Caution! Do not attempt to follow this post unless you have thoroughly read the preceding two posts!

First, the bad news: We were unable to do research on the Rödigers and Eichenauers while in Germany, because the Archive was closed during the days we were in Tann.

The good news is that I have been able to have the Archive look up records for me since we have returned home. I initially requested three documents: the baptismal record of my great grandfather, Conrad Tobias Rödiger; the marriage record of Conrad's father, Johann Tobias, to his first wife; and the baptismal record of Anna Katharina Rödiger, daughter of Johann Tobias (and wife of Freidrich Eichenauer).

An examination of them provides conclusive proof of the relationships that I theorized in an earlier post. I shall endeavor to present the salient facts of each record and then draw my conclusions.
[Other information is included which I have been unable to decipher due to the script style and my very limited skills in the German language--see graphic below. I will have someone more knowledgable provide a more detailed translations and include them in a subsequent post]

Baptismal Record of Conrad Tobias Rödiger (from the Tann Evangelische Kirche Kirchenbuch, Taufen (baptismal) Records of 1866)
Entry: #734
Place: Tann
Name: Konrad Rödiger
Father: Tobias Rödiger, farmer
Mother: Anna Margaretha, maiden name--Eichenauer
Baptized: 18 March 1866
Emigrated: North America, 1 August, 1881

Marriage Record of Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Eva Heyer (from the Tann Evangelische Kirche Kirchenbuch, Trauungen (marriage) Records of 1828)
Entry: #2
"Marriage was on 7th of April, 1829(sic). Tobias Rödiger, farmer, with Anna Eva Heyer (not Geiger). Parents of him were mayor Heinrich Rödiger and his wife Anna Sidonia born Schneider. Father of her was lay assessor Nicolaus Heyer." [translation provided by the Archive and they accidentally gave the wrong year. The year should be 1828 as indicated by the title of the page, "Trauungen in Tann im Jahre 1828"]
In the margin the death dates are given as follows: Tobias (11/12/1877); Anna Eva (3/25/1847)

This is the marriage record described above. See why I have a little trouble translating it?

Baptismal Record of Anna Katharina Rödiger (from the Tann Evangelische Kirche Kirchenbuch, Taufen (baptismal) Records of 1829)
Entry: #2
“Anna Katharina, daughter of Tobias Rödiger and his wife, Anna Eva, born Heyer. She was born on February 11, and was baptized on February 15.” [translation provided by the Archive]

**********************************************************************

Things I learned from the marriage record:
1) Johann Tobias Rödiger's first wife's maiden name is Heyer. The name "Geiger" which I have been using came from marriage record pertaining to Johann's second marriage. He is named as a "50 year old widower, married previously to Anna Eva Geiger?" In all fairness to the person who translated this record, he did state that he was guessing it to be "Geiger" as it was nearly illegible.
2) We now have a date certain for his first marriage, ie. 4/7/1828.
3) Anna's father's name was Nicolaus Heyer and Johann's father was a Bürgermeister (Mayor) of Tann. I already had his father's and mother's names, but you may want to note them.
4) Johann's death date is given as 11/12/1877. This disagrees with the date given by Millie Sudman (11/15/1877). A copy of the Beerdigungen (Burial) record would probably resolve this discrepancy. It is on my list.
5) Anna's death date is given as 3/25/1847.

Things I learned from the baptismal records:
1) Conrad and Anna Katharina had the same father, but different mothers: Conrad's mother was Anna Margaretha Eichenauer and Katharina's mother was Anna Eva Heyer.
2) Katharina's birth date agrees with Liesel (Eichenauer) Schmitt's Ahnentafel entry for her great grandmother, Ann Katharina Rödiger. That makes Liesel my half third cousin.
3) Of course, now I have baptismal dates for both Conrad and his half sister Katharina
4) the date of Conrad's emigration to America (8/1/1881). According to ship records, Conrad traveled from Bremen to New York, arriving on 9/3/1881, with a stop-over in Southampton, England. That seems like a long voyage, but there may have been a prolonged stop-over in England or may include the time travelled from Tann to Bremen. Unfortunately, the ship records in Bremen were destroyed, so verification of the Emigration date found in the baptismal record is impossible.

