Lost Weifenbach Years Accounted For

In my last post I lamented the fact that "I have been unable to determine where the Weifenbachs lived between 1846 (when they arrived in New York) and 13 August 1866 (when Anna Gela, the oldest daughter married Johann Conrad Eichenauer in Auglaize Co). That is 20 years unaccounted for!"

I am very happy to report, thanks to my mother's astute observation that the Berlet family may hold the key, that I have discovered where the Weifenbachs were living at the time of the 1850 and 1860 US censuses.

The Berlet family is connected to the Diegel family as well as to the Weifenbach family.
Here is the pertinent connection:
The mother of Conrad Weifenbach (my great-great grandfather) was Katharina Elisabetha Berlet from Niederaula, Germany. Katharina's brother, Henrich Berlet married Anna Maria Diegel. Anna Maria is my 1st cousin 4 generations removed in that her grandparents are also my great-great-great-great grandparents, Johann Heinrich Diegel and Martha Elisabeth Pfiel from Schwarzenhasel, Germany.

The Berlet connection between the Diegels and Weifenbachs helped because I already knew that when the Diegels and Berlets first came to America, they lived in Black River Township, Lorain County, Ohio and eventually moved to Washington Township, Auglaize County, Ohio.
Since I had scoured the area around Washington Township in the 1850 and 1860 census and found neither hide nor hair of the Weifenbachs, I thought that a closer look at Lorain County censuses might be worthwhile, though I confess I wasn't very hopeful. Since the Berlets and Diegels had lived in Black River Township, I began there.

In the 1850 census of Black River Twp. I found:

At first blush this record would be easily overlooked for a couple of reasons. The most obvious is that the surname here was written as Vaginburgh and pertains to the first four members of the family. And it was written as Vagenbaugh and indexed as Vagerbangh by ancestry.com for the fifth member of the family on the following page of the census. No wonder a search for Weifenbach turned up no hits in Lorain Co in 1850.
The second problem is that of the "Vaginburgh" named Hannah. There was never a Hannah Weifenbach in our Weifenbach family. The fact that Hannah's age is listed as being the same age as Elizabeth's is also disconcerting. For even if the name was incorrectly recorded, I know of no female Weifenbach in that immediate age range in our family other than Katharina Elisabetha (Berlet) Weifenbach.

Other than the problem concerning the identity of "Hannah, age 39", the other members of this family match up perfectly with Johannes, Katharina Elisabetha and two of their children, Conrad and Anna Catharina Weifenbach.
The one child that apparently is not represented on this page is the eldest daughter, Angelica (AKA Anna Gela or Abbie) who was born in 1842 and would have been 8 years old at the time of this census. As you will see when I add the record from the 1860 census, Hannah disappears and "Abigail" appears. So saying--

1860 Census, Black River Twp:

I believe that this record is Johannes Weifenbach, his wife and three children who appear in the 1870 Census in Washington Twp, Auglaize Co, OH. The names are right, the ages are right and their place of birth is right. Of course, the biggest difficulty is that the surname does not match. And it is certainly not the fault of the Indexers at ancestry.com this time. I would have indexed this surname the same way. I can only hazard a guess or two about why the surname is so far out in left field in both censuses here. Perhaps the census taker was deaf, or perhaps the family member who provided the information had a speech impediment. In any case, the problem of the misspelled surname has been a royal pain to solve.

The 1870 census in Washington Twp, Auglaize Co. was not much better. In case I haven't shown this one before:

In this record, I have already made the suggestion that the surname should be indexed as "Weifenbach". The original indexed name was consistent with what was written by the census taker as "Viepenback". The only reason I found this record was because I knew the Weifenbachs lived in Washington Twp and I had gone through the 1870 records with a fine-tooth comb. As you can see, at this time, Abbie Weifenbach (Appie according to the census taker) was married to Conrad Eichenauer (line 15 and 16) and had an adopted son, John Evans (line 17). Abbie's parents show up on lines 18 and 19, and her brother, Conrad Weifenbach was married to Christina [Diegel] and had a daughter, Catharina Weifenbach (lines 20-22).
As you can see from the 1860 Census above, Conrad and Abbie Weifenbach had a sister, Catharina that does not show up in the 1870 census. After further research, I discovered that she was married to John Eiesle/Eissle in Auglaize Co on 20 January 1870:

One would think that this couple would have shown up in the 1870 census as a married couple, but once again a Weifenbach has escaped me. However, I am hot on the trail of Anna Catharina Weifenbach and her husband.

So, it is now clear that the Weifenbachs arrived in New York in 1846 and lived in Black River Twp, Lorain Co, OH at the time of the 1850 and 1860 Census. Then sometime before 1866 the family relocated to Washington Twp, Auglaize Co. where most of the family remained.
Johannes and Katharina Elisabetha Weifenbach had two daughters and just one son, Conrad, to carry on the Weifenbach name. Conrad Weifenbach and his wife, Christena Diegel had five children, three daughters and two sons, Frederic and Jacob. Frederic died at age six. Jacob Weifenbach became the last male to bear the Weifenbach name from that line. He married Mary Vordermark, and their daughter, Lillian Matilda "Lillie", the very last Weifenbach, was born in 1897, married Eugene Byron Slattery in 1916 and died in Wapakoneta in 1983. Today, the only reminder of the Weifenbach family in Auglaize Co is in the form of a road name, which ironically was also misspelled as Wiefenbach.


I am currently researching what happened to Anna Catharina Weifenbach after her marriage to John "Eisle." Hopefully, I will be able to resolve that question very soon.

Stephen Roediger

Switching Gears—Where did the Weifenbachs come from in Germany?

BACKGROUND
Sometime after my great-grandfather, Conrad Tobias Rödiger, arrived in Ohio, he met Anna Christina Weifenbach, who was a lifelong resident of Washington Twp., Auglaize Co. Ohio. Christina lived with her parents, Conrad Weifenbach and Christena Diegel and her 8 siblings in the brick farmhouse on the corner of Wiefenbach Rd. (named after her family, but is misspelled) and Bay Rd.

This is about 2 miles south of old Rt 33. Her parents had been married in 1866 by Christian Wessling, Minister of the Gospel.

Conrad and Anna Christina (Diegel) Weifenbach

The Weifenbachs attended the  Weifenbach Church situated across Wiefenbach Rd from the Weifenbach homestead. The church no longer exists but many of its members ended up attending Salem Methodist Church in Wapak.

My great-grandfather, Conrad Tobias Roediger, had purchased land about 1 mile north of old Rt 33, on the west side of Bay Rd and on the north and south sides of Kruse Rd. I believe that he attended the Weifenbach Church and that my grandfather, Alfred Tobias Roediger, was baptized there.

In 1889, Conrad Tobias Roediger and Anna Christina Weifenbach were married and subsequently raised three daughters and my grandfather, Alfred Tobias.

Top: Carrie and Bertha; Bottom: Anna Christina (Weifenbach), Alfred Tobias, Conrad Tobias and Mamie Roediger

So, in addition to the Roediger and Eichenauer families, I have an vested interest in the Weifenbach family as well.

ANCESTRAL HOME
Up until this year, all I knew about the Weifenbach German origins I had gleaned from record of the ship "Atlas" on which Anna Christina's grandparents and family had traveled to America.

