Life was Fragile in 18th Century Tann

 Life in Hessen in the 18th century was hard for the common people. The healthcare that we take for granted was unknown and people did not understand the effect of unsanitary conditions on their health. As I was transcribing the death records from Tann, the circumstances of one individual seemed to epitomize the difficulties faced by every family in Tann. This is her story:

Anna Christina Vockerod was born in Tann and baptized in the Lutheran Church on 21 January 1703.

When Anna Christina was 23 years of age, she was married to Henrich Bold, who was 7 years her senior. 

Marriage record of Henrich Bold and Anna Christina Vockerod

In due course, they had two sons born to them: Johannes, born on 29 April 1727 and died 6 days later; and Johann Andreas, born on 5 April 1728 and died 27 days later. Her husband, Henrich Bold, died later that same year, on 15 October 1728, at age 32, leaving Anna Christina bereft — a widow at age 25 after just 2 years of marriage.

Two years later, on 10 January 1731, Anna Christina married Johann George Knebel, who was just 7 days her senior. Their births are recorded consecutively. on this page.

Birth records of Johann George Knebel and Anna Christina Vockerod

Marriage Record of Johann Georg Knebel and Anna Christina, widow of Henrich Bold

Together, she and George also had 2 children, Anna Martha, born 26 October 1731 and Johann Tobias, born 18 July 1734.

[Sidebar: Her daughter from this second marriage, Anna Martha Knebell, married Johann David Hoßfeld and had 3 children. One son, Johann Tobias Hoßfeld, married my 4th great-aunt, Anna Dorothea Rödiger (daughter of my 4th great-grandparents, Johann Adam Rödiger and Barbara Elisabetha Bettenhausen). So, this is how I became aware of Anna Christina Vockerod’s story.]

But, Anna Christina Knebell and her second family suffered another series of deaths that typifies the difficult living conditions of 18th century Hessen: On 30 December 1760, Anna Christina died at age 57.

Death Record of Anna Christina Bold-Knebel, neé Vockerod

Three weeks later, on 20 January 1761, her second husband, Johann George Knebell died.

Death record of Johann George Knebel (aka Knöbel)

Four days after that, on 24 January, their son, Johann Tobias died, age 26.

Death record of Johann Tobias Knebel (aka Knöbel)

Three weeks after her brother’s death, on 17 February, Anna Martha, age 29, was also struck down, leaving her husband with two children, ages 4 years old, and 11 months old.

Death record of Anna Martha Hoßfeld, neé Knebel

To put all of this into perspective, Anna Christina lost her first husband and both of their children within 2 years and 4 months of their marriage. Her second husband, and their two children all died less than a month and a half after her own death. And within that 45 day period, 27 other residents of the tiny villages of Tann and Rohrbach also died.

In the church records, there is no mention of the nature of their deaths, nor is there any expression of surprise at the closeness of the times of their deaths to one another. Death was a familiar face in Tann, often the result of disease which could run rampant through a family or even through a village.

As the life of Anna Christina Vockerod illustrates, our ancestors in Hessen often fought a losing battle when it came to raising families. Death by disease ate away at every family. Hopefully, this peek into one woman’s family has given you an idea of the circumstances faced by our 18th century ancestors.

--Stephen

Recap of Research from 2020-2022, pt.2

Headline: A Dis-Entanglement Project Leads to New Discoveries!

I have often referred to a dear fellow collaborator, Regina Hiller, as my Genealogy Angel. She is a fountain of knowledge and always willing to answer all my questions, help transcribe the illegible scribbles of the Church records and make comments on people in my Ancestry.com tree when she finds a birth, marriage or death record that I do not have.

A week ago, Regina made a comment on a fellow by the name of Johann Conrad Möller, a resident of Niederthalhausen, where the Eichenauers also lived and worshiped for generations. Her comment was, “probably identical with Hanß Curth Möller”. This led me to look for the Hanß Curth Möller in Niederthalhausen that she was referring to.

I discovered, to my immediate dismay, that I had 3 gentlemen named either Hanß Curth (old form) or Johann Conrad (new form) in Niederthalhausen who married within just a few years of each other (in the 1740s), and I had several more that had been included in my tree because they were mentioned as the father of a particular child when he or she was either baptized or married that could have been one of these three men.

I do not like loose ends, especially when it means that I have multiple instances of the same person appearing separately in my tree. So, I set about the task of straightening it all out. It took me an entire week, about 100 file cards, the perusal of two Church books covering 150 years and a lot of deduction. But in the end, my tree is all the better for it.

To be quite honest, not a single one of these Johann/Hanß Conrad/Curth Möllers is a blood relative. All this is background for the real story:

We do have a Hanß Curth Möller from Niederthalhausen in our family linage. He is my 7th great-grandfather. He did not originally become involved in the Dis-entanglement Project, because he was clearly from an earlier generation. You may be able to figure out your relationship with him from the following:

Hanß Curth Möller was the father of Anna Catharina Möller, who was the mother of Johann Michael Mürer, who was the father of Anna Christina Mürer, who was the mother of Johann Konrad Eichenauer, who was the father of Anna Margretha Eichenauer (wife of Johann Tobias Rödiger) and of Johann Friedrich Eichenauer (husband of Anna Katharina Rödiger).

