The Diegels Hometown in Germany Has Been Found!

BACKGROUND: George and Anna Martha (Schubert) Diegel are my 3G Grandparents. They were both born in Germany.

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 from documents here in the US.

What has been a mystery to me up until recently is where the Diegel's were from in Germany. The first clue I found was in 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.

I will begin with the first paragraph from the Family History document:

According to this account, George Diegel (my 3G Grandfather) and his brother, Jacob 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. I have not been able to find a full list of the towns and villages in this administrative district. But, not only does the government break down the villages and towns into districts, so does the Lutheran Church. The Lutheran Church'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. 

So I spent hours and hours over several days looking for Diegels in the villages of the Rotenburg District looking for the two brothers--which I discovered much later had been largely unnecessary.

According to the DFH, George Diegel was born 7 March 1811 in "Hassel Greis, Rothenburg, Herhessen, Germany". Unfortunately, his brother, Jacob's birthdate is not provided in this document, however, it does state that he was married and had three daughters when he emigrated. According to the DFH, Jacob married Mary Christena Schwarzen. The three daughters born in Germany were Anna, who married Christopher Clay in Loraine Co., Mary, who married Henry Berlet Sr. in Loraine Co., and Eliza, who married a "Mr. Reynolds" before she was 18, and subsequently divorced, also in Loraine Co.

From census records, I learned that George and his wife moved to Washington Twp, Auglaize Co, OH before 1840, and that his brother Jacob's family (which had grown with the addition of two sons born in Loraine Co, Jacob and Adam, plus the husbands of two of his daughters and their children) also moved to Washington Twp, Auglaize Co. before 1870.

Armed with this information, I searched obituaries for clues as to where they had come from in Germany.

This paid off when I found the obituary of Eliza Diegel, Jacob's daughter. There is a lot of useful information in this obituary, but for now just notice that she was born in Schwartzen Hassel Greis, Rothenberg on 30 April 1834. Of course, you can read the rest, just meet me at the end of the obit for a continuation of this discussion:

As soon as I found this, I knew that what I had hypothesized from my study of the 65 churches in Rotenburg District was right on target. Schwartzen Hassel had to be a corruption of Schwarzenhasel, which is one of the 65 churches I had been trolling.

 I had already learned the birth date of Eliza's uncle George Diegel (my 3G Grandfather), from both the DFH and from FindAGrave.com, to be 7 March 1811, and when I looked in the Schwarzenhasel Church records I found his baptismal record:

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 led me to his Confirmation record. His is Number 3:

This confirms what was previously known about George Diegel: He is the son of the farmer, Henrich Diegel and Elisabeth Pfiel and was born on 7 May 1811, and adds the info that he was 14 years, 2 months and 14 days old when he was confirmed in the Lutheran Church of Schwarzenhasel on 22 May 1825.

Another test to ensure that I hadn't fallen down another rabbit hole involved George's older brother, Jacob and his wife and three daughters who were born in Germany, Eliza being the one whose obit confirmed that they were from this particular village.

So, I will continue with Eliza, who according to the obit (and agreed with in the DFH), was born 30 April 1834. So, opening the Schwarzenhasel Baptismal Book 1830-1937, I searched for a corresponding record. I did not find a baptismal record for her on that date, but I did find one for an Anna Elisabeth Diegel, daughter of Jacob Diegel almost exactly one year earlier. Because the entry covers two pages width, I will present the two pages as two separate images so it is more legible. Fortunately, it is the first record on the page, so I can retain the header:

In this first half, I learned from the second column that Anna Elisabeth Diegel was born in Schwarzenhasel in House #54

From the second column I learned that there were 31 days in April in 1833. At least that is what this record gives as her birth date. Obviously that is an error because we all know that "30 days has September, April, June and November". Be that as it may, she was born between 11-12 at night.

According to the third column she was baptized in Schwarzenhasel on May 5th.

Fourth column: her given name was Anna Elisabeth, a legitimate daughter. Jump to the bottom of the next image for an explanation of columns 5-6.

Column five lists her parents as Jacob Diegel, Schneider [tailor], and Christina Maria Kirchner.

Column six provides the name of her baptismal sponsor as Anna Elisabeth Sauer, Jungfrau [unmarried young woman].

This record made me wonder if I had not indeed fallen down a rabbit hole, as there is a year's difference between the American records and this German record concerning her birth. Then add this bit of information about Eliza Diegel's parents gleaned from the DFH:

According to this, her mother's name was Schwarzen, rather than Kirchner, as the German record states.

