Michael Schauffele, A Schauffele Researcher And Co-Administrator Of The Shively/Schauffele Family Tree DNA Project

The Shively DNA project has grown and had success with many DNA matches. Earlier this year Michael Schauffele agreed to become co-administrator of the project. The project considers itself very lucky to have Michael's participation and interest in genealogy and also his knowledge of German history and the historical records.  This is especially important because his Schauffele DNA matched others in the project who had the surname Americanized to Shively.  Michael has written the following article as a means of introducing himself to the Shively researchers.

News from the Schauffele - Schaufele – Schaufelin - Scheifelin - Scheifele – Shively (and more) Branch of the Shively Family Name Project at Family Tree DNA.  

                    By co-administrator Michael Schauffele, Visalia, California.

As this is the first time that I am contributing to the admiring work of the main administrator Larry Wayne Shively which he is doing for all members of the Shively Name Project, I think that it makes sense to introduce myself to the members of the project.

I am Michael Schauffele, born 1942 in the city of Stuttgart, Germany. During my time as a student in the 1960-ies on the University of Stuttgart Germany I started with genealogical researches on my ancestry about 50 years ago, when it was still possible to visit local priest’s offices to retrieve personal data from ancestors out of the original church books!

At this time, beside special literature about families of celebrities, nothing existed what could support quick findings about ones ancestors as it is possible today through the Internet and websites like ancestry.com.

To study those records it was even necessary being able to read the old German writings like “Sütterlin”.

If someone is interested to learn how this writing looks, he should just look up the following link: https://www.google.com/search?q=s%C3%BCtterlin+schrift&biw=1536&bih=854&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0CDcQsARqFQoTCK_R4Zq0yscCFck4iAodE8EDHw

I was so fortunate having learned this writing from my parents and that I took time to practice it more or less as a hobby during my time on high school.

However some of the priests from centuries ago practiced their writing in a way which made it very complicated and time-consuming to understand the records. Their language was also sometimes different to the today’s common language.

Sometimes it was even necessary to lay a sheet of parchment paper over the original document to copy the records letter by letter to separate the text of your interest from the overlapping of the writing between two and sometimes three lines!

By the end of 1970 the records of the data of my personal ancestors consisted in about 900 persons including about 400 records of ancestors from my mother’s side which I could get from an uncle!

With the researches of my direct fatherly line I run into my “Brick Wall” with the data of my forefather of 11 Generations back in history with the name Hans Scheifelin, who I called “the elder” born about 1580 in a town in Germany which I was reading in the records of his son’s Hans Scheifelin “the younger” wedding on September 20, 1642 in Cannstatt, Dukedom of Württemberg, as “Ginz”. 

After graduating from the University of Stuttgart as a structural and civil engineer I had to take care of my business career and therefore I couldn’t spend time for more intensive genealogical researches.

2003 at the age of 58 and 61 my wife and I moved for good from Germany to California.

During 2007 and 2008 I started to register personal data of my ancestors on ancestry.com. Short after that I was contacted by Larry Wayne Shively who informed me about the existing family name project Shively on Family Tree DNA.

Larry told me that the name Shively was, for easier pronunciation, an Americanized form of German names Schauffele, Scheifele and the like. There was even a Michael Schauffele among the ancestors of some members of the Shively project.

In 2013 Larry could finally convince me to join his project and I signed in with Family Tree DNA, ordered my test kit and turned in my Y-DNA test. The result was a surprise! I found a 100% Y-DNA12 match with Daniel II Shively from Texas. And sometimes later this match was confirmed by a match with Daniel’s 1^st grade cousin Mike Shively from Ohio.

Until then the two cousins Daniel II and Mike Shively knew only the name and data of their great grandfather Leonhard Anton Scheiffele/Shively, born 7. Feb.1843 in Steinenkirch, Kingdom of Württemberg, Germany, who emigrated 1867 together with a brother from Germany to the United States, married Mary Horn and died in Youngstown, Ohio, USA on 19. May 1910.

A professional genealogist from Germany traced the ancestors of Leonhard Anton Scheiffele/Shively for 11 more generations back to Hans Scheiffelin born about 1500 most likely in the town Gingen upon the river Fils then still Dukedom of Württemberg, Germany.

These findings were very exciting news for myself because after a half century since I run into my “Brick Wall” I could realize that I was wrongfully reading the name of the town of origin of my ancestor Hans Scheifelin “the elder” as “Ginz” instead of “Gingen”!

Equipped with this information I traveled to Germany in summer 2014 convinced to be able to find more data in the archives in Germany. I also traveled to the town of Gingen searching for possible descendants of my forefathers from there.

I found and visited Horst Scheifele in Gingen and could win him for the Y-DNA 25 test. Some days ago I received the result: It was a perfect match with my own Y- DNA!

This result confirms that my match with Daniel II Shively from Texas and Michael Shively from Ohio is a fact.

Horst Scheifele will soon join the Shively project.

The Schauffele - Schaufele – Schaufelin - Scheifelin - Scheifele – Shively (and more) Branch within the Shively family name project is growing. I am staying in contact with many close and far relatives in Germany, Switzerland, USA, Argentina, Chile and Australia.

I think that everybody who is interested to learn more about his ancestors will be inspired by the results of this findings and how they came together as a combination of researches in documents, archives and testing the Y-DNA.

Therefore I want to ask everybody with a family name of this name group to make the Y – DNA test and to join the Shively family project. I also ask everybody who knows about living males among his relatives with such a family name or the like to try to win them for the test.

Our great goal is to find as many as possible lines tracing back to a common forefather with whom our name began.

On the other hand I have to report that the permanently growing Y-DNA database contains a lot of zero distance matches to the Y-DNA of our name group but with completely different names and even more interesting in many other countries like in Scandinavia, all over the European main continent and on the British Islands.

This is the reason why I also joined other projects in Family Tree DNA like the German and the Viking project!

Over one thousand years ago young Viking warriors, the younger sons who inherited nothing from their fathers, spread out over northern and central Europe and even into the Ukraine seeking for women and for opportunities to settle. It is quite possible that our male ancestors are descendants of these adventurers!

I hope I could win your attention for exciting themes. I have the intention to report from time to time on our project’s website about new findings in the name branch mentioned above and other interesting news.

For everybody in our project who is interested in serious and reliable researches for ancestors in Germany I can recommend the professional genealogist with which I am working together. He is a far relative on my mother’s side and he is actually the president of the German Association of professional genealogist. Depending on the goal of the customer such researches take time and cost money but sometimes it can be less than you think because those professionals have access to documents and data which they and colleagues have already researched for other customers.

If someone is interested I can forward his description of desired researches. He will get an estimate and probably already an answer regarding the chances of possible findings.

Thank you for being a member of the Shively family project!

Sincerely yours!

Michael Schauffele