
Steven Greenwood
Honor Code SignatorySigned 23 Jul 2020 | 8,815 contributions | 1,159 thank-yous | 582 connections
Steven Greenwood is an four-year editor of this wiki site (Greenwood-3667), having joined on 23 Jul 2020. He may appear on social media under his handle Realgar.
Starting in February 2024, he became the Coordinator of the Tanzania Project, which is a subproject of the Global Project. (Need help with this.)
Starting 11 Jan 2023, he is the Team Leader of the Germany Project's Categorization efforts.
From 26 Jan -July 2022, he was the Team Leader of Lower Saxony Team within Germany Project (it has since been restructured).
Greenwood has also worked on other wikis including:
He believes he has a thorough understanding of wiki markup.
Greenwood currently resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and has been making occasional trips to Sauk County, Wisconsin for some first-hand research.
He had 376 connections with 7 degrees as of 30 Jul 2022, 390 as of 16 Aug 2022, 405 as of 26 Aug 2022, 423 as of 13 Sep 2022, 427 as of 16 Oct 2022, and 428 as of 5 Nov 2022 (WikiTree Day). His degrees to QEII decreased by one after making a new connection to the tree through the Pope surname. It was 434 at the beginning of the January 2023 Connect-a-Thon, down from 441 a week earlier. This was likely due to some changing along the Alwin/Raedel line. After the January Thon was over, when Greenwood was actively working on his CC7, that number increased to 455. After the April Connect-A-Thon, it jumped slightly to 458. By October 2023 due to the occasional branch improvement over the year, it has increased to 476. After a Elfmas Wish was granted in early January 2024, the CC7 increased to 512! After making some Wisconsin connections during the January 2024 Connect-A-Thon, it jumped to 527, mostly in the 6th and 7th degree circle. At some point in the year this grew to 533. By Dec 2024, it reached to 550 (!), mostly in the 7th degree. After Connect-A-Thon XIII (January 2025), it rose by 32 to 582, from contributions in the 5th, 6th, and 7th degrees!
His personal category is accessible at Category:Greenwood-3667, which includes his brick wall ancestors and multiple maintenance categories.
His research is predominately focused on his pedigree. The paternal surnames include GREENWOOD, RIBBKE/RIPKE, WIATROK/WIATRICK, SCHIEFELBEIN, MITTLESTADT/MITTELSTEADT/MITTELSTAEDT, KROLL, POST, STOLTE, SCHULZ, GAUSE, MAAHS/MAAS/MAAß, PERLEBERG, MÜLLER, OETZMANN, GLEASH, and KLITZKE. The maternal surnames include SPROLL/SPRAUL/SPROUL, SAUER, and HUBER (clearly more underdeveloped).
The families of paternal origin largely started in Landkreis Uelzen, Hanover, Prussia (now Lower Saxony, Germany) and Pomerania/Posen, Prussia. Both groups emigrated to America and ended up in Sauk County, Wisconsin in the United States, an area apparently with a similar farming capability to that of the Luneberger Heide or the Central European Plain (See projects). His maternal ancestors appear to be confined to southern Germany (Rheinland-Pfalz/Baden-Württemberg) and stayed in Germany until the last generation.
Despite not having direct ancestry through the Milwaukee area, he finds that he is working more on profiles in the area that he lives, as cemeteries are accessible and local geography is better understood after a good decade of residence.
In addition, he is interested in the distribution of KELSNER around the world. Per Forebears, the surname only appears in Germany (100% in North-Rhine Westphalia) and the United States. Overall it appears as a ratio of 1:331,233,388 people (effectively the population of the United States in 2010).[1]
Recent knowledge from Y-DNA results in late 2021 are pointing to a strong paternal origin of Scotland through the father of Leo Greenwood. If said father was an Armstrong, it would be consistent with that of Clan Armstrong's placement overseas. The results state a Haplogroup of R-M269, consistent with Armstrong research, and one match is of the Glasgow surname, which incidentally leads to Glasgow, Scotland through Northern Ireland.
mtDNA matches also appear to point in a Scandinavian direction, but how it gets there is currently unknown. His maternal lines need to be expanded to confirm this connection.
