The Herald-Zeitung

The entire Sack family couldn’t make it to the reunion Saturday.

That’s probably a good thing, because the club room at Camp Wernecke Estates can’t hold 20,000 people.

The horde known as the Sack family boasts one of the world’s oldest and best-recorded family trees, with some records tracing their German lineage back to the age of Charlemagne.

About 40 limbs of that tree made it to New Braunfels this weekend from five states and two continents.

“It’s really fascinating to think that we all share this common bond,” said Steve Engelking. “Even though many of us have never met, we’re all family.”

Engelking, his wife, Sandra, and their son, Joel, flew from their home near Stuttgart, Germany to attend the first-ever American gathering of the Sack Family Foundation of Germany.

The foundation alone has been in existence for 215 years.

Engelking said its 20,000 people worldwide were just the ones accounted for, and was probably a low estimate.

Everyone in attendance Saturday could in some way trace their lineage back to Simon Heinrich Sack, a wealthy privy counselor to Prussian king Frederick the Great, generally credited as the founder of what has become the massive Sack clan.

The family has spawned people from all walks of life, including some of the original founders of New Braunfels and other cities in central Texas, to former Congressman Bob Eckhardt and actor Rip Torn.

And although their ancestry began in Germany, Engelking has made contact with family members from Dubai to Nicaragua.

“There’s probably not a continent without a Sack in it,” he said.

The group ended up in New Braunfels by chance.

Engelking had stayed in the same inn in Bellville, Texas as New Braunfels residents Charlotte and Charles Hill. The Hills had recognized the family name in the guestbook and contacted Engelking.

After later meeting the Engelkings at the Dove Inn — the dove is a symbol on the Sack family crest — the Hills decided to host a family gathering.

“We just feel like it was meant to be,” said Charlotte Hill.

The rest is literally history, or has at least reawakened one of the world’s longest recorded family histories.

Charles Hill noticed four of five of his German ancestors were recognized on a monument in Landa Park near Founders Oak.

Some of what Engelking estimates to be nearly 4,000 family members in the United States have contacted him.

“And this is the first time in this country we’ve had this sort of meeting,” said Flora Von Roeder, who made the trip from Houston.

Most of those in attendance had never met one another, but nonetheless were all part of the same, very old, very large genealogy.

“You just feel like you’ve known them your whole life.” Hill said.