However, I again was saved from disbanding the Schwarzenhasel records when I found the death certificate of Eliza's younger brother Jacob who had been born in Loraine Co, OH about 5 years after their arrival in the US:

The VERY IMPORTANT thing to note about this death certificate is that Edward Diegel, Jacob's son, states that Jacob's father was also Jacob Diegel and his mother was Mary Christina Kirchner. This lines up with the German record, with the minor flip-flopping of the first and middle name and the anglicizing of Maria to Mary.

I will skip over the other two daughter's baptismal records in Germany, and the birth records of Jacob Diegel and his wife, Christina Maria Kirchner. But I assure you that they are all there and they all correspond neatly with the records of the Jacob Diegel family found on FindAGrave, leaving no doubt that my Diegel ancestors were indeed from Schwarzenhasel.

I have pondered on how the DFH mistakenly assigned the maiden name of "Schwarzen" to Jacob's wife. Her birth record in Schwarzenhasel confirms that her father was Nicolaus Kirchner, and there is no marriage record in Schwarzenhasel to suggest she was married to someone named Schwarz before she married Jacob Diegel. So, my guess is that someone who didn't know much German, trying to make sense of information written in German, thought that the place name, "Schwarzen hassel", referred to her maiden name. Just my theory.

Finally, since the Diegel, Weifenbach, Eichenauer and Rödiger families are so intertwined, I was curious to know where each of their hometowns were to each other in Germany.

Rödigers were from Tann

Eichenauers were also from Tann, but prior to that, they were from Niederthalhausen

Weifenbachs were from Niederaula

and the Diegel's from Schwarzenhasel

Thank you Google Earth for helping me illustrate the proximity of these four villages:

Something to ponder--the distance between the Schwarzenhasel and Niederaula is 22 miles, with Niederthalhausen and Tann lying roughly halfway between them.

Congratulations if you have managed to read this entire Blog. There will be more on the Diegels later to be sure. Not only do I have information of the rest of Jacob and Maria Christina (Kirchner) Diegel's children, but George and Jacob also had 7 siblings, one of whom died in Schwarzenhasel, but her husband and three of their children also emigrated to Auglaize Co. So, stay tuned for more Diegel adventures!

--Stephen Rödiger

Anna Eva Heÿer's Father, Nicolaus Heÿer

From the Back Burner:
This post probably should have preceded my last post about Anna Eva Heÿer's mother. In that post I alluded to the fact that the records of the village of Kalkobes, where the Heÿer family resided were hidden in the much larger Bad Hersfeld Church records. In this post I am concentrating on Anna Eva's father, Nicolaus Heÿer.

This an example from the KB of Bad Hersfeld (1765-1779). It shows that the birth (symbolized by the "*"), death (†), marriage (∞) and Confirmation records of Bad Hersfeld, Allmershausen, Heenes and Kalkobes are found in this book.

At first the task was daunting, because the records from each village are not separated into different sections but are all just listed chronologically. And Bad Hersfeld is a city with many entries to wade through to find one from Kalkobes. I had to search through 46 pages of baptismal records in the aforementioned Church book before I found the first reference to Kalkobes. It took me a while (like 8 hours, but I finally realized that some kind soul had thoughtfully and consistently written the village names of Allmershausen, Heenes and Kalkobes into the margins when appropriate. Below, in an example,  you can see Kalkobes and Allmershausen underlined in red (by me):

Once I had figured that out, I saved a lot of time searching records. I had learned that, at the time of their son, Dietrich's birth in 1786, Nicolaus Heÿer was a Gerichtschöpf (still trying to nail down the exact meaning, but appears to be an unpaid lawyer or judge in a village). The point is, with several Nicolaus Heÿers living at the same time in Kalkobes, only one appears to have held this position. This eventually helped me determine which Nicolaus Heÿer who died in Kalkobes was the correct one:

Kalkobes: am 24ten Novbr. Ist der Gerichts schöpfe, Nicolaus Heÿer von Kalkobes † am 22ten Nach. um 12 Uhr alt 50 Jahr weniger 2 Wochen"

Translated, "on the 24th of November [1791], the Gerichtsschöpfe, Nicolaus Heÿer from Kalkobes [was buried]. He died on the 22nd at (I am not sure of the time--but doesn't really matter. Usually Nach. would be the abbreviation for Nachmittag which means afternoon. And I believe 12 Uhr would be twelve hours after noon. However, I need a German, familiar with these terms to help me out here); age: 2 weeks short of 50 years old". Doing a little calculating, Nicolaus would have been born about December 6, 1741.
Thus, I turned my attention to the Church Book in Bad Hersfeld, covering the years 1726-1748 to see if I could find Nicolaus Heÿer's birth record. There was no record of him in December of 1741, but on September 3rd of that same year, the baptism of Johann Nicolaus, son of Johann Geörg Haÿer of Kalkobes was recorded. And his baptismal sponsor was his father's brother--Nicolaus:

I realize that the birth date indicated in the death record is not an exact match with the baptismal record, but I have searched for a year on either side of the December 6, 1741 date and did not find any other Heÿer baptisms. So, I have accepted this baptism as the correct one and adjusted his date of birth to "about" September 3, 1741 in Kalkobes, and his father, then, would be Johann Geörg Heÿer.

