The Mysterious Jeremias Eichenauer

 I first came across the name, Jeremias Eichenauer while researching our Eichenauer family in the Niederthalhausen church death records. What made him unique was that he was a disconnect. All of the other Eichenauers in Tann and Niederthalhausen were related and descended from Johann George Eichenauer and Anna Katharina Schäfer who had moved to Niederthalhausen in about 1790.

But not Jeremias. He was a kind of Eichenauer Melchizedek. Well, that is not exactly true, because Melchizedek was "without father or mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life" (Hebrews 7:3). Jeremias definitely had an end of life, as the records prove. But like Melchizedek, Jeremias just seemed to appear in Niederthalhausen from nowhere.

He has now sat in my Missing Persons file for several years. In fact I had quite forgotten about him until this week while compiling data on the Eichenauers from Frischborn in an attempt to find a connection with our Niederthalhausen ancestors. This is quite a different location from the subject of my last Post, which concerned the Eichenauers of Friedewald. Just saying it so you won't get the two confused.

While in the Frischborn records, I came across a Jeremias Eichenauer and the name sounded familiar. So I dug through my Missing Persons file and sure enough, the information matched.

I then discovered that his father, Johann Henrich and his grandfather, Konrad Eichenauer were born in Rudlos. This is also where our ancestor, Georg Eichenauer was born (his son being Johann George, who moved to Hof Trunsbach about 1790).

This map helps me to see what I think of as the "Cradle of Eichenauer-ization":

Now back to Jeremias Eichenauer's death record from 1853. I captured four columns in two images to make it more legible for those of you who are into reading the old German script.

The first column identifies the deceased, tells us what his occupation was and to whom he was married. The second column reveals when and where he was born.

Name: Jeremias Eichenauer

Occupation: freiherrlich Riedeselischer Forstlaufer (Forest Ranger of the Baronial family Riedesel)

Spouse: Catharina Köhler aus (from) Bessungen bei (near) Darmstadt

Birth place: Frischborn bei (near) Lauterbach

Birth Date: 16 Dezember 1801

The third column provided the date of death, and the fourth column the date of burial.

Date of death: am zwei und zwanzigsten März, Mittags 12 Uhr (on 22 March [1853], at noon)

Date of burial: am 25 März, Nachmittags 2 Uhr (on 25 March [1853] at 2 p.m.).

I have created a map which shows the 24 locations in Germany where I have found Eichenauers relevant to my research. Each is marked with a teal colored pin:

Jeremias Eichenauer's birthplace in Frischborn is one of the cluster of pins circled in red. I believe that all of the different Eichenauer families may yet be traced back to locations within that small circle. Hence "The Cradle",

The birthplace of his wife is nearly 70 miles to the south in a "suburb" of Darmstadt called Bessungen. Which begs the question, how did they ever meet? ... I'm still working on that one, but I have a theory. More on that later in this Blog Post.

On the map below, I have zoomed in so you can see the location of his birth and of his death:

And the distance between the two locations begs another question, "How did Jeremias Eichenauer end up dying in Niederthalhausen, 30 miles north of his birthplace, Frischborn?" He certainly got around.

To answer both of those questions, it has helped to learn a bit about the Riedesel family.

Baron Riedesel's "home" was in Eisenbach, just 1.5 miles west of Frischborn. In this case it is really true that his home was his castle--Schloss Eisenbach.

Here is a satellite view of the grounds:

If you want to get a closer look on Google Maps just type "Schloss Eisenbach-Lauterbach" into the search bar. And there are plenty of photos of the castle that you can view online. I am resisting copying any of them here because of copyright restrictions. I must say it is a very impressive place. On the right of the photo above you can see the castle and even some of the outer wall fortifications which are still in existence. I understand that there is a bike path that runs directly beneath these walls, so if you are up for a little pedaling, check it out sometime.