So if you are an Ohio Roediger, you are descended from Anna Margaretha Eichenauer, and if you are an Ohio Eichenauer, you are descended from her brother, Friedrich. From there, hopefully, you can pick up the thread that leads back to you. If not, send me a comment, and I will see what I can do to clarify their relationship to you.

What I knew about Hanß Curth Möller a week ago wouldn’t have filled a thimble. I knew that he was the father of Anna Catharina Möller. I knew that he was buried in Niederthalhausen on 27 March 1735, age 74 years, 6 months. So, I also knew that he was born about September of 1660 because of his age at death. I did not know the name of his wife or when they were married. Nor did I know his specific birth date, where he was born, nor the names of his parents. I also did not know anything about any of his other children.

The problem is that the Church books in Niederthalhausen don’t begin until 1686, so it is hard to connect the dots between Möllers who were born, married or died prior to that date. BUT, as a result of the Dis-entanglement Project, I remembered that there are Niederthalhausen Church records imbedded (and hidden) in the Beenhausen Church book covering the years 1649-1684, as well as records for Oberthalhausen and 6 other villages besides Beenhausen.

Map is from the Meyersgaz.org website

Niederthalhausen is marked by the red dot. Oberthalhausen is to the west and designated simply as "Ob".

Hanß Curth Möller's baptismal record: "am 28 7bris" (28 September)

Once my Möller Dis-entanglement Project led me to this Church book, I discovered that our ancestor, Hanß Curth Möller was born in Oberthalhausen, not Niederthalhausen. Although Hanß Curth Möller's father's name is mentioned in his baptismal record, it is difficult to read and I am uncertain what it was. But my best guess is that his father's name is Hans Möller.

His baptism in Oberthaalhausen  prompted me to examine the Oberthalhausen Church book and, in turn, led me to discover that Hanß Curd was married in Oberthalhausen in 1693 to Catharina Beißheim.

"Anno 1693, am 27. Aprilis ist Hanß Curd Möller und Catharina, Peter Beißheims von Niederthalhausen, nachgelaßen Tochter copuliert word" (on 27th of April, in the year 1693, Hanß Curd Möller was married to Catharina, the daughter of the deceased Peter Beißheim of Niederthalhausen)

I also discovered that his first three children, including his daughter, Anna Catharina (our direct ancestor) were born in Oberthalhausen, and the last two (that I am aware of) were born in Niederthalhausen.

Armed with this information, I was able to find Catharina Beißheim’s birth, confirmation and burial records; as well as the marriage record of her parents on 9 February 1654 in Niederthalhausen, which revealed her mother’s name to be Eulalia Weckman, daughter of Martini Weckman. Her father, Peter Beißheim’s burial record reveals that he was buried on “Dom. Sexagesima”* in 1686 in Niederthalhausen, age 70. This puts his birth at about 1615-1616. At the time of his death he was serving as Mayor of Niederthalhausen and church warden. 

 *Sexagesima is a Sunday roughly equivelent to 60 days before Easter on the Church Calendar and happened to fall on the 7th of February in 1686.

Peter Beißheim’s wife, Eulalia, was buried on 4 March 1684, at age 52. This puts her birth about 1632.

So, putting it all together, I am very happy to announce that the Eichenauer-Roediger linage has been extended once again and I now add another identifiable 9th great-grandfather to my Tree. The following chart provides the details. The Relational Notations below each name in the chart refer to that individual's relationship to me. But, using the linage information previously provided in this Blog post, you can determine their relationship to you.

I am very pleased to have been able to learn so much about our ancestors over the last 10 years. As we close out 2022, I wish all of my cousins, both in the USA and in Germany, all the best in 2023.

--Stephen Roediger

Recap of Research from 2020-2022, pt. 1

I note with some frustration that I have not posted a blog in over two years. Believe you me, it is not because I have set the research aside. Rather, it is because I have been deluged with information since the big bad COVID struck.

This is in the main due to new collaborators appearing in my life. In 2020, I  received a message from Natalie Apel. She was born in Rohrbach, just 3/4 mile from Tann but now lives close to Hamburg. She had an interest in learning about her ancestors, so we began corresponding. We quickly discovered that we are related at least 3 different ways. Her father's father is my 7th cousin. And her father's mother is my double 5th cousin. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that we have had a lot of ancestry to discuss and have kept in close contact.

