Magdalene's sister Anna Louis Knopp.  Their father, Johann Louis was born in Mecklenburg, Germany on 11/09/1834. Johann Louis and his father left Germany on 10/20/1852 and arrived in New York on 3/14/1853, a 19 week voyage. Greg has done both a Louis and a Knopp genealogy.  Both genealogies are  included below.

Sutter Family:   Don's mother was Marie Kinsel.  Marie Kinsel's mother was Amelia Sutter.  Mildred Danklefsen Walmsley (whose mother was a Sutter) did a genealogy of the Sutter family.  This has been updated by Jeanette Danklefsen Schwab.  It is included below.  Also there are six Sutter Lutheran Ministers shown.

Kinsel Family:   A Kinsel genealogy is included below. Gottfried Kinsel was born in 1834 in Posen Prussia (now Poznan, Poland) We do not know if he came from somewhere in the province of Posen or from the city of Posen. He came to America on the ship Celestial Empire which arrived in New York from Bremen on July 13, 1872.  He had 10 children.  Don is a grandson of  Henry, the fourth child.  Gottfried's third child was Ottilie.  One of her granddaughters married Arthur Sondergeld, a grandson of Martin Sondergeld  Martin is Don Sondergeld's great grandfather. 

Burton Family:  Don's mother, Marie Kinsel had four brothers and three sisters. Her oldest sister, Agnes Kinsel, married Irven  Burton.   Material on the Burton family is included below.

Towne Family:   A book has been written on the Towne genealogy. A summary has been included.  Mary Towne Sondergeld wrote a letter 5/15/2001  to grandson Ryan Whitney quoting family background on witchcraft from Kenneth Robert's book: "Trending Into Maine". Three of Mary's  ancestors were accused of being witches in Salem, Massachusetts and two were actually hanged. 

The Pulitzer  Prize winning book:  "A Midwife's Tale:  The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary 1785-1812" by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is the diary of Mary Towne Sondergeld's great great great great grandmother.   Patricia L Schmidt's book: Margaret Chase Smith, Beyond Convention contained a quote from Mary Towne Sondergeld's mother Loretta Dillon Towne.

Flagg Family: This family and the Towne family have an interesting connection.  Read about it. Gersham Flagg is buried in the Old Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street in Boston.  Read about that.

EMAIL:  <don@shoreham.net>