New Information Has Surfaced!!

Before diving into creating new posts I have a little "old business" to take care of.

In my last post (July of 2014) I concluded with a section entitled: "Other things to note."

Within that section I said:

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.

From the records subsequently obtained from the Lutheran Church Archive in Kassel, I can now say with certainty that Johann Conrad Rödiger was born on 7 Sep 1797 in Tann and baptized on the 10th at the Tann Lutheran Church. The exact date of his marriage to Anna Eva Heyer was 7 Apr 1828 also at the Tann Lutheran Church. It is also made clear from his subsequent marriage to Anna Margaretha Eichenauer that he was only married twice, so while my thoughts about a possible earlier marriage was reasonable, it is not true.

I further stated in the last post:

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.

Appearances can be deceiving. I now know that there was a daughter born to JT and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer which no one in the family seems to have been aware of (see below). So, why not other children from JT and Anna Eva Heyer's 19 year marriage, of which we only know about Anna Katharina. I will explore this more thoroughly when I visit the Archive in April so STAY TUNED.

Catharina Elisabeth Lotz nee Rödiger, daughter of the ??? Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer of Tann, spouse of the ??? Jacob Lotz; born 28 November 1848; died 18 July [1874] at 6 in the evening; buried 21 July [1874]

(I will endeavor to get the difficult words translated, but the ??? marks probably stand for the occupations of these men.)

And lastly I wrote:

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.

Their marriage took place 5 Oct 1851 in Tann. Friedrich was born 7 Oct 1824 in Niederthalhausen, a neighboring village and baptized there 17 Oct 1824. And it is now certain from Anna Margaretha Eichenauer and Johann Friedrich Eichenauer's baptismal records that they were indeed siblings.