Natalie, and her father, Helmut Apel

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In November, 2021 I contacted Scott in Tennessee. He is a descendant of Emil Grosse, the  brother of George Roediger's second wife, Anna Augusta Grosse. He had posted some very helpful documents about the Grosse family on Ancestry.com. With his help, I was able to learn more about the Grosse family. That, in turn, helped me solve the riddle about how George Roediger, living in Auglaize Co. and Mercer Co. Ohio met his wife, a German immigrant residing in German Village in Columbus, Ohio.

Scott and Kay Dawson

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In May of 2022, I came in contact with Dawn, a researcher from Albany, NY, who answered a query I made about Rixfeld, the earliest known location of our Eichenauer ancestors. She answered and said she didn't know about Eichenauers, but her family came from Rixfeld. After a little collaborating we discovered that she is my 9th cousin, twice removed (specifically, her maternal grandmother is my 9th cousin, and the connection goes all the way back to the tippy top of my Eichenauer tree when the Eichenauers lived in Rixfeld.

Dawn Maynus

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Also in May, or early June, I was contacted by Birgit, who was originally from Schwarzenhasel, but now lives close to Kassel. She was searching online for research pertaining to her home town and discovered my Blogposts on the Diegels of  Schwarzenhasel. After corresponding with her, I learned that her father, Heinrich, is my double 8th cousin. 

Heinrich, Irmtraud and Birgit Marth

It was Birgit’s mother, Irmtraud, who provided the key to unlock the door to completing my research of the Rödigers in Tann. I soon learned that Irmtraud had extensively researched the Schwarzenhasel community and was a major contributor to a book that I already had in my possession, Chronik Schwarzenhasel: Ein Dorf im Wandel der Zeit. But her knowledge goes way beyond the bounds of Schwarzenhasel. I told her that I had exhausted the records in Tann searching for the connection between Henn Rödiger, who is listed in the book 650 Jahre Tann as a farmer with at least 1 horse or ox in 1627 and my 6th great-grandfather, Jost Rödiger, who was born about 1657 and married in 1679. She asked if I had ever heard of the Kopialbuch of 1659. She explained that it was like a census taken of more than thirty villages in the Rohbachtal. The head of each household is listed along with the name of his wife, children and other relatives living in his home. Tann was among these villages, and only one Rödiger family lived in Tann in 1659:

According to the Kopialbuch, the Rödiger household included:

Conrad, head
Margretha, his wife
Johannes (listed as confirmed in the church, so at least 12 or 13 years old)
Justus*
Elisabeth
Catharina
as well as a “Hausgenoßin” (houseguest) also named Catharina.

*Note that “Justus” is synonymous with the name “Jost”. Suddenly, everything clicked, and the Rödigers that I hadn’t been able to connect to the family were included in this list and were Jost/Justus’s siblings.

Once I knew that the “loose ends” were Jost Rödiger’s siblings, then, based on their ages at death, I was able to deduce that their father, Conrad must be the son of Henn Rödiger, the owner of livestock in Tann in 1727.

Every last Rödiger in the Tann church records has now been accounted for.

Prior to any knowledge of the Kopialbuch, I had traced back another part of my ancestry to a Jeorg Büttner who married an Elisabeth Rödiger in 1670. They were my 7th great-grandparents. But without the Kopialbuch, I could not have been certain how Elisabeth Rödiger fit into the family. Now, because of the Kopialbuch, I know that Elisabeth is not only my 7th great-grandmother, she is also the sister of my 6th great-grandfather, Jost Rödiger.

Here is a diagram of the first 4 generations of the Rödigers of Tann:

The Rödiger siblings, Elisabeth and Johannes, were married in a double wedding to Büttner siblings, Jeorg and Catharina.

Johannes Rödiger had only one son, Johann Conrad. And Johann Conrad had 4 children, all girls. So along Johannes’ line the Rödiger name died out and was only continued on through our common ancestor, Jost/Justus.

There is one other significant breakthrough to report, but I will save that for a subsequent Blogpost. Until then …

The Mysterious Jeremias Eichenauer

 I first came across the name, Jeremias Eichenauer while researching our Eichenauer family in the Niederthalhausen church death records. What made him unique was that he was a disconnect. All of the other Eichenauers in Tann and Niederthalhausen were related and descended from Johann George Eichenauer and Anna Katharina Schäfer who had moved to Niederthalhausen in about 1790.

But not Jeremias. He was a kind of Eichenauer Melchizedek. Well, that is not exactly true, because Melchizedek was "without father or mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life" (Hebrews 7:3). Jeremias definitely had an end of life, as the records prove. But like Melchizedek, Jeremias just seemed to appear in Niederthalhausen from nowhere.

He has now sat in my Missing Persons file for several years. In fact I had quite forgotten about him until this week while compiling data on the Eichenauers from Frischborn in an attempt to find a connection with our Niederthalhausen ancestors. This is quite a different location from the subject of my last Post, which concerned the Eichenauers of Friedewald. Just saying it so you won't get the two confused.

While in the Frischborn records, I came across a Jeremias Eichenauer and the name sounded familiar. So I dug through my Missing Persons file and sure enough, the information matched.

