Abstract of the Family History	Updated: 02/10/1999
The origins of the Gueinzius family are leading to the Lower Lausitz in the area around the cities of Grünberg (Zielona Góra), Forst and Guben. In former times to Brandenburg belonging totally, nowadays the part east of the Neiße river is situated in Poland. In the times of Luther a monk named Weintz was leaving the monastery and was becoming an evangelic preacher.	Homepage of the city Zielona Góra (Polish)
At the 4th of April 1627 the town council of the city of Halle at the Saale river (Saxony-Anhalt) appointed the Magister (master of science) Christian Gueintz for the rector of their grammar school. By this the centre of the family's life changed to the city of Halle where the successors of Christian were becoming councils of the city and Salzgrafen (salt lords).	Something about Christian Gueinzius  Homepage of the city of Halle
The most famous source for our family history is the chronicle of the district of the Saale river (and of course of the city of Halle) by Johann Christoph von Dreyhaupt published in 1750. It contends some descriptions of life of some of the Gueinzius family and the first family tree. It begins in the time of the reformation and has continued until the publishing of the chronicle. In the Dreyhaupt chronicle there are lot of Gueinzius described, - they occupies some public functions. There were two copperplate engravings of members of the family and the coat for arms. It is a lucky chance that the continuation of the family tree not only depends on parish registers, but too by the fact that the Gueinzius have had a feoff of the lords of Mansfeld (Saxony-Anhalt) in front of the gates of Halle. All the times when the feoffee or the feoffor has died the heir has to prove his rights by documents until the field was sold in 1832. Some of the Gueinzius who have lost themselves totally were forced by this circumstances to look for each another until the lost were found. Therefore the documents of the feoff contain valuable information about the relationship which would be impossible to get otherwise. Besides the Dreyhaupt chronicle and the documents of feoff there are existing 10 funeral sermons in the Stolberg collection which mostly contains detailed personnel records. Richard Gueinzius (1875 - 1939) has copied them all and they are kept in the family's archives.	Title page of the Dreyhaupt Chronicle as JPEG file 195 KB The oldest family tree from the Dreyhaupt Chronicle (JPEG file 293 KB)
Moreover Richard Gueinzius has found lots of interesting information in the archives of the cities of Magdeburg, Wolfenbüttel, Merseburg and naturally in city archives of Halle and has taken copies of them. There are kept some testaments out of the 19th century which give an idea about the economical situation of the persons who leaves an inheritance. Besides the pure historical facts there are lots of letters about the personnel experiences of the ancestors in their times. Gotthold Gueinzius (1913 - 1986) summarized the existing material which is hand-written in Sütterlin characters, put it in it's historical context and published it in his typewriter typed handmade book "The Queintz, the History of a Family" (only distributed within the family). To him we own the onomastical findings about the origin of our name too.