This ship arrived in the port of New York on 6 August 1846. The Weiffenbachs who stepped off of the ship are described as follows:
Joh. Weiffenbach, age 37, male, peasant
Catharine Weiffenbach, age 32, female
Christine Weiffenbach, age 17, male
Anna Gela Weiffenbach, age 5, female
Conrad Weiffenbach, age 3, male
Catharine Weiffenbach, age 1
All were listed as being "from Nieder Aula, with destination being Ohio"

At the time that they immigrated in 1846, ship records typically were content to only provide the name of the country of origin. Since Germany didn't become a nation until 1871, the most I would have expected to find was that they were from one of the 39 sovereign states formed after the downfall of Napoleon. A few of the major states included Prussia, Bavaria and Hesse. So, imagine my surprise when their place of origin was given as Nieder Aula, a very specific village. And imagine my delight when I discovered that there appears to only be one village by the name Niederaula in all of Germany. The name derives from the fact that it was situated on the Aula river. Nieder is a German adjective which means "low" or "lower". There is also a village named Oberaula. Ober means "upper". So Niederaula is down the Aula river and Oberaula is up.

And here is the Kicker. When I Google-mapped Niederaula I discovered that it is only 13 miles from Tann. Tann to Niederaula map link. This makes me wonder if my great-grandparents realized how close their home villages were to each other. Déjàvu--this is the same question I asked in regard to the Diegels in my last Blog Post.

This is the "Wappen" (Coat of Arms) of Niederaula:

As you can see from the ship record, questions immediately arise about "Christine" who is listed as a male and is of an age which makes me seriously doubt that she is one of their children. Being 17, she (or he) would have been born about 1828 or 1829 and Johannes and Katherine were not married until 1841. The other difficulty I faced concerning Christine, was that of the six Weiffenbachs on the Atlas, she was the only one I could not find a baptismal record for.

So, now that I established where they were from, I began searching in earnest for the records for this family. Just recently the church records for Niederaula were digitized and posted on Archion.de, so I have been busy researching the Weifenbach and Berlet families in Niederaula. And what I found is on the whole AMAZING. On the Weifenbach side I have been able to to get birth, marriage and death records back to my 4G Grandparents. Additionally, I have learned the names of my Weifenbach 5G and 6G great-grandfathers. Unfortunately there is a 19 year gap in the records between 1754 and 1773. And there is a generational jump that takes place in the Weifenbach family during that time period that prevents me from connecting the dots any further back with any certainty.
However, on the Berlet side I have been able to find birth and marriage and most death records back to the Berlet 6G grandparents and know the name of my 7G grandfather. In addition, my 6G grandfather, Johann Caspar Berlet married Elisabeth Baum in 1747 in Niederaula and I have learned that her parents, Johann George Baum and Anna Catharina Eicheberg were married in 1722 in Niederaula and her father, Jost Eicheberg would be my 8G grandfather. This means that I have made it back into the late 1600s with this family. This is very exciting since I really had no record of the Weifenbach part of my family in Germany until very recently! So much progress in so little time. You can find the Ancestor Tree of Conrad Weifenbach HERE and then choose the file "Conrad Weifenbach Ancestors as of 20191107.pdf"

As I mentioned earlier, of the six Weiffenbachs on that boat, I have only found birth records for Johannes and his wife and the three youngest Weiffenbachs.

So, for now, I will share the birth records I found for the five I have found and throw in Johannes Weiffenbach and Catharina Berlet's marriage record for good measure.

Johannes Weiffenbach Baptismal Record:

März 11 [1810]--Johannes, des Ackermanns, Philipp Weifenbach, daher, und deßen Ehefrau, Anna Maria, geboren Hofmann, Sohn; gebohren am 5ten ejus der Morgens zwischen drei under Uhr. Gevatter, Johannes Sippel, Ackermann in
 ?Friedlos?, Schwager des Vaters vom Kinde.

11 March [1810]--the farmer, Phillip Weifenbach from here and his legitimate wife, Anna Maria neé Hofmann had a son, Johannes who was baptized, born between 3 and 4 o'clock on the 5th of the same month. The baptismal sponsor was Johannes Sippel, farmer in ?Friedlos?, brother-in-law of the father of the child. I gather that this means that Johannes' father has a sister who married Johannes Sippel (twigs for further research).

Catharina Elisabetha Berlet Baptismal Record:

Am 28ten April [1815], Catharina Elisabetha, des Johannes Berlet hiesigen Einwohners und Ackermanns und deßen Ehefrau, Barbara Elisabetha gebh. Fink, ehel. Tochter, gebohren am 23ten l. M. Mittags 12 Uhr. Gevatter: Catharina Elisabeth des Johann Valentin Berlet Ehefrau.

28 April [1815]--Catharina Elisabeth, legitimate daughter of Johannes Berlet, resident and farmer [of Niederaula] and his wife, Barbara Elisabeth Fink, was baptized, having been born on the 23rd at 12 noon. Sponsor was Catharina Elisabeth, wife of Johann Valentin Berlet.

Johannes Weifenbach and Katharina Elisabeth Berlet Marriage Record (I have captured this in two parts, the first being the information about the groom and bride, and the second pertaining to the dates:

Johannes Weiffenbach, Ortsbürger und Landbauer in Kirchheim, des weil. Einwoh. und Landbauers zu Nieder Aula, Philipp Weiffenbach, und deßen Ehefrau, Jakobina Maria, geb. Hofmann, jetzt Witwe von Adam Kurz; ehe. lediger Sohn, geb. März 5, 1810, reform. Konfeßion.

Katharine Elisabeth Berlet, des hiesigen Auszugers und Kirchenältesten, Johannes Berlet und deßen Ehefr. Barbe Elisabeth, geb. Fink; eheliche Tochter, geboren April 23, 1815

Johannes Weiffenbach, born 5 March 1810, citizen and farmer in Kirchheim, legitimate son of the resident and farmer of Nieder Aula, Philipp Weiffenbach and his wife, Jakobina Maria Hofmann (who is now the widow of Adam Kurz)

Katharine Elisabeth Berlet, born 23 April 1815, legitimate daughter of Johannes Berlet, who lives outside of the village,  and his wife, Barbe Elisabeth, neé Fink.

Place and Date of Civil Registration: Nieder Aula, November 13, 1841
Dates of Church Banns: November 14, 21 and 28
Place and Date of Wedding: Nieder Aula, Dezember 5, 1841

I do not think you need me to translate any of this, but note that the village name was written as two words. On today's maps, it has been compacted and appears as "Niederaula".

CHILDREN:
1) Angelica Weiffenbach (and again I divide this record in two parts because it stretches across two pages in the original document):

#429--Nieder Aula, [Geburt:] Januar Sieben, 5. Uhr, morgen.
[Taufe:] Niederaula im Pfarrhaus, Jan. 23.
[Geschecht und Namen des Kindes:] Mädchen, Angelica (vulgo: Anna Gela) Weiffenbach

[Namen und Stand der Eltern:] Johannes Weiffenbach, Landbauer; Katharina Elisabeth, geb. Berlet, deßen Ehefrau
[Namen und Stand der Taufpaten:] Angelica Berlet, der Mutter eheles. Schwester

Taken together, this record states that the little girl, Angelica (name in common language is Anna Gela) Weiffenbach was born on 7 January [1841] at 5 am to the farmer, Johannes Weiffenbach and his wife, Katharina Elisabeth, neé Berlet, and baptized at the Pastor's house in Niederaula on 23 January [1841]. The baptismal sponsor was the mother's sister, Angelica Berlet

This child, Anna Gela Weiffenbach, married Johann Conrad (Conrad John) Eichenauer, the youngest son of Johann Konrad Eichenauer and Anna Katharina Jacob, and brother of Anna Margaretha and Johann Friedrich Eichenauer in Auglaize Co, Ohio. Just so I don't lose anybody here, Johann Friedrich was the father of all of the Eichenauers who immigrated to Auglaize Co. and Mercer Co., Ohio; and Anna Margaretha was the mother of George and Conrad Tobias Rödiger who immigrated to the same area. Hope that helps.