Greenwood is concerned that mental illness in his family lineages plays a big part in his own experiences. There may be an attempt to understand the conditions his ancestors faced and the troubles they endured in their lives. If anything, it would be in the hopes to generate more awareness of mental health in America and end the stigma.
Greenwood has to acknowledge the previous research already performed by Donna Lange (Sauk County and Germany specialist who may have been responsible for much of the ground truth regarding his ancestry and adjacent families to his own that emigrated to America), Eberhard Behnke and Heinrich Porth (German genealogists of the Uelzen area), Heather Abrahamson (genealogist with a strong focus on the families of Sauk County), Kathy Waddell (transcriber of many cemeteries in Sauk County to Interment.net), the late Oscar Sandstrom (gravestone photographer who documented many sites in Sauk County to Find A Grave), and his first cousin twice removed Kathy Janzen nee Ribbke.
The Germans: WikiTree genealogist (and WikiTreer of the Week for Feb 1-7, 2021) Dieter Lewerenz has been incredibly helpful in regards to translating documents and acquiring information from the area of Landkreis Uelzen, Niedersachsen (more below). My ninth cousin once removed and WikiTreer of the Week for June 5-12, 2023 Oliver Stegen has also been integral to unlocking the structure of the Gause family of Bienenbüttel, through his access to long out-of-print books, and was able to break my first brick wall! Later thoughout 2022 and 2023, WikiTreer of the Week for Mar 1-8, 2022 Florian Straub was able to communicate with locals in Rheinland-Pfalz and acquire documents for individuals on my maternal side.
For earlier surname charts, see the Research subpage.
"I've seen this a few times (i.e. Robinson-27225, Langholf-2), and I wanted to recreate one of my own."
There are 2046 total possible ancestors within 10 generations without pedigree collapse. Changes are before and after March 2021 Gause Brick Wall Breakthrough.
Ancestor | # of Possible Ancestors | # of Identified Ancestors | % of Identified Ancestors | # Id'd 2022 | % Id'd 2022 | Birth Year |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Parents | 2 | 2 | 100% | 2 | 100% | |
Grandparents | 4 | 3 | 75% | 3 | 75% | 1927-1944 |
Great-grandparents | 8 | 6 | 75% | 6 | 75% | 1900-1919 |
2nd great-grandparents | 16 | 8-->12 | 50%-->75% | 12 | 75% | 1868-1893 |
3rd great-grandparents | 32 | 12 -->14 | 37.5% --> 43.75% | 14 | 43.75% | 1838-1859 |
4th great-grandparents | 64 | 9 -->13 | 14.1% --> 20.31% | 16 | 25% | 1798-1820 |
5th great-grandparents | 128 | 6 -->10 | 4.68% --> 7.81% | 18 | 14.06% | 1769-1810 |
6th great-grandparents | 256 | 8 | 3.12% | 12 | 4.68% | |
7th great-grandparents | 512 | 8 | 1.56% | 16 | 3.12% | |
8th great-grandparents | 1024 | 13 | 1.27% |
New data available from the Tree App Ahnentafel which actually automatically calculates percentages is available here, as of 3 Mar 2024:
Greenwood is related to the following Wiki Genealogists:
mtDNA results imply a relationship to Declan Thornton (genetic distance 2) and a 1:1 GEDmatch comparison shows a shared segment 7.1 cM on Chr 9. 594 SNPs. 70.038 Pct SNPs are full identical. Total Half-Match segments (HIR) 7.1cM (0.197 Pct). Estimated number of generations to MRCA = 7.5 (approximately a seventh cousin).
mtDNA results imply a relationship to Cindy Cotton (genetic distance 2) however there does not appear to be any considerable shared DNA through a 1:1 GEDmatch comparison.
Y-DNA results and theory to the paternal family of Leo Lane Greenwood led to a possible match with three people via Francis Armstrong Jr (abt 1695 - 1783) though distant:
Using Daniel Armstrong (abt. 1794 - 1864), two people come up for comparison:
Another person with a close connection via a One-to-Many DNA comparison is Scott Luther Byrd, showing 4 shared segments, including largest segment = 22.8 cM. Total Half-Match segments (HIR) 64.4cM (1.795 Pct). Estimated number of generations to MRCA = 3.9. 51.239 Pct of 200997 SNPs are fully identical.