Other things to note:
1) Conrad's father was, as far as we know at this point, born in 1797. He married Anna Heyer in 1828 at the age of 30. I almost hate to bring this up, but he could have been married even before his marriage to Anna Heyer and had other children. A more exact translation of the marriage document may confirm or deny such an hypothesis. I'm working on it.
2) Anna Katharina was born 10 months after Johann's marriage to Anna Heyer, certainly making her the first child of that marriage. As she is named in all the family records we have, along with Justus, George and Conrad, it also appears that she was the only surviving child of that marriage. Anna Heyer died in March of 1847 when Katharina was not quite 16 years of age. Her father remarried in December of that same year. Anna Margaretha Eichenauer, his second wife was 26 years old when they wed, thus, just 10 years older than her step-daughter. Son Justus was born in 1850; George in 1854; and trailing way behind was my great grandfather, Conrad, born in 1866. As there is a 12 year gap between George and Conrad, it is possible that there may have been other children born that did not survive childhood and are not included in our family records--yet. I'll be looking into that as well.
3) Anna Katharina married Friedrich Eichenauer (date as yet unknown--but it is on my list. Our records show that Friedrich was born in 1824 in Tann. That would make him just about 3 years older than his wife's step-mother, Anna Margaretha Eichenauer. It is certainly possible that Friedrich and Margaretha were siblings, or at the very least, cousins. As I discovered when "touring" Tann, the Rödiger house and the Eichenauer house were right next door to each other, so they would have known each other quite well.

This ends my present cogitations on the Rödiger/Eichenauer family. But stay tuned. As you can probably tell, we are just getting started. Hopefully, soon, we will know how the various Eichenauer "loose ends" fit into our family tree.

We now have accommodations in Bad Hersfeld for the nights of May 14 and 15 at Hotel Jägerhof-Bad Hersfeld.

While there, we will have the opportunity to meet several descendants of Johann Tobias Rödiger.

Jürgen Schmidt is the great grandson of Johann Tobias Rödiger's son, Justus. He and his wife, Edith will be our guides when we visit.

Liesel (Eichenauer) Schmitt is the great granddaughter of Johann Tobias Rödiger's daughter, Anna Katharina.

Jürgen's first cousin, Marion Scherer and Liesel's grand nephew, Jan Hebborn will also be there.

Interestingly, our plans to visit have caused Liesel and (Marion and Jürgen) to realize that they are related. They didn't realize it until now, even though they lived so close to one another.

Marion knows Liesel quite well because she is a nurse and took care of Liesel's husband in their home, when Liesel wasn't able to manage it. And Liesel remembers Jürgen when he was a small boy living just across the Rohrbach creek. She moved away from Tann in 1950, when Jürgen was 6 years old so he did not remember her. (She currently lives in Beenhausen, about 5 miles northwest of Tann).

There is also a possibility that we will meet Walter Rödiger, Jürgen's mother's brother, age 86 and the oldest living descendant of Johann Tobias Rödiger, there in Germany. But he is currently in the hospital, and I am unsure of the seriousness of his condition.

Fun stuff! And thank goodness that Jürgen and Jan speak English well so we will be able to have a meaningful conversation with our new found relatives.

Yes, it has been over a year since I last posted. Not because I lost interest, just have been busy on the Kantner side of things.
The news is that my mother and I will be in Germany/Switzerland from May 12 to June 2. For roughly the first week we will be staying with my 3rd cousin, Jürgen Schmidt and his wife Edith. Jürgen's mother was a Rödiger, and he was born in Tann, where Conrad Tobias Roediger was born. He will be taking us there for 2 or 3 days so that we can see the area and get all of my questions answered. Well, maybe, not all.

