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