Fellow Uelzen project member Dieter Lewerenz does not immediately appear to be a cousin, but who knows given future connections.
After a connection was made into a different part of the World Tree during the January 2023 Connect-a-Thon, where Greenwood finally made the connection of his paternal line to the Lanes, which led to the Yales, and then the Ives... well let's just say he has a bunch of new notable cousins like Winston Churchill, Burl Ives (5th 2R), and Taylor Swift (10th 2R). Now comes the verification of these lines through genetics. The Armstrong line is still unverified.
In leadership: Of the Presidents of the United States, currently, five of them have been identified as cousins:
Their first ladies:
Their children:
Wisconsin Governors:
Other leaders:
In music:
In acting:
In sports:
In science and technology:
In authorship:
Other notables:
He has convinced a few people he knows to join WikiTree. Most tend to have German and Polish roots and a majority are the first representing their surnames: Some entries have the number of degrees of separation or the relationship noted.
His friend Walker-17311 (Connected as of 15 Jul 2023, 27°) had joined in 2015 before Greenwood had any knowledge of their sign-up.
His friend Beard-5746 (36°) had also joined in December 2020 but it is unclear if it was inspired by Greenwood.
Ongoing recruitment for individuals Brockman (North Carolina), Hurtado (California, Columbia), Fields (Tennessee), and Kuecker (Wisconsin).
Greenwood has a project for Sauk County, Wisconsin, the location where many of his ancestors lived. In June-July 2021, he visited the county to obtain research materials and photographed headstones across five cemeteries:
He is in the process of splitting up the Sauk County page into different villages and townships as he acquires more information.
He also started one for Landkreis Uelzen, Niedersachsen, where many of his ancestors originated, now that a majority of the place name categories for that Landkreis have been created. The concern on WikiTree, however, is that there may be some misunderstanding about the naming of the categories, as categories representing collective municipalities have been shifted to those of either towns or villages, Bevensen in particular.
"Historically, the collective municipalities were larger than the individual municipalities and within those individual municipalities were the villages themselves. This nesting should really be represented within the category structure, from Kreis to collective to individual municipality to village, for example: Niedersachsen [German state] --> Kreis Uelzen [county equivalent] --> Bevensen (or now Bevensen-Ebstorf) [collective municipality] --> Bad Bevensen [municipality] --> Gollern [village]. Those profiles that are unclear on the exact village should go in the higher tier of category. The project hopes to clear up this confusion and/or inconsistency. In the near future, we hope to address the historical changes of this area and create the appropriate categorical structure for that."
Because of his work on this Landkreis, he was chosen to lead the Lower Saxony Team.
A third project is German inventors and discoverers, a space to corral famous German scientists and discoverers with Wikipedia articles into the WikiTree.
Greenwood created the page for Wisconsin scrap sculptor legend Dr. Evermor (25 deg) on 12 Aug 2020 and wrote its biography.
On 17 Sep 2020, Greenwood came across the mysterious German performance artist "Thea Alba", who supposedly could write with all ten fingers at once, with not much background information on her. Yet he figured out who Thea Alba (unconnected) was thanks to a book published in July 2020 on the descendants of Martin Luther.
In December 2020, Greenwood focused on building and formatting profiles of geologists and collectors, such as Thomas A. Greene (21 deg) and Fisk Holbrook Day (21 deg), and profiles of those involved with the Star Wars franchise, to the extent of creating categorization for it. At that time he hoped to have both geologists and Star Wars actors as upcoming weekly themes and connections, the latter did occur (see below).
January and February 2021, he took on additional tasks of assisting personal friends and colleagues with their trees and history (see Friends, family, and colleagues).
He took over Namesakes of United States Counties on 20 Feb 2021 in the hopes to reactivate and complete that project.
For May the Fourth 2021 Connections, Greenwood helped recommend and expand some of the Star Wars profiles he had worked on, including Grant Imahara (27 deg), Peter Mayhew (25 deg) and Christopher Lee (25 deg).
Later May 2021, Greenwood was tasked with helping build Team Prussia on WikiTree, and created the page for Posen, Prussia Team.
From July-August 2021, he transcribed names from A County Named Sauk to assist with Sauk County research.