I then discovered that his father, Johann Henrich and his grandfather, Konrad Eichenauer were born in Rudlos. This is also where our ancestor, Georg Eichenauer was born (his son being Johann George, who moved to Hof Trunsbach about 1790).

This map helps me to see what I think of as the "Cradle of Eichenauer-ization":

Now back to Jeremias Eichenauer's death record from 1853. I captured four columns in two images to make it more legible for those of you who are into reading the old German script.

The first column identifies the deceased, tells us what his occupation was and to whom he was married. The second column reveals when and where he was born.

Name: Jeremias Eichenauer

Occupation: freiherrlich Riedeselischer Forstlaufer (Forest Ranger of the Baronial family Riedesel)

Spouse: Catharina Köhler aus (from) Bessungen bei (near) Darmstadt

Birth place: Frischborn bei (near) Lauterbach

Birth Date: 16 Dezember 1801

The third column provided the date of death, and the fourth column the date of burial.

Date of death: am zwei und zwanzigsten März, Mittags 12 Uhr (on 22 March [1853], at noon)

Date of burial: am 25 März, Nachmittags 2 Uhr (on 25 March [1853] at 2 p.m.).

I have created a map which shows the 24 locations in Germany where I have found Eichenauers relevant to my research. Each is marked with a teal colored pin:

Jeremias Eichenauer's birthplace in Frischborn is one of the cluster of pins circled in red. I believe that all of the different Eichenauer families may yet be traced back to locations within that small circle. Hence "The Cradle",

The birthplace of his wife is nearly 70 miles to the south in a "suburb" of Darmstadt called Bessungen. Which begs the question, how did they ever meet? ... I'm still working on that one, but I have a theory. More on that later in this Blog Post.

On the map below, I have zoomed in so you can see the location of his birth and of his death:

And the distance between the two locations begs another question, "How did Jeremias Eichenauer end up dying in Niederthalhausen, 30 miles north of his birthplace, Frischborn?" He certainly got around.

To answer both of those questions, it has helped to learn a bit about the Riedesel family.

Baron Riedesel's "home" was in Eisenbach, just 1.5 miles west of Frischborn. In this case it is really true that his home was his castle--Schloss Eisenbach.

Here is a satellite view of the grounds:

If you want to get a closer look on Google Maps just type "Schloss Eisenbach-Lauterbach" into the search bar. And there are plenty of photos of the castle that you can view online. I am resisting copying any of them here because of copyright restrictions. I must say it is a very impressive place. On the right of the photo above you can see the castle and even some of the outer wall fortifications which are still in existence. I understand that there is a bike path that runs directly beneath these walls, so if you are up for a little pedaling, check it out sometime.

The Freiherr (Baron) owned a number of properties, and if you will recall, the Riedesel family owned Hof Trunsbach near Niederthalhausen, where our common ancestor Johann George Eichenauer served as General Manager from about 1790 until his death in 1822. That position was held by him or one of his male descendants for nearly one hundred years.

In case you missed it you can check out my blog post The Book Has Arrived where I posted a photo of Hof Trunsbach and briefly described it's significance to our family.

As I explored Jeremias Eichenauer's life (and believe me, tracking down a Forest Ranger isn't easy) I discovered the following facts:

17 July 1842--Jeremias Eichenauer and Catharina Köhler were married in Frischborn

But before they were married, their first son, Johann Georg, was born in Bessungen on 7 February 1839. (No that is not a typo. Georg really was born 3 years before his parents were married). What you should note is that apparently Jeremias had spent some time in Bessungen and this is probably where he and Catharina Köhler met. Her father, Adam Köhler was a "Dragoner in den Gard Regiment Chevaux" when his daughter was born in February of 1812 in Bessungen. This was an elite regiment of mounted horsemen under Napoleon. Napoleon was pretty much ousted from Germany by the end of 1813. Later, when Catharine married in 1842, her father's occupation was Schuhmacher (shoe maker) in Bessungen.

Bessungen originally was a separate city near to Darmstadt, but by 1888, had become surrounded by and incorporated into the free city of Darmstadt. This seems likely to be important to our understanding of what had brought Jeremias Eichenauer to the Darmstadt area.

First, it should be understood that the senior member of the Riedesel family was automatically a member of the First Chamber of the Estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse. The Grand Duchy was a governmental body divided into three provinces, one being Starkenburg with its capital at Darmstadt. So, it was necessary for Baron Riedesel to travel the 70 miles to take part in the sessions.

I was hoping to learn Jeremias' occupation at the time of his first son's birth in Bessungen to see if there was a clue to what brought him to the big city, but sadly, the writing is so small on his baptismal record that I cannot make it out.

However, when sons, Adam (b. 1843) and Heinrich (b. 1847) were born, the family was living in Lauterbach (which if you refer back to the first map on this blog post, you will see that it is just north of Frischborn) and more importantly within spitting distance of the castle. And on both of their baptismal records, their father is reported to be a Kutscher (coachman).