The Freiherr (Baron) owned a number of properties, and if you will recall, the Riedesel family owned Hof Trunsbach near Niederthalhausen, where our common ancestor Johann George Eichenauer served as General Manager from about 1790 until his death in 1822. That position was held by him or one of his male descendants for nearly one hundred years.

In case you missed it you can check out my blog post The Book Has Arrived where I posted a photo of Hof Trunsbach and briefly described it's significance to our family.

As I explored Jeremias Eichenauer's life (and believe me, tracking down a Forest Ranger isn't easy) I discovered the following facts:

17 July 1842--Jeremias Eichenauer and Catharina Köhler were married in Frischborn

But before they were married, their first son, Johann Georg, was born in Bessungen on 7 February 1839. (No that is not a typo. Georg really was born 3 years before his parents were married). What you should note is that apparently Jeremias had spent some time in Bessungen and this is probably where he and Catharina Köhler met. Her father, Adam Köhler was a "Dragoner in den Gard Regiment Chevaux" when his daughter was born in February of 1812 in Bessungen. This was an elite regiment of mounted horsemen under Napoleon. Napoleon was pretty much ousted from Germany by the end of 1813. Later, when Catharine married in 1842, her father's occupation was Schuhmacher (shoe maker) in Bessungen.

Bessungen originally was a separate city near to Darmstadt, but by 1888, had become surrounded by and incorporated into the free city of Darmstadt. This seems likely to be important to our understanding of what had brought Jeremias Eichenauer to the Darmstadt area.

First, it should be understood that the senior member of the Riedesel family was automatically a member of the First Chamber of the Estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse. The Grand Duchy was a governmental body divided into three provinces, one being Starkenburg with its capital at Darmstadt. So, it was necessary for Baron Riedesel to travel the 70 miles to take part in the sessions.

I was hoping to learn Jeremias' occupation at the time of his first son's birth in Bessungen to see if there was a clue to what brought him to the big city, but sadly, the writing is so small on his baptismal record that I cannot make it out.

However, when sons, Adam (b. 1843) and Heinrich (b. 1847) were born, the family was living in Lauterbach (which if you refer back to the first map on this blog post, you will see that it is just north of Frischborn) and more importantly within spitting distance of the castle. And on both of their baptismal records, their father is reported to be a Kutscher (coachman).

Here is what I am thinking. Baron Riedesel often had to travel between Schloß Eisenbach and Darmstadt on government business. A man of his standing would no doubt travel in a comfortable coach rather than on foot or horseback. So, maybe, just maybe, Jeremias Eichenauer was one of his coachman, taking him back and forth between Eisenbach and Darmstadt. And what would a coachman do to kill time, days on end, while waiting for his employer to finish his business and return home? Wander around town, stop in a coffee shop, meet a nice girl. Could happen.

So, Johann Georg is born in 1839 in Bessungen bei Darmstadt. His parents return to his father's hometown of Frischborn and are married there in 1842.

Sons Adam and Heinrich were born in the neighboring village of Lauterbach in1843 and 1847 respectively.

Then something seemingly strange happens. A baptismal record appears for a son, William, born in 1851. The baptism is recorded in the Frischborn church book, but it says that William was born and baptized in Niederthalhausen. Hey! That's OUR hometown.

When I looked in the Niederthalhausen church records, sure enough, there it was:

This one I will spare you, and just translate and summarize:

On 4 June [1851] at 4 a.m. Wilhelm Eichenauer was born to Jeremias Eichenauer, the "Forest Ranger" of Baron Riedesel of the Grand Duchy of Hessen, and his wife Catharina neé Köhler, born in Beßungen near Darmstadt in House #10 in Niederthalhausen. The child was baptized in the same year on the 22nd of June in Niederthalhausen.

So, sometime between the births of their third and fourth children, Jeremias was moved from being a coachman for the Riedesel Family to being a guardian of the Riedesel Forests which, it seems, required them to move to the rural town of Niederthalhausen.