In October 2021, he participated in his first Source-a-Thon where he sourced 30 profiles. In January 2022, he participated in his first Connect-a-Thon where he tied for 366th place out of 660 participants with 36 points and his first WikiTree Challenge (for Jimmy D. Wales, founder of Wikipedia, 24 deg 15C). In Jimmy's Challenge, he contributed over 80 edits, created profiles for four direct ancestors (Prander-1 which became Normann-61, Levenicht-3, Both-225 and Both-226), one first relative (Levenicht-20), and four additional relatives (Hargrove-1337, Pralow-15, Thielman-38, Lorenzen-412), and claimed ten bounty points for a total of 28 points! Additionally some other non-connected profiles were made in affiliation with the project (Penny-2634, Normann-73, Kimpel-177, Kimpel-178, and Kimpel-179, and Nerdenholtz-1 and Nerdenholtz-2).
January 2022 was also the month when he was (finally!) approved for a One Name Study of the Klitzke family.
From 31 Jan to 7 Feb 2022, Greenwood was featured as the WikiTree Member of the Week.
He participated in a Cemetery Connectors Challenge, having created 11 profiles (22nd out of 55 contributors), though unfortunately was not able to connect them to the tree during the challenge.
The death of Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II director Ivan Reitman OC (29 deg) on 12 Feb 2022 led to a push to have his profile featured on the Main Page, in addition to either other directors and/or producers, or people associated with the Ghostbusters franchise (maybe for Ghostbusters Day on June 8?).
His second WikiTree Challenge to participate in was for Adrienne Wilkinson (Challenge 4: 17 Feb-24 Feb 2022) (22 deg) where he scored 12 points for creating that many nuclear relative profiles, including Kreyling-14, Kreyling-15 and the wife (Bitner-449) and children of Rhodes-4766.
On 4 Mar 2022, the 17th birthday of Wookieepedia, Greenwood started .. something not Star Wars-related: a sequel to the Namesakes Project, Namesakes of Municipalities.
On 16 Mar 2022, he built a biography for wrestler Scott Hall (21 deg) after the profile was opened up. On 24 Mar 2022, he created the profile for computer scientist Stephen Wilhite (unconnected), the creator of the GIF, and on 26 Mar 2022, he created the profile for Foo Fighters drummer Oliver Hawkins (23 deg) and connected him to the world tree.
1 Apr 2022 was the day that the 1950 United States Census was released to the public both for research and for transcribing, to which Greenwood performed both tasks as part of the The WikiTree 1950 Census Indexers Group. You can help transcribe the census here once you search for a county and district.
By 27 Apr 2022, the Ripke Name Study was first available and edited.
On 18 May 2022, he created a profile for living science communicator Bill Nye (20 deg) in preparation for WikiTree's science week. Profile privacy needs to be overridden by Notables Project to be viewable.
For Ghostbusters Week (week of 8 Jun 2022), Greenwood provided the majority of the list of featured connections, with Ivan Reitman being the main focus.
On 30 Jun 2022, Azure set up the Röbbel, Niedersachsen One Place Study for Greenwood.
In early August 2022, he helped set up a document for the WikiTree Day Scavenger Hunt (to be continued in 2023).
On 15 Aug 2022, he created the profile for Wisconsin business owner Ralph Charles Ehlenbach (30 deg) and added to his local German branches.
In early Sept 2022, he placed 10th in contributions to the WikiTree Challenge for Olivia Newton-John (26 deg), having focused heavily on the Ehrenberg family.
On 30 Sept, he contributed to the 7th Annual Source-A-Thon, riding with Team Germany Genies once again! He was only able to contribute 8 sources this year though.
Greenwood also looked to assist with the Mark Hamill (16 deg) Challenge of early Oct 2022. However, many of the profiles were outside of his area of expertise and real-world issues prevented full participation.
On 15 Oct 2022, Greenwood was able to finish up documentation of Sections 6, 7, and 8 (as well as 10) of Saint John's Cemetery.
In January 2023, Greenwood contributed 36 connections during Connect-A-Thon, and made the connection between him and the Great American Bottleneck population, allowing him to finally see the relationships to American cousins (see above).