Here is what I am thinking. Baron Riedesel often had to travel between Schloß Eisenbach and Darmstadt on government business. A man of his standing would no doubt travel in a comfortable coach rather than on foot or horseback. So, maybe, just maybe, Jeremias Eichenauer was one of his coachman, taking him back and forth between Eisenbach and Darmstadt. And what would a coachman do to kill time, days on end, while waiting for his employer to finish his business and return home? Wander around town, stop in a coffee shop, meet a nice girl. Could happen.

So, Johann Georg is born in 1839 in Bessungen bei Darmstadt. His parents return to his father's hometown of Frischborn and are married there in 1842.

Sons Adam and Heinrich were born in the neighboring village of Lauterbach in1843 and 1847 respectively.

Then something seemingly strange happens. A baptismal record appears for a son, William, born in 1851. The baptism is recorded in the Frischborn church book, but it says that William was born and baptized in Niederthalhausen. Hey! That's OUR hometown.

When I looked in the Niederthalhausen church records, sure enough, there it was:

This one I will spare you, and just translate and summarize:

On 4 June [1851] at 4 a.m. Wilhelm Eichenauer was born to Jeremias Eichenauer, the "Forest Ranger" of Baron Riedesel of the Grand Duchy of Hessen, and his wife Catharina neé Köhler, born in Beßungen near Darmstadt in House #10 in Niederthalhausen. The child was baptized in the same year on the 22nd of June in Niederthalhausen.

So, sometime between the births of their third and fourth children, Jeremias was moved from being a coachman for the Riedesel Family to being a guardian of the Riedesel Forests which, it seems, required them to move to the rural town of Niederthalhausen.

Here, Jeremias would have met our whole Eichenauer clan. Was he aware of their existence before being transferred there or was it a complete surprise? Did they suspect that they were related or did they have knowledge of a clear relationship?

Did you notice that I made the House Number bold? There is a reason for that. This house belonged Johann Heinrich Eichenauer, grandson of our common ancestor and Conductor of Hof Trunsbach, Johann George Eichenauer. Nine of his children were born in that house between 1826 and 1845. Their daughter, Anna Martha Christina died there in January of 1847. Then the family packed up and emigrated to Butler County, Pennsylvania in August, and their 12th child was born there in December of that same year.

So, that was 1847. The same year that Jeremias Eichenauer's son Heinrich was born (10 May) in Lauterbach. I have no clues as to the exact date when Jeremias moved to Niederthalhausen, but they could have moved into Haus 10 as early as September of 1847, and it was certainly no later than June of 1851.

Less than two years later, when Jeremias was 46 years old, he died in Niederthalhausen on 22 March 1853, leaving behind his wife and four sons, Johann Georg, age 14; Adam, almost 10; Heinrich, almost 6; and Wilhelm, age 21 months.

Among my records I found that Jacob Heinrich Eckhardt took possession of Haus 10 shortly after Jeremias' death. The birth of his son, Johann Adam took place there in June of 1854, two other children were born there in 1858 and 1860, and Jacob Eckhardt's mother died there in 1857. And just to show my thoroughness, 8 of his grandchildren were born in that house between 1876 and 1888.

From this it is clear that Jeremias' wife, Catharina, left Niederthalhausen soon after his death and returned with her boys to her hometown of Bessungen. Her oldest son, Johann Georg, died there in 1858 at the age of 19, Adam married there in 1871 and  at least two of his children were born there.

Catharina died on 7 June 1878 at the home of her son Heinrich, at Weinbergstraße 19, Bessungen.

The fate of Heinrich and William are yet to be discovered, if and when the records of Bessungen for the years after 1875 have been made available. But I checked the Darmstadt phone directory and found listings for three Eichenauers with landlines. So it appears that the Jeremias Eichenauer line may still exist.

At least some of the mystery surrounding Jeremias Eichenauer has been removed and I feel happy that he is no longer part of the Missing Persons file. I am still hopeful that more may  be revealed. You just never know what the spade will turn up next you keep digging.

Reporting from Geosynchronous orbit above Hessen-Darmstadt,

Stephen Roediger

Eichenauers of Friedewald--Are They Related?

 As you may remember, the Eichenauers of central western Ohio lived in Tann and Niederthalhausen, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Hesse, Germany before emigrating to the US in the second half of the 19th century.

The background of this Blog post can be found in an earlier one, which you can read about here: Reaching for the Topmost Branches - The Eichenauers

Just to recap, I have traced their migration backwards in time from Tann to Hof Trunsbach to Grebenau to Angersbach and Rudlos where the first Eichenauer that I have been able to trace was born during the last quarter of the 1600s. Here is a map of the path that they took, courtesy of Google Maps:

The lack of church records has forced me to abandon my search for preceding generations of Eichenauers from the Rudlos area. However, in the process of exploring other branches in the family tree, I have begun to encounter Eichenauers from a village called Friedewald. It appears on the map above west of Bad Hersfeld. And I have taken the liberty of creating another map which shows the distance between Tann and Friedewald:

As you can see, Tann and Friedewald are less than 10 miles apart.