2) Conrad Weiffenbach:

#429--Kirchheim, [Geburt:] Zehnten Julius, des Morgens um sechs Uhr.
[Taufe:] am 23 Julius dahier
[Geschecht und Namen des Kindes:] ein Knabe, Conrad Weiffenbach 

[Namen und Stand der Eltern:] Johannes Weiffenbach, Tagelöhner dahier, gebürtig aus Niederaula; et. ux: Catharina Elisabetha, geborene Berlet, gebürtig aus Niederaula
[Namen und Stand der Taufpaten:] Conrad ?Stürz?, Schneider zu Mengshausen, in Amt. Niederaula

Taken together, this record states that the small boy, Conrad Weiffenbach was born at 6 am on 10 July [1843] to the day laborer here, Johannes Weiffenbach (who was born in Niederaula), and his wife, Catharina Elisabetha, neé Berlet, and baptized here on 23 July [1843]. The baptismal sponsor was Conrad ?Stürz?, tailor from Mengshausen in the district of Niederaula.

3) Anna Catharina Weiffenbach:

#429--Kirchheim, [Geburt:] vierzehnten Julius, des Mittags um zweÿ Uhr.
[Taufe:] am 27 Julius dahier
[Geschecht und Namen des Kindes:] ein Mädchen, Anna Catharina Weiffenbach  

[Namen und Stand der Eltern:] Johannes Weiffenbach, Tagelöhner dahier, gebürtig aus Niederaula; et. ux: Catharina Elisabetha, geborene Berlet, gebürtig aus Niederaula
[Namen und Stand der Taufpaten:] Anna Catharina, des Christoph Stanges und dessen Ehefrau Anna Elisabeth, geboren Müller, eheliche Tochter, zu Lingelbach im Amte Oberaula

#515--the little girl, Anna Catharina Weiffenbach, was born in House #27 in Kirchheim on the 14th of July [1845] at 2 pm to Johannes Weiffenbach (born in Niederaula), and his wife, Catharina Elisabetha, neé Berlet (born in Niederaula) and was baptized here on 27 July [1845]. The baptismal sponsor was Anna Catharina, the daughter of Christoph Stang and his wife, Anna Elisabetha, neé Müller from Lingelbach in the District of Oberaula. I included the headers here for your reading pleasure. As you can see, they are using printed forms with headers. Prior to 1830, many of the records were just handwritten, lumping all the information into one paragraph.

From the above, I have learned that the parents, Johannes and Anna Catharina (Berlet) Weiffenbach were both born in Niederaula. They were married in Niederaula, but Johannes is said in the marriage record to be from Kirchheim, which is just a stones throw (3 miles) to the northwest. Their first child was baptized in the pastor's house in Niederaula, and although the child's birth has been recorded as taking place in Niederaula, there seems enough scratching out and adding in of information to make me wonder whether that is correct. After all, her father was living in Kirchheim when married, and the rest of her siblings were born in House 27 in Kirchheim.
Here is a google map showing the driving distance between the two villages:

Forested and cultivated land lies between the two villages which lie next to the Aula, which appears to be just a creek.

I think that I have, by this time, been able to establish the ancestral home of the Weifenbachs of Auglaize Co. Ohio. There is a rich vein of Weifenbach ore to be mined there, but that would be way too much info for one Blog Post. So, I want to conclude this Post with a bit of frustrating news:

I have been unable to determine where the Weifenbachs lived between 1846 (when they arrived in New York) and 13 August 1866 (when Anna Gela, the oldest daughter married Johann Conrad Eichenauer in Auglaize Co). That is 20 years unaccounted for!
In 1870, the Weifenbachs who came on the "Atlas" appeared in the Census in Washington Twp, Auglaize County except for Christine (or is it Christian?) and Anna Catharina (the child listed as 1 year old on the ship record). So what happened to those two girls? Either or both could easily have married or died or both during that 20 year period.
According to the ship record, their destination was Ohio. But, I have yet to find them in the 1850 or 1860 Census. This is not surprising as the indexing on Ancestry.com for those years is mediocre at best. Names are horribly misspelled. Even in the 1870 census the Weifenbach family was listed as "Viepenbeck". I am sure they were not listed in Washington Twp in the 1850 census because I have looked through those records with a fine tooth comb, but haven't had the time (nor inclination frankly) to go page by page through all of Auglaize and Mercer Counties. So, next stop is the Recorder of Deeds Office in Auglaize Co to see when the Weifenbachs bought land.

So, as usual, the more questions that get answered, the more questions that arise. But, as soon as the opportunity presents itself, I WILL follow up.

Stephen Roediger
(Roediger-Eichenauer Family Historian)

Where Did You Come From 3G Grandpa Diegel?

Time to get the Diegels off the back burner. I started this blog about six months ago and had a lot of difficulty figuring out hot how to present it. I'm afraid this is as good as it is going to get, so let's get it off the back burner and into the oven.

George and Anna Martha (Schubert) Diegel are my 3G Grandparents. Here is how:
They were both born in Germany. They were married in Lorain County, Ohio in 1839 and shortly afterwards moved to Washington Twp, Auglaize County, Ohio. In the US Census of 1840, they are listed as residing in Washington Twp, Auglaize County.

Their daughter, Christena, married Conrad Weifenbach in 1866 in Auglaize County, Ohio. And one of their daughters, Anna Christina Weifenbach married my great-grandfather, Conrad Tobias Roediger in 1889, eight years after he arrived in America. All of this is very clear and well documented.

WARNING: IF YOU HAVE RESEARCHED GEORGE DIEGEL AND GOTTEN INFORMATION FROM HIS FINDAGRAVE.COM MEMORIAL PAGE, THROW IT AWAY! Concerning his full name, his birth place and the identity of his parents IT IS FALSE AND MISLEADING.

OK, I got that off my chest. And believe me, that Memorial page caused me many many hours of wasted research time. So, on to the revelation of where the Diegels of Auglaize County, Ohio actually did come from.

In my attempt to discover where George Diegel came from in Germany, I worked from a 7 page typewritten family history, written primarily by Linna Diegel Klinefelter Ratcliff about 1968 and edited by Donna (Diegel) Roberts in 1981 which I will refer to as the Diegel Family History or DFH to save my fingers.

There is a significant portion of this document that I will not present in this blog post, as much of it pertains to George's brother Jacob and his descendants and is not germane to this topic. However, this paragraph is particularly useful.

Armed with the birth date of 7 March 1811 in "Hassel Greis, Rothenburg, Herhessen, Germany" I opened up archion.de and began what I knew could turn into an arduous search. And so it proved.

According to this account, George Diegel and his brother were from Hassel Greis, Rothenberg, Hurhessen, Germany. I can find no evidence that such a place exists, but what struck me about this was how similar it looks to Kreis Rotenburg, Kassel, Kurhessen, which not only exists, but is in fact the very same area from which the Eichenauers came from. Rotenburg is a town, known more specifically as Rotenburg an der Fulda, which means that it is the Rotenburg situated on the Fulda River. Kreis refers to a local district within a larger government district known as a Regierungsbezirk. Rotenburg is a small district within the larger district of Kassel which is one of the administrative districts of the state of Hesse(n). During the time that the Prussians held sway over this region, it was known as Kurhessen.

So, I am theorizing that this family history was orally communicated to someone unfamiliar with the place names in Germany who either wrote it down by hand or typed it and who simply misread the capital letters or misheard the actual names while typing them. If this is true, then George and Jacob were from one of the villages within the district of Rotenburg. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a full list of the towns and villages in this district. But, not only does the government break down the villages and towns into districts, so does the Evangelische Kirche which includes, to the best of my understand, what is known in English as the Lutheran Church and the Reformed Church--distinct but similar. The Evangelische Kirche's break down does not exactly mirror the government's, but it does give me a list of 65 village churches within the ecclesiastical district of Rotenburg whose records have been partially or completely digitized.

