The Eichenauer Geography (pt. 1)

The Eichenauers of Mercer County, Ohio and the Roedigers of Auglaize County, Ohio have an intertwined family history which begins in a small village of about 300 inhabitants in the Hersfeld-Rotenburg District of the German State of Hesse called Tann. While the Rödigers had lived in this village for generations (Henn Rödiger was listed in one document from 1627 as one of 12 farmers in Tann, most of whom had 1 horse and oxen), the Eichenauers were relative newcomers.

It appears that Johann Konrad Eichenauer and his wife, Anna Katharina Jacob moved to Tann after their eleventh child was born on 21 September of 1833 and before their twelfth child was born on 10 September 1836.

My intention in this blog is to show via modified Google Earth Maps (since I can't take you on a personal bus tour) where the Eichenauers came from before moving to Tann and about how long they lived in those locations. Since my research has only been able to learn the birthplaces of Johann Konrad Eichenauer's ancestors back to his grandfather, this shall be a fairly short "lesson." But hopefully you will get a spacial concept that will serve you in further research forays. And, of course, if you have access to Google Earth or even Google Maps, you can follow along in one of those programs and enhance your experience by zooming in on whatever floats your boat.

First, let me show you a map of Germany in relation to her neighbors in Europe:


The individual States of Germany are outlined in blue. Hesse is located almost in the geographical center of Germany. Frankfurt is the largest city of Hesse, so if you find the blue line that surrounds Frankfurt, you have found Hesse.
Sadly, I have been stymied in my attempts to show all of Hesse and and also have Google Earth show some of the midsize cities in Hesse that you might be familiar with. So this next map does show Frankfurt in the south and Kassel in the north, surrounded by the blue line indicating the borders of Hesse. After you have studied it for a few moments you can move on to the next map which will zoom in on the northern area of Hesse indicated by the area outlined in red.

 

The map below is semi-sort-of the area framed in red on the map above, and begins to show some of the smaller towns. Again, I have framed an area in red that will be enlarged on the following map.



Zooming a little closer on the area framed in red above, we can now find Tann on the map below, which is about 4 miles north of Bad Hersfeld.



I am now going to enlarge the area around Hof Trunsbach so that you can see the locality a bit better before I explain it's significance.



As I wrote earlier in this blog, Johann Konrad and Anna Katharina Eichenauer moved to Tann between 1833 and 1836. But before coming to Tann, they had been residents of Niederthalhausen, about 3 miles up the road. Johann Konrad and Anna Katharina were married in the Niederthalhausen church, their first 11 children had been born in Haus 18 in Niederthalhausen and baptized the this church. When I visited Tann, I wasn't aware of the significance of Niederthalhausen to our family history, so never visited there. However, thanks to Youtube I was able to lasso a photo of the church there. If you search for "Evangelische Kirche von Niederthalhausen" on Youtube, you can watch a short video that shows several views of the church and captures the tolling of the bells in the church tower. The link is Niederthalhausen ev. Dorfkirche

The church is located just below the yellow pushpin

Although Johann Konrad lived in Niederthalhausen with his family from 1815 to about 1835 when they moved to Tann, he wasn't born there. He and his 7 siblings were born at the Hof Trunsbach, which I wrote about in a previous blog. If you refer back to the map image just before that of the Evangelische Kirche, you will see that the Hof was located about 3/4 mile SE of Niederthalhausen. Johann Konrad Eichenauer's grandfather, Johann George (1727-1822) had come to the Hof Trunsbach with his family to become its "Conductor" in 1794. Succeeding generations of Eichenauers held that position for almost 100 years (until 1888).

But of course, only one person could hold that position, so other members of the family found it necessary to find other positions either on the Hof or elsewhere. In a future blog, I intend to show where some of the children and grandchildren went from the Hof and what occupations they pursued.

[On 1 Feb 2020, I reviewed this post and was startled to discover several factual errors in this paragraph. Please see my post from 2/1/2020 for corrections and additions to this paragraph--SRR] I now know that Johann George Eichenauer, the first Eichenauer who held the position of Hof Trunsbach Conductor had at least three sons by his wife, Anna Catharina Schäfer who was born in Angersbach. The first two sons were born in Grebenau, where their father was born. 1. Johann Heinrich (1764-1813) was Johann Konrad's father. It appears that Johann Heinrich inherited the Conductor position when his father died, but about this I am not 100% sure. 2. Johannes  Eichenauer (1773-1836) married Barbara Elisabeth Sunkel from Reilos and had 9 children, two sons and seven daughters. 3. Konrad Eichenauer, about whom I have learned very little because the church records from Grebenau are not yet available online. I do know that he was living in Angersbach in 1823 (his mother's hometown) because of the baptismal record of a niece who was named after his wife, Anna Margaretha Möller. It may be that Konrad was already married and settled in a career in Angersbach when his father moved to Hof Trunsbach with the other two sons. Hopefully, sometime soon those records will be available to solve this little mystery.

From the above paragraph, I revealed where this branch of the Eichenauer clan lived prior to 1794. But look at the map below to gain some perspective:



First note the distance between Grebenau (where Johann George Eichenauer was born) and Angersbach (where his wife was born). [I subsequently have learned that Johann George Eichenauer, his wife and four of their five children were born in Angersbach. They moved to Grebenau between 1770 and 1772 where their fifth child was born--SRR] It looks to be about 10-12 miles as the crow flies. These two towns are located in a different district from Tann and Niederthalhausen which are in the Hersfeld-Rotenburg District. The District that Grebenau and Angersbach is in is called Vogelsbergkreis which is outlined in light green.

Now note the distance between Hof Trunsbach and Grebenau. It calculates out to be about 24-25 miles. I am not sure how to measure the significance of the distance between these two locations, but if they left family behind in Grebenau or Angersbach, it would certainly limit the number of times they would visit one another. Perhaps we will never learn the reasons behind making such a move but it prompts me to ask myself questions: Was the opportunity of being the manager of the Hof just too good to pass up? Were there limited economic opportunities in the Vogelbergkreis that forced them to seek work further from home?

Hopefully the following diagram will be legible. It provides the basic information that I have been able to learn about Johann George Eichenauer and Anna Catharina Schäfer's children and grandchildren. I believe this is all included in my ancestry.com tree "Rödiger Family Tree" and there, where possible, I have provided citations in the descriptions of each event. As a reminder, the NW Ohio Eichenauers descend from Johann Konrad Eichenauer, son of Johann Heinrich Eichenauer, son of Joann George Eichenauer.
And finally, just to ramp up your curiosity, I would draw your attention to the second son of Johannes Eichenauer (second column), Heinrich Eichenauer who died in 1899 in Lancaster Twp, Butler County, PA. Had you heard of Pennsylvania cousins?