Rödiger-Eichenauer Trace: The Mürer the Merrier

Today, I am taking you to the tree top. That is, as far as my Stammbaum (family tree) has grown to date. If you look at the progeny chart I presented at the end of my last post, you will find Johann Henrich Eichenauer (1764-1813) on the second line. Use him as a reference point for what I am presenting today. On 10 January 1794, Johann Henrich Eichenauer was married to Anna Christina Mürer in the Evangelische Kirche (Lutheran Church) in Niederthalhausen. (If you have been paying attention to past posts, you should know where that is located now.)

Johann Henrich's father had just arrived in this area to take up the position of Conductor of the Hof Trusbach (again--see the last post for more info). But Anna Christina Mürer's family had been residents of Niederthalhausen (the closest village to the Hof) for at least two previous generations.

Below is Anna Christina's baptismal record from the Niederthalhausen Evangelische Kirchenbuch, 1776.

I will now endeavor to transcribe and translate for you:

Sept 15--Anna Christina, Michael Mürers et ux. Anna Margretha geb. Georgin, Töchterlein, nat. d. 14, h. 8 mat. Gevatterin: Anna Christina, weÿland Martin Brauns nachgelassen ehel. Tochter

By way of explanation, it should be understood that most Lutheran church records during this period were written using both the Latin and Deutsch languages and were written in the Gothic script which differs significantly from our Roman script. 90% of Germans today cannot read these documents because when Adolph Hitler came to power in the 1930's, he instituted a reform of the written language which was more Romanesque. And while the old script was taught in schools for a number of years, most who learned it as children have passed on or have not used it for decades.

There are several Latin abbreviations in the above record:

et ux. -- which stands for "et uxorem", meaning "and wife"

nat. -- which stands for "nativus", from which we get the word nativity, meaning "birth"

d. -- stands for "dies", meaning "day"

h. -- stands for "hora", meaning "hour"

mat. -- stands for "matutinum", from which the French got matinée and we borrowed from the French, but means "morning". So I guess if you go to a matinée, it should be in the morning. But all the ones I have ever been to were in the afternoon. Go figure.

There are a couple of German abbreviations as well:

geb. -- stands for "geboren" meaning "born" and in this case, refers to the maiden name. In English we often use the French word "née" in the same way.

ehel. -- stands for "eheliche" (fem.) or "ehelicher" (masc.) and has the idea of "legitimate"

and though it doesn't appear here I will throw in for no extra charge the abbreviation--

unehel. -- which you have no doubt already figured out means "illegitimate".

Since I am on this instructive kick, I may as well mention that:

1. German does not use an apostrophe to show possession

2. Sometimes a woman's last name appears in the feminine form, which means that "in" is added the the end of the surname.

3. "lein" or "chen" are diminutive suffixes which when attached to the noun conveys either the idea of smallness or intimacy or endearment. "Tochter" means "daughter" but in the record above, "Töchterlein" means infant daughter.

So, to finally get around to the translation:

Sept 15--Anna Christina, Michael Mürers et ux. Anna Margretha geb. Georgin, Töchterlein, nat. d. 14, h. 8 mat.

Gevatterin: Anna Christina, weÿland Martin Brauns nachgelassen ehel. Tochter

"[baptized on] September 15 [1776] -- Anna Christina, born on the 14th at 8 in the morning, infant daughter of Michael Mürer and his wife Anna Margretha née Georg,

Godparent: Anna Christina, the legitimate daughter of the deceased Martin Braun"

So, from this record, we glean some information which will help us in climbing a little higher in the family tree. And with this information, I was able to find Anna Christina's parent's marriage record.

This record is also from the Niederthalhausen records from the year 1775.

And says:

Mart. 5 -- Michael Mürer, Witwer, weÿland Johann George Mürer nachgelessener ehelicher Sohn,

mit Anna Margretha, weÿland Lorentz Sielens zu Mühlbach hinterlassener Witwib geb. Georgin"

This entire record is in German, except for the date, which again uses an abbreviation for the Latin word "Martii". If it had been German, it would have been "März" but both mean March.

Thus, "5 March 1775 -- Michael Mürer, widower, legitimate son of the deceased Johann Georg Mürer, with Anna Margretha, née Georg, surviving widow of Lorentz Siel of Mühlbach" [I haven't seen a surname anything like Lorentz's in the Tann or Niederthalhausen area but a cursory look at the Mühlbach records shows a surname of "Siel" cropping up now and again, so I am going with that for the time being]

From this record I learn that:

1. Michael Mürer and his bride are both widowed.

2. Anna Margretha's late husband is named, as is the village where they resided. You can look up this village on Google Maps, just type in "Mühlbach-Neuenstein, Germany" into the search space (if you don't know how to make the umlaut over the 'u' try typing it as "Muehlbach." It is the same difference.) What you will find is that Mühlbach is a tad over 7 km walk southwest from Niederthalhausen.