I need to insert a note here that I later found two documents which which would have saved me countless hours of searching, but did not know of their existence at the time.

After searching through the Rotenburg churches, which are arranged alphabetically, I discovered an interesting birth record in the 56th church, Schwarzenhasel:

1811--März 12, George der Sohn des Bauers Henrich Diegel et ux. Elisab geb. Pfiel, nat. 7ten Abends 5 Uhr.
Gevatter. George Diegel Geschirrmeister? in Kaßel

Translated, baptized 12 March 1811, George, the son of the farmer Henrich Diegel and his wife Elisabeth née Pfiel, born on the 7th at 5 pm. Baptismal sponsor was George Diegel, Master craftsman of Tableware? in Kassel.

This sounds very promising. Same name (surname even spelled the same), born on the same date, and occurring in the same district which I theorized was the equivalent of "Hassel Greis, Rothenburg, Herhessen, Germany". But, I have fallen down enough rabbit holes to not get overly excited quite yet. There are several other tests that need to be made to determine the possibility of this being a match.

The first would be whether this George Diegel married or died in Schwarzenhasel. He could have married, but couldn't have died there if he was my GGG Grandfather.

So, I looked for a George Diegel who married in Schwarzenhasel between 1830 and 1937 and there are none. There also no George Diegels who died in Schwarzenhasel between 1830 and 1937. Keep in mind that he could have married or died elsewhere in Germany, but at least the possibility he is my GGG Grandfather remains a possibility.

Another test involves George's older brother, Jacob. Keep in mind that in the first paragraph of this document, no mention of George's parents names are made, but a brother, Jacob, is mentioned:

I will mention, that according to the paragraph which followed the one above, the "old man" mentioned here did not survive the voyage. So we are left with the two Diegel brothers who arrived in America about 1836. A subsequent paragraph reveals the following information:

(keep in mind that these are the words of Linna Diegel Klinefelter Ratcliff, not me). Later portions of the DFH document reveal that the three daughters were Anna who married Christopher Clay in Lorain County; Mary, who married Henry Berlet in 1857 in Lorain County; and Eliza, born 30 April 1834 in "Hassel Greis, Rothenburg, Herhessen, Germany", married "Mr. Reynolds" in Lorain County (married and divorced before she was 18). So, still without the two crucial documents which verified that the Diegels were indeed from Schwarzenhasel, I searched for George's brother Jacob, his wife Mary Christena Schwarz and their three daughters in the Schwarzenhasel records.

After a search in Schwarzenhasel, I found a birth record fo a Jacob Diegel born to the same parents as our subject, George Diegel:

[1798] Nov. 28, Jacob, Henrich Diegels et uxor Martha Elisabeth Pfielin, ehel. Sohnl. nat. am 25ten, ejusd. h. antemerid 9
gehatten, Jacob Diegel

Basically the translation from German and Latin is that Jacob, legitimate son of Henrich Diegel and his wife Martha Elisabeth Pfiel, was born on the 25 November 1798 at 9 in the morning and baptized on the 28th; Baptismal sponsor was Jacob Diegel.

This led to a search for a marriage record for Jacob, son of Henrich Diegel and Martha Elisabeth Pfiel. I actually found two, for two distinct Jacob Diegels, but this would ultimately prove to be the correct one:

27 März 1826, Jacob Diegel, Schneider, Henrich Diegel Sohn dahier,
mit Christina Maria, Nicolaus Kirchners Tochter dahier

Jacob Diegel, Tailor, son of Henrich Diegel from here married Christina Maria, daughter of Nicolaus Kirchner, on 27 March 1826.

Note that Jacob Diegel's wife's birth surname is not Schwartz as is indicated in the DFH, but Kirschner. But, since the bride in this marriage record has a first and middle name consistent with the DFH source, I chose to research children born to Jacob Diegel and Christina Maria (Kirschner) Diegel. I found 3 and only 3:

1) Anna Catharina, b. 21 January 1827

1827, Januar 21 -- Anna Catharina, die Tochter des Schneiders, Jacob Diegel et ux Christine Maria, geb. Kirchner, nat. 13ten ejusd. merid. 1; Gevatten: Anna Catharina, Henrich Diegel Tochter, des Kindes Vaters Schwester dahier

Anna Catharina, the daughter of the tailor, Jacob Diegel and his wife, Christina Maria Kirchner was born on 13 January 1827 and baptized on 21 January. Her baptismal sponsor was Anna Catharina, daughter of Henrich Diegel, and sister of her father.

This record confirms that her grandfather's name was Henrich Diegel as we saw from her father's baptismal  and marriage record. A new bit of information is that her father had a sister, also named Anna Catharina Diegel. Also, her mother's first and middle name, Christina Maria matches that given in the DFH, except there it is Mary Christena. It is not unusual for first and middle names to be used interchangeably so I would not immediately discount this record. The similarity may prove significant at some point in this research.

2) Anna Maria, b. 15 October 1830

Schwarzenhasel, Geburt: Haus 54, fünfzehnte Oktober [1830], 10 Uhr Abends / Tauf: Schwarzenhasel, 24tn Oktober /
Kind: Anna Maria, eheliche Tochter / Eltern: Jacob Diegel, Schneider und Christine Kirchner /
Taufpaten: Anna Maria, das Zimmermeisters Kirchners Ehefrau, geboren Kuch

Sorry the writing on this one is so small. It is spread across two pages. But it basically says that Jacob and Christina (Kirchner) Diegel had a daughter, Anna Maria, born in House number 54, Schwarzenhasel on 15 October 1830, baptized on 24 October 1830; baptismal sponsor was Anna Maria Kuch, wife of the master carpenter, Kirchner.

3) Anna Elisabeth, b. 31 April 1833

Schwarzenhasel, Geburt: Haus 54, ein und dreißigsten [1833] / Tauf: Schwarzenhasel 5ten Maÿ /
Kind: Anna Elisabeth, eheliche Tochter / Eltern: Jacob Diegel, Schneider und Christina Maria Kirchner /
Taufpaten: Anna Elisabeth Sauer, Jungfrau

This is very curious. This record says that Anna Elisabeth was born on 31 (ein und dreißigsten) April 1833 in Haus 54, and was baptized on 5 May. Her parents were Jacob Diegel, a tailor and Christina Maria Kirschner. The baptismal sponsor was the unmarried woman, Anna Elisabeth Sauer. Is there something I don't know about German calendars? From what I remember April does not have 31 days. ("30 days has September, April, June and November" etc.)

Again, these are the only children I found born to Jacob and Christina Maria (Kirchner) Diegel, and a very thorough search of the Schwarzenhasel records did not reveal any confirmation or marriage records pertaining to these daughters, nor any death records for any one of this family group. This means that they must have relocated, but to where? The Schwarzenhasel records did not divulge a single clue. But what seems clear is that George, his brother Jacob, his wife and children all left Schwarzenhasel between 1833 (when the youngest daughter, Anna Elisabeth was born) and 1841 (when the eldest daughter, Anna Katharina would have been confirmed in the Lutheran Church had they still been there). So it seems very plausible that they are the same as those who arrived in Lorain County, Ohio and subsequently established themselves near New Knoxvlle, Auglaize County, Ohio.

To summarize this last section, I found in the Schwarzenhasel records information which correlates with the information revealed in the DFH pertaining to George and Jacob Diegel and Jacob Diegel's wife and 3 daughters--except for his wife's maiden name.

Now let me present the two documents which pretty much seal the deal concerning the validity of my Diegel family being from Schwarzenhasel. According to the DFH, George's brother, Jacob and his wife, Mary Christena Diegel had two sons after arriving in Lorain Co., Jacob, born 4 May 1841 in Lorain County who came to Auglaize County with his parents and married Sarah Cornelia Roberts and Adam. Nothing is said further about Adam in this DFH, other than the fact that his "history is in the book with the Smith Family". That makes me wonder where THAT history has gone to, but that would be fodder for a separate Blog.