In early February 2023, he helped contribute to the WikiTree Challenge working in tandem with One Place Studies, particularly in the Monksfield and Vick lines, and recommended the creation of the Shoreditch, Middlesex, England OPS.
In April 2023, for the second Connect-A-Thon of the year, Greenwood contributed 79 profiles alongside Germany Genies, helping his team remain in 3rd place overall and 1st place normalized! This also allowed him to expand the genealogy of his LEGO Master counterpart Dawn.
For May 2023, Greenwood created a weekend-long Star Wars pop-up challenge featuring Christopher Sean (Friel), the voice of Kazuda Xiono in Star Wars: Resistance.
In July 2023, Greenwood contributed ever so slightly to Connect-A-Thon in terms of profile creation (13), however, he was able to attend EIGHT Connect-A-Thon hangouts via Streamyard for the first time, cheering on Team Germany Genies!
In August 2023, he created the profile for Paul Reubens, best known to the world as Pee-wee Herman, in the wake of his death, followed in September 2023 by Steve Harwell, vocalist of Smash Mouth. In October 2023, he created the profile for the late Shawna Leavell Trpcic, Hollywood costumer that worked heavily with Lucasfilm projects in recent years.
In January 2024, Greenwood sought to gather all the German One Name Studies into one place, since categorization was for all One Name Studies, and it could assist Germany Project. Also in January, he once again joined Germany Genies for Connect-A-Thon.
On 24 Sep 2024, he created the profile for the late Dan Jezek, founder of BrickLink, on what would have been the 14th anniversary of his death.
On 27 Sep 2024, the day that Dame Maggie Smith passed away, he mildly restructured the categorization within Films to create the Wizarding World category and nest Harry Potter films within that to account for additional products since released (namely Fantastic Beasts).
On 1 Oct 2024, he created the profile for recently deceased notable Frank Fritz. Ron Lamoreaux connected him to the World Tree through his mother.
On 2 Oct 2024, he created the profile for recently deceased notable Ken Page.
He created the Living Notable profile for Canadian actor Michael Cera on 12 Oct 2024.
On 17 Oct 2024, he created the profile for recently deceased notable Liam James Payne.
On 5 Dec 2024, he created the Living Notable profile for Canadian singer and songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen.
On 30 Dec 2024, cousin bait was successful in getting the attention of a Klitzke cousin (possibly 4th or 5th) who contacted him, and allowed him to find the relationship based on existing profiles here.
On 16 Jan 2025, he created the profile for Milwaukee baseball legend Bob Uecker after his passing, and visited the memorial at Miller Park (aka American Family Field) that night.
He signed up to participate in Connect-A-Thon XIII, held from 17 Jan 2025 to 20 Jan 2025, contributing once again with Team Germany Genies.
On 15 Feb 2025, he received permission to create the profile of his late geoscience department colleague Andrew Parisi who passed away in March 2024.
These are not mine but others in the state that I reside in.
The following Name Studies don't have a Wisconsin category yet, but have profiles in Wisconsin:
My third cousin once removed Jori Lyon gave me my 1000th Thank You on 23 Jan 2024. It was for specifying the burial place for a Mr. "Dutch" Pfaff.
"The COVID-19 pandemic had made me very aware of my mortality. I feel it responsible to state what should occur in the event of my demise. If I pass, my Landkreis Uelzen profiles should be handed over to my tenth cousin Oliver Stegen, my Sauk County, Wisconsin profiles to Ribbke-16, the profiles attached to Kelsner-1 to them and all other profiles to Gazinski-1" -- Greenwood-3667 21:35, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
Acadian heritage connections: Steven is 23 degrees from Beyoncé Knowles, 22 degrees from Jean Béliveau, 22 degrees from Madonna Ciccone, 22 degrees from Rhéal Cormier, 23 degrees from Joseph Drouin, 24 degrees from Jack Kerouac, 21 degrees from Anne Murray, 23 degrees from Matt LeBlanc, 22 degrees from Roméo LeBlanc, 21 degrees from Azilda Marchand, 21 degrees from Marie Travers and 23 degrees from Clarence White on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.
