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)
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| 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]
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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.