But not to get sidetracked, I have found Jacob Jr.'s death certificate--check it out:

As you can clearly see, this Jacob Diegel was born in Lorain Co, OH on 4 May 1844. His parents were Jacob Diegel and Mary Christina KIRSCHNER. This lines up with all of the information known about Jacob Diegel Jr. from the DFH except his mother's maiden name. But KIRSCHNER is the maiden name of the woman whom I have theorized from the Schwarzenhasel records to be his mother and both the Schwarzenhasel records and the DFH agree that her first and middle names were a variation of Christina Maria. Can you see that I am jumping up and down in excitement? Well, I AM!

The second source which confirms that Schwarzenhasel is the ancestral home of the Diegels in my family comes from the obituary of Anna Elisabeth Diegel, daughter of Jacob and Mary Christina (Kirschner) Diegel posted on 11 Jan. 1906. This was found in the Auglaize Co. Library's extensive Obituary collection. Unfortunately, the clipping does not state which newspaper it was clipped from, but was probably the Wapakoneta Daily News. The whole obit is quite a bit longer, but this portion reveals all I needed to know:

SCHWARTZEN HASSEL GREIS, ROTHENBERG,  KURHESSEN, GERMANY

Of course, it really means "Schwarzenhasel, Kreis Rotenburg, Kurhessen, Germany" but hey, what more do we really need? If you put these two documents into the mix, the certainty that George Diegel and his brother, Jacob and his family were from the little village of Schwarzenhasel becomes 100% in my book.

So, now that I have established that, maybe you are curious about where Schwarzenhasel is located in Germany. I can help with that, but first let me pose the question, "If Jacob Diegel's wife's maiden name was Kirchner, why did the DFH think it was Schwartzen?" Well, I can only guess, but I think it probably has something to do with the name of the village she was from. Perhaps the source of this error misread notes in the German language and confused her maiden name with the name of the village. Maybe they thought she was a Schwartzin from Hassel Greis, or something of that nature.

About that location. Ain't Google Earth grand?! They even helped me save the image so I could post it here:

Schwarzenhasel is less than ten miles as the crow flies from Tann, or about 13 miles by car. The Diegels lived very close to the Roedigers though they may never have met. But it does make me wonder if my great grandfather, Conrad Tobias Roediger, who was born in Tann, ever knew just how close he lived to his wife's grandfather back in Germany. Maybe they didn't, but now we do!

Stephen Roediger

The Relationship Between Nikolaus Scheuch II and and His Mother-in-Law

In the last Blog post about the Tangled Web of Relationships I mentioned that I was uncertain about the relationship between Nikolaus Scheuch and his mother-in-law, Anna Martha Scheuch. It was one of those itches that I just had to scratch. As a result I put together an ancestor tree for Anna Martha Scheuch, daughter of Nikolaus Scheuch and the first wife of George Roediger (1854-1934) and made Nikolaus Scheuch the "Source" so that all of the others showing up in this tree would show their relationship to him.
Due to the fact that this Blog window is so narrow and this tree is 8 generations long, I am turning the chart 90º so that hopefully it will appear large enough for the Blog follower to read. However, doing this also turns the text on it's side, which would give me a crick in my neck. And of course you must scroll to the bottom and then your way towards the top.

So, the bottom line is that Nicholas Scheuch married his 2nd cousin. This is true because his wife's mother and Nikolaus shared the same great grandparents, Johann Michael Scheuch and Anna Catharina (birth surname unknown).

 If you would like to look at the "normal" view, I have placed a PDF version in Dropbox called Anna Martha Scheuch Ancestors Normal Chart.pdf. This will open up a new browser window linked to my newly created Blogger folder. At the time of writing there is just one file, but there will certainly be others added so on the right side of the file with the name shown in the link above you will see a column with the "..." symbol. If you click this, you can choose "download file" from the dropdown menu that appears. That should put this particular file wherever you typically download files. It may open up automatically, or you may have to navigate to the file to open it manually.
The nice thing about PDF files is that most computers, whether Apple or "the other guys" are equipped to open the file with a native PDF Viewer, and the view can be magnified so that what appears to be teeny-weeny text can be read easily without pixilating. The downside is that Blogger won't allow me to insert a PDF file into my Blog, so this is my work around for those of you with a keen interest in this stuff.

Stephen Roediger

This One is for My Aufderhauer Cousins--A Tangled Web

This blog post pertains to the Aufderhaar-Roediger branch of the family (shout out to Susan)!--you have cousins in Luzerne Co, PA that you may be unaware of.

To understand my starting point, find George Roediger (1854-1934), son of Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer in your family tree.
George was married twice. I have blogged previously about the multiple tragedies that struck his first family. Suffice it to say here that of the nine children born to George Roediger and his first wife, Anna Martha Scheuch, all except two died in childhood. Their first child, Heinrich Nikolaus never married and was struck and killed by a train at age 32. The only surviving child of that marriage, Anna Margaretha Agnesa married William Wesley Aufderhaar and had 9 children. So, Anna Martha Scheuch's only surviving descendants descend from this Roediger-Aufderhaar union.

So this blog post is of especial interest to the William Wesley Aufderhaar descendants. But, as is often the case, due to the tangled web of relationships, George Roediger's wife, Anna Martha Scheuch was his second cousin twice removed and so is also my fourth cousin once removed. "What a tangled web we weave, when our ancestors we  retrieve". Yes, I just made that one up. I know--pretty lame, but true.

Here is how Anna Martha Scheuch is related to all us non Aufderhaar-Roedigers (I know the type is very small and I had to leave off Anna Dorothea Rödiger's parents, Johann Adam Rödiger and  Barbara Elisabeth Bettenhausen, but hopefully the description below the chart will help you):

FOLLOW THE ORANGE BALLS

Anna Martha is the daughter of Nicolaus Scheuch (1823-1880) and Anna Christina Schade (1830-1889). Nicolaus Scheuch is the son of Conrad Scheuch (d. 1874) and Agnese Hildebrand (1804-1851). Agnese Hildebrand is the daughter of Nicolaus Hildebrand (1777-1843) and Anna Dorothea Hoßfeld (1780-1837). Anna Dorothea Hoßfeld is the daughter of Johann Tobias Hoßfeld (1756-1834) and Anna Dorothea Rödiger (1761-1825). Anna Dorothea Rödiger is the daughter of Johann Adam Rödiger (1718-1802) and Barbara Elisabeth Bettenhausen (1734-1804).

Anna Dorothea Rödiger is the sister of Johann Heinrich Rödiger (my GGG grandfather) who married Anna Sidonia Schneider (my GGG grandmother). Their son, Johann Tobias Rödiger became the progenitor of all of the Roedigers and Eichenauers who came to western Ohio in the second half of the 1800s. All of those named in this paragraph were born, married and died in Tann, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Hesse.

Now that I have established our common interest in Anna Martha Scheuch, I will now endeavor to show how certain immigrants to Luzerne Co, PA are related to her, and thus to the Aufderhaar Roedigers.

FOLLOW THE STARS, Then note the 1st and 2nd generation of Schaubs in Luzerne Co, PA in the red box

I have already stated that her parents were Nicolaus Scheuch and Anna Christina Schade. But, I climbed up the Scheuch side of that tree to establish a link with Johann Adam Rödiger. Now I need to climb up the Schade side of the tree, but not too far. Anna Christina Schade's parents are Justus Schade (d. 1873) and Anna Martha Scheuch (d. 1873). (I am sure that there is another double relationship between this Anna Martha Scheuch and her son-in-law, Nicolaus Scheuch, but I haven't pursued that line of enquiry yet*). Justus Schade and Anna Martha Scheuch had at least one other child besides Anna Christina. Her name was Catharina Elisabeth Schade (1828-1860, Tann). Catharina Elisabeth Schade married Heinrich Schaub in Tann. Their first son, Justus Schaub, was born in Tann in 1851 and arrived in the USA in 1867 He is the first cousin of Anna Martha Scheuch about whom this blog post revolves . He migrated to Luzerne Co, PA where he married twice. First to Barbara Elisabeth Manns. They had one daughter, Alice K. Schaub who was born and died in Hazleton, Luzerne Co, PA (1883-1918) and never married.