And, it appears that this same Nicolaus Heÿer was confirmed in the church in 1755:

Not much new information, but since children were usually confirmed between 12-14 years of age, this is just a confirmation (no pun intended) of what has already been ascertained.

Once I had established the above facts, I continued back in the records and learned that:
1) Nicolaus' parents were Johann Georg Heÿer and Anna Gehela Deiseroth, married 28 October 1738 in Kalkobes.
2) Nicolaus had at least two siblings, Anna Margretha, baptized 7 June 1739; and Johann Simon, baptized 26 May 1744, both in Kalkobes.
3) Nicolaus' father, Johann Georg Heÿer was baptized in Kalkobes on 5 January 1721.
4) Nicolaus' mother, Anna Gehela Deiseroth was from Hilmes, in the same district, and her father was Johannes Deiseroth.
5) Nicolaus' paternal grandparents were Johannes Heÿer and Anna Elisabeth Kehlen (daughter of Nicolaus Kehlen), married 4 February 1712 in Kalkobes.

The records from which I have captured this information go back to 1611 and encompass another 3 church books. That is another 100 years from the time that Nicolaus's grandparents were married. So there is definitely more ground that can be covered here, but information tends to get sketchier and sketchier the further back one goes. And it is entirely possible that I will loose traction soon. But for now, this is what I've found.

In summary, I will leave you with a diagram that incorporates the info shared today--enjoy meeting your newly discovered ancestors!:

Anna Eva Heyer's Mother--Anna Catharina Lehn

My back burner is getting a little crowded as I work to tie up loose ends. So, from the back burner, I think I have discovered enough information to present some information about Anna Catharina Lehn.

In two previous post, I shared my research on Anna Eva Heÿer and her siblings, children of Nicolaus Heÿer and Anna Catharina Lehn. See The Siblings of Anna Eva Heÿer and Found at Last. These two posts will get you caught up with where Anna Eva Heÿer fits in the family tree and why she is important to both the Roediger and Eichenauer clans.
Today, I am climbing higher up the family tree to share what I have learned about Anna Eva's mother, Anna Catharina Lehn:
Armed with the fact that the last child that I knew her to bear was born in 1789 in Kalkobes, I started with that date in mind and began working forward through the church records, looking for a death record. Found:

"#73/Kalkobes, 13. [Juni 1822], Anna Catharina, Witwe des verst. Landbauer Nicolaus Heÿer zu Kalkobes, geb. Lehn, starb 11. [Juni 1822] Abends 8 Uhr, alt 78 Jahr"

Translated: Anna Catharina, maiden name Lehn, widow of the deceased farmer, Nicolaus Heÿer from Kalkobes died on 11. June 1822 at 10 pm, age 78 years, and was buried in Kalkobes on June 13. This would put her date of birth about 1744.

I had learned from her son, Johann Conrad Heÿer's baptismal record that she was from Reilos. On the Google Map below, you can get an idea of the locations of Tann, Reilos and Kalkobes:

Reilos is about 2 1/2 miles down the Rohrbach stream from Tann. Reilos is about 6 miles by road from Kalkobes.

So, I searched for her baptismal record in Reilos. I found it in the Friedlos-Reilos Church Book. Fortunately, this church book kept the two village's records in separate sections and they are both fairly small villages This saved me from wading through hundreds of records (as I had to do when looking for Kalkobes records). As you can see from the map above, these two villages are very close together and it may be that one church served both villages. Indeed, this is what Wikipedia suggests. Here is a link to a photo of the church in Reilos.

I have been able to get the gist of this record, though the actual wording is difficult so I won't attempt a transliteration here, but just give you the rough translation. Anna Catharina, daughter of David Lehn was born on the 28th of December 1743 [in Reilos] and was baptized on the 29th. (the first part of the date is hidden in the binding but I am guessing that it is a 2). The baptismal witness was the child's mother's sister, Anna Catharina, Niclas Jacob's daughter.

This is good stuff. Not only do I learn her birth and baptismal date, but also her father's name (David Lehn) and her mother's father's name (Nicolaus Jacob and the name of her mother's sister (Anna Catharina Jacob). It is the fodder for possible future research.

At this point I could and should point out the apparent disrespect for the one who labored to bring this child into the world. As so often happens in the older records, the name of her mother is absent. This is frustrating to me as a genealogist who is trying to connect all the dots, and mysterious to me as a husband and father. It seems that a basic principle of keeping birth records would be that the parent's names would BOTH be provided. And I am totally stunned that even in a male dominate culture, this fact would be omitted.