A couple of important developments have occurred as I have prepared for this trip.
1) Upon a closer inspection of Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer's marriage record, I noticed that there was a note at the bottom that hadn't been included in the translation that had been done earlier. There is a symbol of a cross and then the date 10 Oct 1883 (or 1885) under Anna Margaretha's name. When we get to the church records I will try to verify that I am reading the date correctly.
Previous family researchers have given her date of death as 1863, which if true would mean that she was not Conrad Tobias Roediger's mother. And because her name was given on Conrad's death certificate as "Gretchen Eichenauer" it was thought that Conrad's mother was his father's third wife (his first being Anna Geiger). As a matter of fact, Gretchen is a pet name for Margaretha, and if the death date that appears on Anna Margaretha's marriage record holds up, then there was no third wife. When Conrad Tobias said that he waved goodbye to his mother from a hill as he left to immigrate to America in 1881 and never saw her again, it would have been Anna Margaretha he was speaking of. And as she died within 5 years of that occasion, he would have had little opportunity to have seen her again.

2) The Eichenauers have always been a puzzle to me. A number of Eichenauers arrived from Germany and settled in Mercer Co, Ohio, and Conrad Tobias Roediger is said to have stayed with an Eichenauer relative when he first arrived here.
Anna Margaretha Eichenauer was his mother. She died in Germany. According to her marriage record, her father was Konrad, the Miller.
Anna Katharina Rödiger was his sister who married a Friedrich Eichenauer. But we do not know who his parents or siblings are. They also remained in Germany. But five of their 8 children emigrated and settled in Mercer County.
So my first order of business was to discover how this Friedrich Eichenauer who married Conrad Tobias' sister, Katharina, is related to Conrad's mother, Anna Margaretha Eichenauer.
In an attempt to learn more while we visit Germany I looked for Eichenauers in the Tann phone book. Lo and Behold there was a Friedrich Eichenauer listed (not THE Friedrich Eichenauer you understand, as he has been dead, lo these many years). So I wrote to him, and received an email from his grandson Jan, who informed me that his grandfather had died in 2012, and that he had inherited the house. Jan also informed me that his grandfather's sister Liesel Eichenauer was still living and might be able to help.
Yesterday I received a copy of a 4 generation Ahnentafel that Liesel prepared when she was 10 years old (1939). I discovered that her great grandparents were Friedrich Eichenauer and Anna Katharina Rödiger. BINGO! Except for one problem. Her Katharina was born in 1829. But Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer, as I supposed her parents to be were not married until 1847. And Anna Margaretha was only 8 years older than Katharina. Conclusion: Either Liesel's great grandmother was not the same Katharina as in our family, or our Katharina was a child of Johann Tobias' first marriage to Anna Geiger. The latter has merit on three counts. a) Both Katharinas married a Friedrich Eichenauer. That would not be impossible, given the number of Friedrichs and Katharinas in that neck of the world. b) Johann Tobias was born in 1797, so even if he married the first time at age 30, Liesel's great grand mother could have been his daughter. c) Of the births of Friedrich Eichenauer and Anna Katharina Rödiger which I have in my records, the three oldest were Tobias, born in 1850; Conrad, born in 1853; Margaret, born in 1861. According to Liesel's Ahnentafel, her grandfather, son of Friedrich and Katharina was Johann, born in 1857. See how neatly he fits into the family. In addition to the age fit, I also had a son Johann/John listed as one of their children but with no birthdate, or death date and the knowledge that he had not emigrated with his siblings.

For a probationary period during which I will attempt to verify the above "discoveries," I have placed my great grandfather as the son of Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer, and tossed Gretchen in the trash (so to speak). Actually, I will note that Anna Margaretha was aka Gretchen. On the other hand, I will take Anna Katharina away from Anna Margaretha and give her to Anna Geiger. So, in essence, Anna Margaretha lost a daughter and gained a son in this exchange. And Johann Tobias lost a wife he never really had.

Oh, and by the way, I still haven't figured out how Anna Katharina's husband, Friedrich Eichenauer fits into the rest of the Eichenauer clan, so stay tuned for more on this exciting topic.