In 1889, Justus Schaub married, second, Mary Elisabeth Schmidt. She was a native of Luzerne Co, but her mother, Elisabeth Bube had been born in Tann and emigrated to the USA with her first husband Gottfried Brandau and their three children in 1857. Dare I muddy the waters further by stating that Elisabeth Bube was also the first cousin once removed of Jacob Lotz, who has a place in a previous post. He it was who married Johann Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger (sister of George and Johann Tobias Rödiger), in Bochum.

Anyway, back to Justus Schaub and Mary Elisabeth Schmidt. They had 6 children: Gertrude, who married Walter Dugan in 1915; Vera, who never married; Henry Martin, who married Pauline Hess; Danzer Justus, who died in Berkley, CA in 1951; Justus C, Jr, and William S.

So, bottom line is that the Schaubs of Luzerne Co, PA are definite cousins of the Aufderhaar-Roediger clan of Auglaize Co, OH.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
Justus Schaub's mother-in-law, Elisabeth Bube, had a brother, Johann George Bube, who arrived from Germany in 1867 with his wife and four sons (who were all born in Tann) and also settled in Hazleton, Luzerne Co, PA. They have no direct relationship to our family, but I am throwing in this additional information at no extra charge. Two of the sons, Simon and Karl Heinrich, presumably lived their entire lives in Hazleton. Adam Heirich married and moved to the vicinity of Weatherly, Carbon Co, just 9 miles distant. The fourth son, George Heinrich Bube moved to Alabama, married Anna Maria Kullmann in Pullman Co, AL in 1881 and they lived the rest of their lives in or near Birmingham, Alabama. They had at least 6 children, Annie G, Magdalena, Jacob, Martha A, Julia and George Henry Jr.

As always, if you are an ancestry.com subscriber, you can access my tree "The Rödiger Family Tree"--see link on my Blog Home Page or follow this link directly to Anna Martha Scheuch's profile page.

*Since writing this Blog Post, I have determined the relationships mentioned above. You can read about that in my next Post LINK

Stephen Roediger

Anna Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger (1858-1932), Sister of George and Conrad Tobias Roediger

I begin this post with two photos that have, until recently, defeated my powers of investigation:

These two photos were in a family photo album, along with my mother's handwritten note, "Aunt Bertha Roediger Smith used to write to a cousin Dora during WWII. Paul and Dora Gabler, Eichermann St. 37, Kassel, Grohessen 3500, Germany."

This note has been very puzzling. "Aunt Bertha Roediger Smith" was my grandfather, Alfred Roediger's sister. But I had never been able to identify how Dora was their cousin until just this summer. About two years ago, I discovered that my great grandfather, Conrad Tobias had two full sisters in addition to a half sister, Anna Katharina Rödiger, who married Friedrich Eichenauer. One of his full sisters was Katharina Elisabeth who was the subject of my last Blog post, "The Rödigers of Bochum Revisited and Expanded". As the title implies, there had been previous blogs (in 2017) on this subject when I first discovered the two sisters existence.

The other sister, and subject of this post, was born nearly ten years after the first on 4 March 1858 in Tann, and was baptized with the same name as her older sister, Katharina Elisabeth. Yet her baptismal sponsor was her half sister, Anna Katharina (Rödiger) Eichenauer. Usually a child was given the name of the baptismal sponsor, but not in this case. My reason for mentioning this should become apparent shortly.
Her marriage and death records give her name as Katharina Elisabeth. And, she was baptismal sponsor for a niece, Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger. So, two sisters, who lived concurrently had the same name, Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger.
But, interestingly (at least to me), most of the records following her marriage, including the baptismal and death records of her children have her name as Anna Katharina. And she was listed as a baptismal sponsor of another niece under the name Anna Katharina.

I am not sure of the reason for the waffling on her given name, other than the fact that her parents may have discovered that having two daughters with the same name in the same household became confusing. It doesn't help my family tree either. I have had their names in my tree as Katharina Elisabeth (1) and Katharina Elisabeth (2), and since finding so many records with her name as Anna Katharina, I was preparing to just change her name in my records to Anna Katharina, then realized I would have the same problem because her half sister was also Anna Katharina Rödiger. So, I have melded the two names together and re-baptized her as Anna Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger. I hope nobody minds 😊

And what does this have to do with Dora Gabler? Well, because of my lack of progress in discovering her Cousin status, I contacted my third cousin, Jürgen, who was born in Tann and asked if he had ever heard of Dora Gabler. It was a long shot, but to my amazement, he did know of her. This is his response:
"Yes, I know Dora Gabler, her maid name was Rodel. Her mother was Liese or Elisabeth Strippel, she was married to a man called with family name “ Rode” in Kassel . Elisabeth Strippel was born in Tann, she moved to Kassel, when she was round about 18 years. 

It was usual in that time! Kassel was a very busy city with a lot of heavy industries, they needed a lot of employees and so, children from farms, mostly the second son for example, moved to Kassel, Frankfurt or Ohio, There was not enough to earn on the small farms in Tann area.Dora Gabler visited Tann very often in the years between 1945 and 1980. Dora or Dorette passed away last year with an age of 98.Dora came often on vacation to their relatives in Tann, because her home were destroyed during the war by bombs. In the burning nights of Kassel also two cousins of mine, twins 5 years old, died by the bombing.Next week, I will meet my cousin, Friedrich Brand, he is 90 years now. He will tell me anything about Dora’s roots.I believe, the grandmother of Dora Gabler in Tann  was a Lady from Rödiger family, she must have been married to a man named Strippel."

Armed with this new information, I was able to find the marriage record of Dora's parents:

Her father was Burghard Heinrich Rode, son of Georg Rode and Elise Schmidt. Burghard was born on 3 September and baptized on 6 October 1895 in Großalmerode, and was, at the time of his marriage, living in Bettenhausen, a "suburb" of Kassel.
Her mother was Anna Elise Strippel, daughter of Adam Strippel, deceased, and Anna Katharina Rödiger. Anna Elise was born on 21 April and baptized on 10 May 1896 in Tann.
Burghard Heinrich Rode and Anna Elise Strippel were married on 6 April 1919 in the Lutheran Church in Tann.
According to a subsequent email from Jürgen, after his visit with his cousin, Friedrich Brand, Friedrich was told Jürgen that Dora was born on 10 August 1920 in Kassel, that she married Paul Gabler in Kassel during the war (between 1940 and 1945). After the war, Paul worked as a tram operator in Kassel. They had no children. Dora died in 2018 at the age of 97. [this may be a correction to the preceding email which said she died at age 98. I have not gotten a date certain for her death, yet].

Because Kassel is so large and has so many churches, I have yet to find either Dora's baptismal record or her marriage record based on Friedrich Brand's information. And it is likely that their marriage record has not been released due to privacy laws in Germany.

However, from the marriage record of her parents, I learned the identities of her grandparents--Adam Strippel and Anna Katharina Rödiger. And because I had found a remark in "Anna Katharina Elisabeth" Rödiger's baptismal record, I knew that Dora's grandmother was Katharina Elisabeth AKA Anna Katharina Rödiger, the sister of my great-grandfather, Conrad Tobias Rödiger. The remark states "Am 26.12.79 mit Adam Strippel verheiratet. Sie starb am 19. Sept. 1932" (on 26 December [18]79 she was joined in marriage to Adam Strippel. She died on 19 September 1932). Note: according to the actual marriage record, they were married on Christmas Day in 1879, but nonetheless the remark in her baptismal record helped me determine that Dora's grandmother was indeed the person known both as Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger and as Anna Katharina Rödiger.

