These records on the GROPE genealogical tree have a peculiar history:

GUSTAV Karl August GROPE, born march 13th 1881 in Nordhausen/Harz is to be mentioned as the first proven chronicler of our tree (Altenweddingen). He started genealogy research during the 3rd Reich - obviously animated by the need to have descent proofs those times -and continued research until his death. He is a grandcousin of the authors of this homepage. The common ancestor Heinrich WILHELM Johann Andreas GROPE (1817 - 1882), is his grandfather and our great-great-grandfather. Gustav's records are partially very detailed and some spicy remarks illuminate history.

OTTO Robert GROPE, the father of Wolfgang H.T. GROPE, one of the authors of this homepage, also dealt with genealogy, but by curiosity did not proceed beyond the a.m. Heinrich WILHELM Johann Andreas.
OTTO neither knew GUSTAV Karl August nor his records, we assume, because the latter descended from the second wife of Heinrich WILHELM Johann Andreas. According to GUSTAV's letters another wife of his grandfather is supposed to have lived, but he had no idea about her or her descendants, "maybe somewhere in Rhenania". In spite of this supposition being true he was wrong anyway: our great-great-grandfather had 4 (four!!) wifes (one after another), with whom he had (proved up to now) five children!

Other family trees, traceable to the same eras are documented with no gaps, but up to now, cannot be linked to our tree yet. The reason for this hindrance, nearly impossible to overcome is the Thirty Years' War (1618 -1648), wherein nearly all documents, especially in the Magdeburg area being Wallenstein's headquarters some 20 km north west of Altenweddingen, were destroyed. After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Magdeburg county, being completely destroyed and deprived of it's population, was resettled. This is partially documented in archives, but there is a significant lack of details where those people came from. Linking the family trees to a date before 1648 seems very difficult, but not impossible.

In 1995 the authors agreed to continue the family research together. Among ten tested software programs serious flaws were found; the software was unable to handle all first names or more than two wifes, one program crashed because someone had remarried his wife after divorce. Actually, we are using two programs: "PARSON" and "Familienchronik" by Data Becker.

According to German right, data being not at least 100 years old may not be looked up, so for the present listing we sticked to the rules. Within five years our database grew up to contain 1500 related people, of course not all of them called Grope; just any Grope has obviously one non-Grope among his parents.!

For further enquiries regarding family connections or persons born after 1900 please e-mail us. Furnishing us with further data would be highly appreciated. Many thanks to all who furnished us with informations.

Such we can state: dealing with dead persons ties those living together.

Kaarst, Erkrath, Düsseldorf in July 2000

Translation by Helmut Brandt