And I have hoped by thoroughly checking the Tann and Niederthalhausen records (where our Eichenauer clan was situated) and the Friedewald records (where this newly discovered enclave had made their home) that I would discover a link between the two communities of Eichenauers.

But the two villages seemed to be unaware of each others presence. So, I set the Friedewald Eichenauers aside and concentrated on other matters.

Then, earlier this year, I swerved back into the Friedewald Eichenauers when I was researching a man named Johannes Heyer, born in Tann in 1792. Johannes' mother's mother's mother's mother was Eva Rödiger, born in Tann in 1681 to my 6th great-grandparents, Jost Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Schlein.

For those of you who are into relationships like I am, that makes him my 4th cousin 3 times (generations) removed. If you don't get it, don't fret. It ain't exactly germane to today's topic. Just bear in mind that he is related and so has a place in my family tree.

But there are many people who are in my tree who are not related. For instance, Johannes' wife, Anna Maria Seelig is not related, but she is in my tree because she is his wife. And of course, Anna Maria Seelig's parents are not related, but they are in my tree because they are the parents of the person who married my 4th cousin 3X removed.

But wait a moment!-- Anna Maria Seelig was the daughter of Nicolaus Seelig and Anna Maria EICHENAUR who was born in Friedewald in 1763!

That means that all of the Eichenauers of Friedewald could now be added to my tree, though apparently unrelated to my Eichenauers.

So, this I have been doing, working backwards in time, looking for an Eichenauer who had some identifiable connection to Tann, Niederthalhausen, Grebenau, Angersbach or Rudlos.

This led me finally to Andreas Eichenauer, the great-grandfather of Anna Maria Eichenauer. And as often happens when one reaches the oldest extant church records, facts begin fade as the records begin.

What I know, is that Andreas Eichenauer of Friedewald had at least seven children born to his wife, only known by her given name, Anna Maria. They were born between 1690 and 1704.

There is no marriage record for Andreas and Anna Maria, either because the marriage records don't begin until 1690 (as is the case) or because they were married elsewhere.

And I cannot know for sure that they didn't have other children before the church records began. But, because Anna Marie's burial took place on 21 April 1753 in Friedewald at the age of 84 years, 7 months and 2 weeks, I can figure her date of birth to be about 7 September 1668 and this means she would have been 21 years old when the oldest known child was born. So she couldn't have had too many children before 1690.

And what I have been able to learn about Andreas is even more sketchy. According to his wife's death record, she was widowed, so I know he died before 21 April 1753. His son, Johann Melchior Eichenauer was married on 28 May 1723, and his marriage record states that his father, Andreas Eichenauer was a deceased Zimmermann (carpenter) from Friedewald, so it appears that he died prior to that date. However, I have not been able to find his death record, so I must be content to know that he died sometime between the conception of his last child in about June of 1703 and May of 1723.

In spite of the sketchy details, what stands out starkly about these records, is that there is nary a hint of another Eichenauer of his generation. There are no Eichenauer birth records between 1690 and 1725 except those attributed he Andreas and Anna Maria. And beginning in 1725 the only Eichenauer births recorded are those of his grandchildren.

And there are no marriage records of any other Eichenauers between 1690 and 1730 except that of his own children.

What I am driving at is this: It would appear that either Andreas was the only child of previous generations of Eichenauers in Friedewald who lived to a marriageable age, or he came to Friedewald from elsewhere, married and settled down.

And the latter begs the question, where could he have come from?

Until today, I wouldn't have had a clue. But as I was reviewing the baptismal record of Andreas and Anna Marie's sixth child, Johann Conrad, born in 1701, I noticed that his Gevatter (baptismal sponsor) was Andreas' Stiefbruder (step-brother), Conrad Broll from Schlitz. So, I got out my good friend Google Maps and looked up Schlitz:

What I discovered is that Schlitz, the residence of Andreas' step-brother, is in fact just 10 miles from the "cradle" of the Tann/Niederthalhausen Eichenauers that Ohio Roedigers and Eichenauers know to be their ancestors. This is very tantalizing, but the proof of a connection between any Eichenauers of Schlitz and Eichenauers of Rudlos may be very hard to prove without Church records from the 1600s in Rudlos. Those either don't exist or haven't been released yet.

The good news is that Schlitz has records that stretch back to about 1610. The bad news is that they are extremely difficult to read. The results of a perusal of the Schlitz records will require many bleary-eyed hours looking for any records pertaining to either Andreas Eichenauer or his step-brother, Conrad Broll.

But I think a subsequent Blog post will have to address the results of that endeavor.