Hopefully the diagram below will now show the relationship between Bertha (Roediger) Smith and Dora Gabler:

Scrutiny of this diagram reveals that Dora and Bertha were actually 1st cousins once removed. Their common ancestors (who do not show up on the diagram but were the parents of Anna Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger and her brother Conrad Tobias Roediger at the top of the diagram) were Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer. Dora was their great granddaughter and Bertha was their granddaughter. BTW, Dora was thirty years younger than Bertha.

Now that I have established all of that, I want to briefly summarize the family of Adam Strippel and Anna Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger. As I mentioned earlier, they were married in Tann on Christmas Day, 1879. I believe that I have identified all of their children. The first four died before reaching adulthood:

1) Anna Martha, born 24 February 1880 in Tann, died 13 March 1880 in Tann

2) George, born 10 May 1881 in Tann, died 12 April 1882 in Tann

3) George Engelhard, born 7 January 1883 in Tann, died 6 April 1900 in Frankfurt am Main. (Note: In his baptismal record he is called Heinrich, but his baptismal sponsor is Engelhardt Strippel. Then, in 1900, the death of a George Engelhardt Strippel is recorded in Frankfurt and he is said to be 17, born in Tann and living in Tann, son of Adam Strippel and Catharina, geboren Rödiger. Furthermore, there is a civil birth record for George Engelhardt Strippel, who was born on the same date as the church record indicates, with the same parents and in the same house. So, I believe that “Heinrich” and “George Engelhardt” Strippel are one and the same, and that somehow the church record recorded the wrong name). He was working as a Müller (Miller) at the time of his death. He was only 17 years old.

4) Justus, born 18 October 1885 in Tann, died 13 November 1886 in Tann

5) Anna Katharina Ernestine, b. 14 May 1887 in Tann, d. unknown. She married Heinrich Ludwig Brand on 7 January 1906 in Tann.

6) Georg Konrad, b. 24 September 1889 in Tann, d. unknown, however there is a record of his confirmation on 4 March 1903 in Tann. He was baptized on 13 October 1889. His baptismal sponsors were "Georg Rödiger and Konrad Rödiger of Moulton Ohio":

See second column from the right

George Rödiger, named here, emigrated less than a month after this baptism with his four children to join his brother Konrad (my great grandfather) who had emigrated eight years earlier in 1881 and now lived near Moulton, Ohio.

7) Friedrich Wilhelm, b. 10 June 1892 in Tann, d. unknown. He married Amanda Augusta Plath in Harburg-Hambach in Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) on 4 December 1915. His wife was born in Harburg. Since Harburg is over 220 miles north of Tann, I am making an educated guess that Kaiser Wilhelm II had something to do with Friedrich Wilhelm Strippel's presence there. Apparently he stayed in the Harburg area, based on the fact that his wife died there in 1932.

8) Anna Elise (Dora's mother), b. 21 April 1896 in Tann. As was already mentioned, she married Burghard Heinrich Rode. So, enough said.

9) Anna Margretha, b. 7 August 1898 in Tann. She married Johann Willi Lorchheim from Kassel on 30 November 1919 in the Lutheran Church in Tann.

That about sums up what is known about Anna Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger and her family of Strippels, and lays to rest the question of the identity of the mysterious cousin, Dora Gabler. I wish I had known all this back in 2014 when mom and I visited Germany. I would have loved to have met Dora Gabler.

Your Family Historian,

Stephen Roediger

The Rödigers of Bochum Revisited and Expanded

In 2017, I wrote 4 Blog Posts about my great-grandfather, Conrad Tobias Roediger's sister, Katharina Elisabeth, who moved to Bochum, in the present German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. For more background see my Blogs:
Reunited With Conrad Tobias Roediger's Sister
Death Record of Catharina Elisabeth (Rödiger) Lotz
Gibb's Rule 39
Gibb's Rule 39 Revisited

In this Post, I intend to expand on those Posts with information which I have been able to glean from the Bochum Church Record. My primary purpose is to consider whether descendants of the Tanner Rödigers who moved to Bochum might still inhabit the Bochum environs today.

Since 2017, I have learned that in addition to Katharina Elisabeth, at least two of her first cousins also  moved there. They were Nicolaus and Jacob Rödiger, sons of Justus Rödiger and Anna Katharina Goßmann. I have endeavored to create a chart that illustrates their relationship without the clutter of all their other relatives. The three who moved to Bochum are highlighted with a yellow star:

I realize that it is difficult to read due to the small print. If you want a more legible copy, send me a comment to that effect and I will email it as a PDF file.

Since I have already spent four posts on Katharina Elisabeth, I will just mention a couple of additional facts. Since 2017 I have learned that her husband, Jacob Lotz was born in 1844, in Allmershausen, as were three of his siblings. Then, around 1850, his parents, Conrad Lotz and Catharina Elisabeth neé Krauss moved to Tann, where 4 more of his siblings were born between 1852 and 1857. Then sometime between 1857 and 1862, his parents moved to Bochum, where his youngest sibling was born in September of 1862.

With this information in hand it is apparent that Jacob Lotz and Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger would have lived in the same village (Tann) for at least 7 years and perhaps as long as 10. If Jacob's family moved from Tann to Bochum about 1860, he would have been about 15 and Katharina E. would have been about 11. Bochum was a large industrial city. Jacob's father had taken his family there because jobs in factories and coal mines were available. But living conditions were squalid. Many children died from diseases and even many of the adults, whether working in the coal mines or elsewhere contracted TB, lung fever, and cholera. In addition, the inhabitants of Bochum spoke Low German, a different dialect than what the Tanners (people from Tann) were familiar with. In spite of these negatives, Katharine was willing to move 150 miles to a big city to marry. One might surmise from that that they had had a special affection for one another while they were living in Tann, and kept up some kind of communication from about 1860 until 1873 when they wed.

Tann to Bochum via roads today

As was stated in a previous post, Katharina Elisabeth died in 1873 from TB, one day after her first and only child died from Cholera Infantum. Thus she has no descendants to research. Jacob remarried and had a number of children, but as they are not kinfolk, I will not begin down that road. Suffice it to say, that between Jacob and his brothers, there were Lots of Lotzes and some still reside in Bochum today.

This brings us to Nicolaus and Jacob Rödiger. I discovered Nicolaus in 2017, simply because he was married on the same day and in the same church in Bochum as Katharina Elisabeth, so their marriage records were back-to-back. At the time, I presumed that they were related but had no idea how. Since then, I have traveled to Kassel to sift through the church archives of Tann, and more recently, I have been able to examine the Tann Lutheran Church records from my office chair, via archiv.de. As the diagram above shows to those with magnifying glasses, Nicolaus and Jacob were Katharina's first cousins through her father's brother, Justus Rödiger.

It is probable that Nicolaus and Jacob Rödiger and their wives came to Bochum at the same time. After they moved to Bochum, Nicolaus and Jacob became coalminers (German: Bergmann). In every birth and death record of their children, their occupation never varied. And, though I have learned little of the occupations of Nicolaus' sons, I do know that Jacob's sons also became coalminers.

Nicolaus Rödiger married his first wife, Anna Margaretha Grunewald in Tann in 1867. Together, they had five children. The oldest outlived his four younger siblings and yet he died at the age of 4 years and 10 months. (For those of you that are paying attention--yes, two of his siblings were twins, so it is possible). Four of the five were born in Tann, but the fifth was a stillborn daughter who was born in 1872 in Bochum. Her mother died 4 days later from birthing complications.