So, instead of the mother's name, I am left with clues as to her identity, but for now she will have to remain known as ? Jacob, daughter of Nicolaus Jacob and sister of Anna Catharina Jacob.

To summarize, the subject of this post is Anna Catharina Lehn, mother of Anna Eva Heÿer.
She was:
*born 11 March 1745 in Reilos
*baptized 15 March 1745 in Reilos
*[married to Nicolaus Heÿer on 20 June 1766, Lutheran Church in Kalkobes]
*[gave birth to 10 children, 4 boys and 6 girls]
*died 11 June 1822 in Kalkobes
*buried 13 June 1822 in Kalkobes.
*Her father was Johann Conrad Lehn
*Her mother's maiden name was Jacob, but her mother's given name was not revealed
*Her mother's father was Niclas Jacob
*Her mother had a sister, Anna Catharina Jacob, who served as Anna Catharina Lehn's baptismal sponsor

To see the new info in context with the rest of my tree go to Rödiger Family Tree at ancestry.com

(Stephan Rödiger)

Found, At Last--The Birth Record of Anna Eva Heÿer

In case you don't recognize the name, Anna Eva Heÿer, and haven't read the preceding blog about my search for her birth/baptismal record see my Blog Post from 4/14/2019, "The Siblings of Anna Eva Heÿer (or How to Create Chaos in Your Family Tree)".
Briefly, Anna Eva Heÿer was my great-great-grandfather, Johann Tobias Rödiger's first wife, and mother of Anna Katharina Rödiger, who married Johann Friedrich Eichenauer, and who, together had 10 children, 5 of whom emigrated to Ohio. So. hopefully, this Blog Post would be of interest to all Eichenauer as well as Rödiger descendants in Ohio.

First, a big round of applause👏 for my German Research Geru, Regina Hiller, who told me that the church records for the tiny village of Kalkobes were hidden in the Bad Hersfeld Church Records. Regina, you have my undying gratitude. It could have taken years to learn that on my own.

As a result, I have found Anna Eva's birth/baptism record as well as that of 3 more of Anna Eva's siblings that were previously unknown to me.

Here is the digital image of Anna Eva's birth/baptism. The header on the page makes it clear that this record pertains to May of 1789:

Kalkobes No. -- Anna Eva, des Nicolaus Heÿer, Gerichtshof, und Anna Catharina eine geborene Lehn, gebürtig aus Reilos, ? Töchterlein ist geboren 28ten Morgens zwischen 8 und 9 Uhr; Getauft 31ten
die Gottel ist gewesen des Schneidermeister Justus Seelig, deßen Ehefrau Namens Anna Eva
(Kalkobes -- Anna Eva, daughter of the "judge", Nicolaus Heÿer and his wife, Anna Catharina Lehn (born in Reilos), was born on the 28th between 8 and 9 am and baptized on the 31st.
The baptismal sponsor was Anna Eva, wife of the master tailor, Justus Seelig

The information provided in this record confirms much of what was already known. But from this record we also learn the time of her birth, the date of her baptism and whom she was named after. Plus, it confirms, that her husband, Johann Tobias Rödiger, had the correct date when he provided the information for her death record.

As I stated earlier, in the process of looking for Anna Eva's birth/baptism record, I discovered 3 more of her older siblings. These were Johannes, born in 1767; Anna Gela, born in 1769 and Simon, born in 1771. Of the ten children, I have now found all of the baptismal records except for that of Anna Katharina. I only know of her existence because she was named as the Gottel (baptismal sponsor) of Anna Eva's daughter, Anna Katharina (mentioned in the opening paragraph of this blog as the wife of Johann Friedrich Eichenauer). So, my family tree, showing the children of Nicolaus Heÿer and Anna Catharina Lehn, including Anna Eva and the three newly discovered children looks like this:

For those who are updating their own family trees based on info in my Blog, I will provide the baptism dates because they do not show up on this illustration:
Johannes, 7/15/1767
Anna Gela, 4/2/1769
Simon, 5/20/1771
Anna Martha Elisabeth, 3/31/1776
Johann Conrad, 8/30/1778
Catharina Elisabeth (1), 12/31/1780
Catharina Elisabeth (2), 7/7/1783
Dietrich, 1/1/1786
Anna Eva, 5/31/1789

All were born in Kalkobes and either baptized there or in Bad Hersfeld.
For a description of the location of Kalkobes, see my Blog Post from 4/14/2019, "The Siblings of Anna Eva Heÿer (or How to Create Chaos in Your Family Tree)".

The hunt continues for Anna Katharina's baptismal record, and for all of her sibling's marriage and death records.

Stephen Roediger