Until then,

Stephen Roediger (reporting from geosynchronous orbit above Hessen, Deutschland) 

Correction Concerning George Rödiger

Now that I am retired, I have been working hard on creating a database of abstracts from the Church records of Tann, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Hesse.

I have completed the goal of abstracting the marriage records from 1830-1850 and connecting as many of those couples to my tree as possible.

Currently, I am working on the baptismal records from the Churchbook covering 1830-1909.

My immediate goal is to abstract the records from 1830 through 1850, then add all of these children to their parents in my Family Tree on ancestrydotcom. It is taking me about 2 hours to abstract the records for each year. At this moment I am finishing the year 1837.

Which brings me to the reason for this Blog post: I found an error in a baptismal record that I have already placed in my tree on Ancestry and I want to set the record straight.

The record is for George Rödiger, but probably not the George Rödiger our USA Roedigers are familiar with. This George is the son of Justus Rödiger, the son of Johann Heinrich Rödiger and Anna Sidonia Schneider. Johann Heinrich and Anna Sidonia were also the parents of Johann Tobias Rödiger. And he should be very familiar to any Roediger or Eichenauer in Ohio who has been following this Blog. Johann Tobias first married Anna Eva Heÿer and together they had Anna Katharina Rödiger who married Johann Friedrich Eichenauer, progenitors of the Eichenauers in Ohio. After the death of Anna Eva Heÿer, Johann Tobias married Anna Margaretha Eichenauer (Johann Friedrich's sister) and together they had (among others) Justus, father of John Henry who came to Ohio; George, widower, who brought his four children to Ohio, then married Anna Grosse; and Conrad Tobias who came to Ohio as a 15 year old boy.

So, George Rödiger, of the corrected baptismal record, was a first cousin of those I highlighted in red, above. And here is the image of the first 5 columns of his baptismal record.

I mis-translated the date "dreißigster Dezember" as 17. December. It should be translated "30". If it had actually been the 17th, it would have been written "siebzehnter". EDITED

Many of the letters are probably unfamiliar to you. These records, for the most part, were written in the old German script. For those unfamiliar with the German alphabet  the "ß" character equals a double "s" and the Umlaut (those two dots over the vowels) transcribes as: ä (ae), ö (oe), ü (ue). I haven't figured out the ÿ equivalent yet. Maybe one of my German readers can instruct me on this.

EDITED: (have received some help with the "ÿ" from some German friends--the 2 dots over the "y" do not constitute an umlaut, but rather just help to identify the letter "y" when handwritten. So when typing this letter, whether in English or German, it should appear as "y" without the 2 dots above the letter.)

But, here is my translation:

Column 1: George was the 154th birth to be recorded in the 1830-1909 church book of Tann.

Column 2: His parents lived in Tann at House number 11, and presumably that was where he was born.

Column 3: He was born on the 30th of December [1837] in the 3rd hour of the morning (Morg. 3 Uhr), ie. 3am.

Column 4: He was baptized on the 1st of January 1838.

Column 5: He is listed as a boy/male (Knabe), and given the name George.

The record is spread over two pages with three more columns, but since the Remarks column was blank I didn't include it here:

Column 6: The names of George's parents--Justus Rödiger, a farmer (primarily of land cultivation Landbauer) and his 2nd wife (Ehefrau), Anna Katharina, born (geb.) Gossmann (Goßmann), from Friedlos. Here is a link to Google Maps so you can see the location of Tann in relation to Friedlos--https://goo.gl/maps/LsvZRLvd6xXADTYj7

Column 7: The name of the Baptismal Sponsor (Gevater)--George Heÿer, son of the brick maker (Ziegelbrenner), Johannes Heÿer.

NO EXTRA CHARGE: the brick maker, Johannes Heÿer is George's 4th cousin, and first cousin of Anna Eva Heÿer (highlighted in blue text above). I'll bet even the church recorder wasn't aware of those facts.

The Man Behind the Curtain,

Stephen Rödiger

Rödiger Curve Ball (The Rödigers in Tamaqua, PA in the 1870s)

BACKGROUND:
This all started yesterday when Regina sent me a message about a "John George Rödiger" who married a Maria Eichenbrodt at St. John's Ev. Lutheran Church in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania on 12/25/1863.
It was just a hint from a fellow researcher, suggesting that maybe I could find a home for him in my tree.

The ride has been interesting to say the least.

She put me in contact with another researcher who was born in Hazleton, 15 miles from Tamaqua. I will call her DSH. DSH was the one who originally found the marriage record. Hazleton, as you may remember was the setting of another deep dive into Rödiger relatives. See A Tangled Web.

So, this piqued my interest. Plus, I do NOT like loose ends. And John George Rödiger was definitely a very loose end. For some reason, initially I could find no other records about this man that would tell me where he came from, what happened to him after his marriage or who any of his relatives were.

DSH was actively researching her Eichenbrodt family when she stumbled into Mr. Elusive. And he was an enigma to her as well. The woman who married John George Rödiger was a widow of an Eichenbrodt. So, the Rödiger connection was really outside of her focus, except for the possibility of learning something about Maria (neé?) Eichenbrodt-Roediger's death and place of burial.