The family of Nicolaus and Anna Margaretha (Grunewald) Rödiger

Obviously there were no succeeding generations from this marriage. But Nicolaus married again. His second marriage was to another native of Tann, Anna Margaretha Falls. They were married in Bochum on the same day that his cousin, Katharina Elisabeth Rödiger married Jacob Lotz. They had four children. The two youngest died in early childhood, but it appears that the two oldest lived into adulthood. I say "appears" because I have found no death record nor marriage for them.

You should be aware that my research has been stymied in this regard because there are no church records available on archion.de for Bochum after about 1905, and no civil records on either ancestry.com or familysearch.org for Bochum at all. So, at about 1900 I hit a brick wall and can learn almost nothing more about the last 100 years.

Did the two older children marry and have children? Until more records are made available online I may not be able to break down this wall. But this is how Nicolaus' second family appears in my tree at this time:

The family of Nicolaus and Anna Margarethe (Falls) Rödiger

Nicolaus' second wife, Anna Margarethe Falls died on 7 April 1882 and Nicolaus married again on 3 September of the same year. His third wife was Anna Elisabeth Schneider, 16 years his junior, from Heddersdorf, about 14 miles southwest of his hometown of Tann. They had four children, three of whom "appear" to have survived into adulthood (see red lettered paragraph above).

The family of Nicolaus and Anna Elisabeth (Schneider) Rödiger

There is some doubt about the gender of their third child. The birth and death records from this time period do not bother to state the gender of the child. In most cases the name provided makes the gender obvious, but in this case, I am not sure. The death record gives the name as August and the birth record, as Auguste. The first is a boy's name and the second, a girl's. As this child died at age two, there will be nothing to determine the gender unless civil records are found. In either case, he or she died without issue, so I need not make it one (an issue, that is). But that is why the child has a green background rather than blue or pink. Just so, you know. [RH pointed me to a baptismal record I hadn't seen which indicates the name of one of the baptismal sponsors to be Auguste Wallis. Therefore, their third child was a daughter. Danke!]

Another thing to notice, is that all of Nicolaus Rödiger's children who were born after leaving Tann, were born in Altenbochum, not Bochum proper. This lies southeast of the larger city of Bochum and was later incorporated into the city of Bochum in 1926. Because of the industrial makeup of Bochum, it became a target of Allied bombing during WWII and may explain why records after 1905 do not seem to exist. The fact that any exist at all is something of a miracle as all but one of Bochum's churches were destroyed during the war.

Thank you, Google Maps

Altogether, Nicolaus Rödiger had 13 children, only 5 of whom "appear" to have lived to adulthood. Three of the five were boys who could carry on the Rödiger name. Whether they did or not remains to be discovered.

Nicolaus' younger brother, Jacob Rödiger also emigrated to Bochum in the 1870s soon after he married Anna Katharina Böttner in 1873. She was born in the village of Rohrbach, which lies less than 1 mile southeast of Tann. They moved to the Bochum area where Jacob worked as a coalminer.

It appears that Jacob and Anna Katharina may have moved around a bit. The birth records of their children indicate that their first two were born in Bochum, their third in Altenbochum, their fourth, fifth and sixth in Grumme (see the map above--Grumme is a city north of Bochum), and their seventh and eighth back in Bochum. The exact address where their last child, Maria died in 1893 is "I Parallelstraße 22, Bochum". You can find its exact location using Google Maps. The "I" is like a Roman numeral for 1. There is also a II Parallelstraße in Bochum.

Of their eight children, five appear to have reached adulthood. I have marriage records for the first two, and birth records for two children of Jacob's oldest son, George Valentin Rödiger. Jacob and Anna Katharina' third child, August Heinrich was one of 16 miners who lost their lives in a firedamp explosion on 25 July 1895. He was just eighteen years old.

Family of Jacob and Anna Katharina (Böttner) Rödiger

After his uncle Walter passed away 2017, my third cousin made the comment to me in an email that there were no more Rödigers in Tann. What was left of them were now all in the USA. And certainly it is true that there are no longer any Rödigers in Tann. And if my great grandfather, Conrad Tobias Roediger, his brother, George and their nephew, John Henry Roediger had not emigrated to Ohio, there would be none in the USA either.

However, the question of whether the male line of Johann Henrich Rödiger and Anna Sidonia Schneider has been extinguished in Germany may still be open for debate. In 1900, there were 4 male descendants of Jacob Rödiger and 3 male descendants of Nicolaus Rödiger living in Bochum and Altenbochum. It is extremely possible that their male lines have continued to the present day.

A look at the city directory of Bochum in 1940 shows listings for 15 different male Rödigers, even one living on I Parallelstraße, though at House 13, not 22 where Maria Rödiger died:

excerpt from 1940 Bochum city directory

And the current phone directory of Bochum shows 4 male and 1 female Rödigers residing there.

Now before anybody gets too excited, there is a caveat or two.

First, other than contacting each of these people personally and hoping that 1) they know who their great grandparents were and 2) that they are willing to share that information with a complete American stranger, there is no way for me to know if these current residents of Bochum are indeed descendants of the Rödigers who lived in Bochum in 1900. For all I know, they may have moved to Bochum from Berlin in 1996 and have no discernible relationship to "our" Rödiger ancestors.

Second, and more frustrating to me, is that there were other Rödigers living in Bochum in the 1870s and 1880s that I have not been able to connect with the Tanner Rödigers. Indeed, there was a Friedrich Hermann Ludwig Woldemar Rödiger who married in Bochum in 1872. His parents were from Naumburg, which is about 120 miles east of Tann in the present day state of Saxony-Anhalt. [My mistake--which was pointed out by RH, a very trustworthy researcher in Germany. The correction is that Naumburg is about 18 miles west of Kassel, in the district of Kassel in the state of Hessen. Still no known relationship to the Tanner Rödigers but RH says that Friedrich Hermann Ludwig Woldemar Rödiger's wife's father is her great-great-great granduncle. That is a pretty amazing coincidence.]

Others were:

1) Nicolaus Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Baltz had a child in 1880. This could not be the Nicolaus Rödiger I have discussed in this blog post even though the wife's name looks very similar to his second wife Anna Margaretha Falls. I almost fell for this, but soon realized that Baltz was not a misspelling of Falls but that they were two very distinct persons with different birthdates and parents.

2) Adam Rödiger and Anna Catharina Eisenbrand had a child in 1882  and in 1885.

3) George Rödiger and Maria Theis (who was a Catholic) had children in 1885, 1887, 1888, 1890, 1892, 1894 and 1897.

Any of these Rödigers could be the progenitors of the Rödigers found in the 1940 City Directory and the present day phone directory and may not be relatives at all. On the other hand, they may be relatives that I have somehow missed in my searches.

Then there is this guy. While I was double checking records on FamilySearch.org, I discovered a Hermann Georg Roediger who was born in Bochum on 24 February 1907, son of Louis Roediger and Emilie Pfaff. This is his travel document allowing him to travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, dated 17 October 1949. I haven't found a Louis Rodiger in the Tann records. And neither did I find one who married or had children in Bochum prior to 1900. However, there was an Anna Katharina Pfaff who married a Karl Hildebrand in Tann in 1894, so the Pfaff name is not entirely foreign to the Tann area. Furthermore his residence when applying for this travel document was Eisenach which is only about 35 miles east of Tann. Is it possible that one of our Rödiger cousins has continued the Tanner Rödiger line in Brazil. Hmmm...

OK. It appears that to try resolve this question, I am forced to write letters to the five Rödigers who currently reside in Bochum, and hope that one of them will take pity on a poor potential American cousin who is worrying this like a dog with a bone.

If I discover anything of interest, I promise to report.