G > Greenwood > Steven Greenwood
Categories: Greenwood-3667 | Clarksville, Tennessee | Austin Peay State University | Milwaukee, Wisconsin | University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee | Wisconsin Research Assistance | Wikipedia Contributors | Neurodivergents | Magnificent Magnolias | Y-DNA Haplogroup R-M269 | German Roots Project Members | German Roots | WikiTree Day Attendees | En | De-1 | Es-1
The England Project sent a request to Co-manage this profile with you -Payne-23632. Please could you action the request or respond to me directly if you have any questions.
Lizzie
edited by Lizzie (Batman) Griffiths
I'm working on a large unconnected branch (several hundred profiles), involving previously active WikiTree'ers Popelek-3 and Birth-4 and everyone in between. Looks like I found an emigrant to Wisconsin from that branch: Johann F Mludek, but no connection yet.
Could you be so kind and look whether you find him in other sources, esp. whether he had a wife and children? Thanks!
So, yes please, by all means look for him as Mlodek as well, even though the spelling is Mludek on his grave pictured at FindAGrave.
edited by Oliver Stegen PhD
Didn’t know you had a relationship to Tanzania as well. On the project page, I substituted a couple of residual instances of copy-paste occurrences of „Ethiopia“ as well as added a link to the Kondoa Cemetery space page which I „manage“ (to be honest, I created it but there isn’t much to manage beyond what I originally posted). At this stage, I‘ll refrain from joining yet another project. However, I‘m listed as the so far only Swahili language volunteer at the Language Volunteers Page List, so once the need arises, people can just give me a shout. You may want to have a look at the sw category; there are a couple of others with Swahili language skills who may be interested in Tanzanian genealogy.
Cheers! Or better: Kwa heri!
edited by Oliver Stegen PhD
Can you give me a link where I could read up on your time in Ngorongoro, preferably with photos?
I can send you a link to my thesis.
See the link to the destination category is red, because it hasn't been created. That link needs to be green.
Many thanks, regards, Margaret, Categorization project.
While I leave your Secret Santa wish to the elves (I am more of an elf-assisting gnome), I still have a present for you: another emigrant from Uelzen to Sauk: Heinrich Wilhelm Schwenkhoff, first of his name on WikiTree, hailing from the new category of Woltersburg, and I was able to connect him to the common tree via the Grosskruegers, already entered by cousin Christian. Merry indeed!
Best genealogical wishes from Germany,
Oliver
Thanks for the congrats :) Btw, our connection shortened to 12 degrees, by lateral movement via Gause - Albers - Ostermann. Many greetings across the Pond!
The Poland Project Coordinators: Skye, Tina & Maggie
Jelena (Eckstädt-2) contacted me concerning place categorization, strongly suggesting the insertion of (Samt-)Gemeinde as a mid-level category between Dorf/Stadt and (Land-)Kreis. I've started an example with my native Samtgemeinde Gellersen: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Gellersen_%28Samtgemeinde%29%2C_Niedersachsen
If Jelena confirms that I understood her correctly, I'll continue with those additional categories in LK Harburg and Lüneburg (and also Uelzen unless you would like to get active in there).
Best wishes for the New Year!!!
Oliver
Looks like a nice closure on 2022 ;-)
I think I found several descendants of your fourth cousin 7 times removed Wilhelm Christoph Heinrich Riggers; they changed the family name to Riggert. I established the link through Johann Heinrich Riggert Senior and Junior and created profiles with links to both ofb.genealogy.net and to FindAGrave. Let me know if these relatives have living descendants in Wisconsin whom you know personally. That would be awesome! :)
Could you have a look if you find Henry Bockelman at a Milwaukee cemetery? He's the son of German immigrants from the Uelzen area and died in Milwaukee in 1936. The source for him at OFB "Uelzen Auswanderer" claims that he's on FindAGrave but I didn't find him there. Thanks!
Oliver
edited by Oliver Stegen PhD
edited by Traci Thiessen
Here's to the next K: Cheers! :)
From your friends at the Appreciation Team:
Congrats on the Super Star Badge!
Best wishes from Germany, Oliver
thanks for your comment .
You are right, there are about 40 Huber in this family book of Oggersheim. And a few Sauer and Saur. Do you have some more detailed information? The family book only goes up to 1814. The later documents can all be found in the town's archives. I have to go there again soon anyway.
Stay healthy Lothar