3. The father of the bridegroom is named, thus reaching back one more generation.

Unfortunately, the Lutheran records in Mühlbach only go back to 1770, and between that date and the date of Anna Margretha Georg-Siel's marriage to Johann Michael Mürer in 1775, there is no marriage record for the Siels which might provide her father's name, no death record for Lorentz Siel which might confirm the spelling of her first husband's surname, nor any record of children born to them during that five year period.

If you are only casually interested in the Eichenauer genealogy, you may wish to get off the bus here because I am about to explore the first marriage of Johann Michael Mürer. And because this does not have a direct bearing on the Eichenauer ancestors, some will find this information superfluous.

However, I like to pull on every thread that is hanging out. You never know when you might unravel something really useful.

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OK, so now only the really, really dedicated family researchers are still with me, right?

We know that Joh. Michael Mürer was a widower when he married Anna Christina Mürer-Eichenauer's mother in 1775. So by digging a little deeper, I found a marriage record for Johann Michael Mürer in Niederthalhausen in1761:

"den 30ten Julÿ ist der [unidentified occupation--looks like "Jungefell"], Joh. Michael Mürer, und Anna Margretha, Simon Stippichs Witwe Copuliert worten(?)."

I have written to Regina, whom I have mentioned before, to get some clarification on his occupation and the correct spelling of the last word, but the gist of the record is clear:

"On the 30th of July [1761], Johann Michael Mürer and Anna Margretha, Simon Stippich's widow, were married."

There are three questions that pop into my head at this point:

1. What was Anna Margretha's maiden name?

2. Did they have children?

3. When did she die?

To answer the first question, I went back to the marriage records in Niederthalhausen. I didn't have to look far. The answer was on the same page:

"den 24ten 7br. Simon Stippich [unidentified occupation or marital status], ist mit Anna Margretha, Johann Henrich Reims Tochter auß Oberngeis Copuliert worden(?)"

Regina has been asked about this one as well. Maybe the next blog will contain her insight in these two records. The unidentified occupation or marital status is "Witwer" meaning widower.

But I do know what 7br. means. The first time I saw this, I jumped to the conclusion that it meant "July" because after all, July is the seventh month of the year. But further research revealed another Latin link. In fact the last four months of the year are often written in this manner.

Dec-ember 10br.

Nov-ember 9br.

Oct-ober 8br.

Sept-ember 7br.

Do you see the Latin numbers that begin each month? Now, I am not sure why the Roman calendar was off by two months from ours. Rachel, if you are still reading, I'm counting on you to comment on this. But Dec would be 10br, Nov would be 9br, Oct would be 8br and so of course 7br is September.

So, the translation is "On the 24th of September, Simon Stippich, Widower, and Anna Margretha, the daughter of Johann Henrich Reim from Oberngeis were married."

Interestingly (at least to me) is where Oberngeis is located. Although it appears with this spelling on a map from 1849, somewhere along the line it dropped the "n" and is now spelled Obergeis. If you looked up Mühlbach, then from there a 4.5 km walk southeast along Rt 324 would get you there.

On to question 2, "did they have children?"

The short answer to that is , yes, there were at least four born between 1762 and 1768. If you want to know more, you have to pay double what you have been paying. Seriously, I won't go into the details. Superfluous can only stretch so far.

And question 3, when did Johann Mürer's first wife die?

And the answer is ...

"21 Jul [1771] ist Anna Margaretha, Johann Michael Mürers Ehefrau 18t. ej. abends 10 Uhr gestorben begraben worden Alt 38 Jahre"

Another Latin abbreviation: "ej." stands for "ejusdem" which means "the same"

Translation is "Buried on 21 July 1771, Anna Margaretha, Johann Michael Mürer's wife, died on the 18th of the same month, age 38 years"

Well, I think since you hung in there with me, I will provide a portion of the 1849 map that shows the area that has been a part of this discussion as a reward. The fact that both of his wives came from some distance over the hills from Niederthalhausen makes me ponder the why of it. Most marriages took place between couples who lived within spitting distance of each other. Not that they would ever do that, but, I'll leave you to do the speculating about that--the reason for getting his wives from elsewhere, not the spitting thing.