The Family of Anna Dorothea (Rödiger) Hoßfeld Revealed

In the last Blog Post, I highlighted the family of Johann Henrich Rödiger and Anna Sidonia Schneider (my 3rd great grandparents). Today, I want to focus on Johann Henrich Rödiger's sister, Anna Dorothea (2) Rödiger. She was the godparent of one or both of Johann Henrich's daughters of the same name.
I find it fairly uncommon to find as much information in a death record as is found in both hers and her brother's. As pointed out in the last post, Johann Henrich's death record stated that he and his wife had 12 children, 6 of whom were still living when he died.

Here is a digital image of his sister, Anna Dorothea (2) Rödiger's death record:

Anna Dorothea, wife of the "kirchenältesten", Johann Tobias Hoßfeld, maiden name Röddiger, died on the 27th of January [1825] at 9 in the morning and was buried on the 30th of the same month, age 63 years, 3 months and 19 days.
She is the daughter of the "Lehnschulzen", Johann Adam Röddiger and his wife, Barbara Elisabeth Bettenhausen. [She was born] in Tann on the 8th of October, 1761 and has been married to Johann Tobias Hoßfeld since the 30th of July, 1780 for 44 years. They had 9 children, of whom 5 are still living.

So, just from this record, in addition to the death particulars, we learn who Anna Dorothea's parents were, who her husband was, how many children she had and how many outlived her. I would like to point out that although the last name is usually spelled in the German records "Rödiger" and occasionally without the umlaut  as "Roediger", it is not uncommon to find it spelled with two "d"s as in this record. The older the record, the more common the double "d" becomes.

We also learn that her husband was a church elder or church warden and that her father was the Mayor of Tann. According to Wikipedia, a Lehnschulze was a position that was bestowed by the ruling overlords and was usually awarded to one with the largest landholdings and was passed on to the oldest male descendant upon his death. Also the Lehnschulze was usually freed from the usual peasant loads imposed by the rulers so they were also known as Freischulze, or free mayors. So it appears that great-great-great-great granddad had some standing in Tann, as well as being a farmer. And this position became Anna Dorothea's brother's (Johann Henrich Rödiger) after their father's death as was stated in his own death record. At some point in history, the hereditary position was done away with, but it was still the practice in Germany in the first quarter of the 19th century.

So, armed with all of this information it was relatively easy to find Anna Dorothea's birth and marriage records as well as the birth records of all nine of her children. The result was:

As you can see, I have found all the birth records and all but the last child's death record. He may have married outside of Tann and so his marriage and death record eludes me. But, if you examine the death dates for the other 8 children you will see that 4 of them died before their mother and 4 after. Since 5 of the 9 were said to have outlived their mother, Johann Tobias Hoßfeld must have also outlived her. It may be that he married someone in another village. Or it is possible that he emigrated, although his name does not appear in the official immigration records. I WILL find him, just not today.

As in the last Blog Post, the chart above does not reveal the spouses of the children that I have found nor any of their children. To learn more and to dig deeper go to Anna Dorothea (2) Rödiger's Fact page on Ancestry.com where you can explore to your hearts' content.

Stephen Roediger (I so want to reinstate the umlaut in my name)

Stephan Rödiger (now I feel better)