Though I couldn't see how this guy could fit in with our Rödigers from Tann, I was not about to just ignore the challenge. So I dug in.

I went back to the St. John's Church records and found George Rödiger as a Communicant between 1876 and 1879. And squeezed in just below his name was an August Rödiger who took communion between 1878 and 1879. This was encouraging. Maybe George didn't just drop out of the sky after all.

A little more research in the church records showed that George and Maria (Eichenbrodt) Rödiger had a son, Johann Christian August Rödiger in 1864 and that August was married to Anna Dorothea Herbig in 1856 and they had a child, Anna Catharina who was born in 1854.

At this point I had no proof, but hypothesized that August and George were brothers. Since records for George seemed pretty elusive, I turned to hints about August from other Family Trees on ancestry.com. That is when I cam across an obituary in Junction City, Kansas from 1919 that pretty much answered the questions I had been asking.

I am much indebted to a fellow researcher (Scrubjay81) on ancestry.com for posting the three part obit. from the Grand Junction Union Journal and the photo of Johann August Rödiger:

Johann August Roediger (1899)

Junction City Union Journal (1919)

From this obit I learned a number of things germane to my research:

1) August was born in Scherbda, which today is in the German State of Thuringia (Thüringen). A look at Google Maps shows it to be about 40 miles east of our ancestral home of Tann.

2) August arrived in New York on 8. July 1854, lived near Albany NY, Philadephia PA and New York before taking a job on the coal mine near Tamaqua for the next 23 years.

3) August enlisted in Co. B., 16th Pennsylvania Volunteers (probably in 1861)

4) August moved his family out to Alida, Kansas, in 1877 where he bought a 160 acre farm. (Another article in 1891 which extolled his virtues as a farmer stated that his farm had grown to 600 acres, with about 375 acres in cultivation, an orchard of 15 acres and timber enough to last for several generations. Not bad at a time when farm mechanization was still a thing of the future.

5) Surviving him when he died on 25 August 1919 were 7 of his 11 children, one of whom still lived in Tamaqua and a brother, George Roediger, of Tamaqua.

Back when I was just beginning my Roediger research, I examined every census record I could find in the 1860s 70's and 80's looking for Roedigers in the US. I still have those censuses and a niche in my tree where I have put the Roedigers from Geary Co, Kansas. When I saw the name August Roediger in the Tamaqua Church records this morning it made me think of the August Roediger I had seen in those records, but dismissed it as a big stretch. But it turned out to be true after all.

So, I have come full circle, starting with George and ending with George. The obit has confirmed what I suspected: August and George were brothers and that they were not from Tann and thus not closely related to us "Ohio" Roedigers.

But the 40 mile distance between Tann and their hometown of Scherbda makes the possibility of sharing a common ancestor worth looking into (at least for me).

To do that, I have messaged all ten of the owners of family trees on ancestry.com having Johann August Roediger amongst their branches. It runs like this:

My name is Stephen Roediger. I have been researching my family for about 10 years. I have often wondered if the Roedigers in Kansas were related to me. This morning I found Johann August Roediger's obit and learned that he was from Scherbda. My family is from Tann (36251), just a few miles north of Bad Hersfeld. So the distance between the two "hometowns" is about 40 miles. I am looking for a Roediger man who would be willing to take a y-DNA test to see if we have a common ancestor. Since you have Johann August in your tree, I am hoping you might be able to put me in contact with either a direct male descendant of Johann August or a fellow researcher who might be better able to help me with this. Your reply would be greatly appreciated.

So far, I have had two replies that said that they were unable to help, but wishing me luck.

I have a Plan B, but will only use it as a last resort. The people on ancestry.com understand where I am coming from, but Plan B would require me to call or write to the current crop of Roedigers in Junction City, Kansas and the that general area. As you can imagine, there would be strong misgivings about cooperating on this level with a total stranger who claims to be searching for the long lost DNA connection. But if it comes to that, I am not afraid to try. Maybe I'd even take a road trip.

Right now, the only match I have with my personal Y-DNA test is my third cousin Michael who was kind enough to take the test so I could verify that there wasn't something wrong with the test itself. I am happy to say that his test of whether we share a common Roediger ancestor came back positive.

If there is a Kansas or Tamaqua, PA Roediger who agrees to take the Y-DNA test, we should be able to determine if we share a common ancestor (and hopefully not as far back as Noah--just kidding) but probably not who that common ancestor is. To do that, we would need a paper trail and that comes to a screeching halt about 450 years into the past unless one has royal or aristocratic blood. I am pretty sure we don't have von Rödigers in the family.

But maybe, just maybe, when the dust clears, I will know whether to dub these Roedigers in Tamaqua and Junction City with the title "Cousins".

To all my cousins everywhere,
Stephen Roediger