Here, Jeremias would have met our whole Eichenauer clan. Was he aware of their existence before being transferred there or was it a complete surprise? Did they suspect that they were related or did they have knowledge of a clear relationship?

Did you notice that I made the House Number bold? There is a reason for that. This house belonged Johann Heinrich Eichenauer, grandson of our common ancestor and Conductor of Hof Trunsbach, Johann George Eichenauer. Nine of his children were born in that house between 1826 and 1845. Their daughter, Anna Martha Christina died there in January of 1847. Then the family packed up and emigrated to Butler County, Pennsylvania in August, and their 12th child was born there in December of that same year.

So, that was 1847. The same year that Jeremias Eichenauer's son Heinrich was born (10 May) in Lauterbach. I have no clues as to the exact date when Jeremias moved to Niederthalhausen, but they could have moved into Haus 10 as early as September of 1847, and it was certainly no later than June of 1851.

Less than two years later, when Jeremias was 46 years old, he died in Niederthalhausen on 22 March 1853, leaving behind his wife and four sons, Johann Georg, age 14; Adam, almost 10; Heinrich, almost 6; and Wilhelm, age 21 months.

Among my records I found that Jacob Heinrich Eckhardt took possession of Haus 10 shortly after Jeremias' death. The birth of his son, Johann Adam took place there in June of 1854, two other children were born there in 1858 and 1860, and Jacob Eckhardt's mother died there in 1857. And just to show my thoroughness, 8 of his grandchildren were born in that house between 1876 and 1888.

From this it is clear that Jeremias' wife, Catharina, left Niederthalhausen soon after his death and returned with her boys to her hometown of Bessungen. Her oldest son, Johann Georg, died there in 1858 at the age of 19, Adam married there in 1871 and  at least two of his children were born there.

Catharina died on 7 June 1878 at the home of her son Heinrich, at Weinbergstraße 19, Bessungen.

The fate of Heinrich and William are yet to be discovered, if and when the records of Bessungen for the years after 1875 have been made available. But I checked the Darmstadt phone directory and found listings for three Eichenauers with landlines. So it appears that the Jeremias Eichenauer line may still exist.

At least some of the mystery surrounding Jeremias Eichenauer has been removed and I feel happy that he is no longer part of the Missing Persons file. I am still hopeful that more may  be revealed. You just never know what the spade will turn up next you keep digging.

Reporting from Geosynchronous orbit above Hessen-Darmstadt,

Stephen Roediger

Eichenauers of Friedewald--Are They Related?

 As you may remember, the Eichenauers of central western Ohio lived in Tann and Niederthalhausen, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Hesse, Germany before emigrating to the US in the second half of the 19th century.

The background of this Blog post can be found in an earlier one, which you can read about here: Reaching for the Topmost Branches - The Eichenauers

Just to recap, I have traced their migration backwards in time from Tann to Hof Trunsbach to Grebenau to Angersbach and Rudlos where the first Eichenauer that I have been able to trace was born during the last quarter of the 1600s. Here is a map of the path that they took, courtesy of Google Maps:

The lack of church records has forced me to abandon my search for preceding generations of Eichenauers from the Rudlos area. However, in the process of exploring other branches in the family tree, I have begun to encounter Eichenauers from a village called Friedewald. It appears on the map above west of Bad Hersfeld. And I have taken the liberty of creating another map which shows the distance between Tann and Friedewald:

As you can see, Tann and Friedewald are less than 10 miles apart.

And I have hoped by thoroughly checking the Tann and Niederthalhausen records (where our Eichenauer clan was situated) and the Friedewald records (where this newly discovered enclave had made their home) that I would discover a link between the two communities of Eichenauers.

But the two villages seemed to be unaware of each others presence. So, I set the Friedewald Eichenauers aside and concentrated on other matters.

Then, earlier this year, I swerved back into the Friedewald Eichenauers when I was researching a man named Johannes Heyer, born in Tann in 1792. Johannes' mother's mother's mother's mother was Eva Rödiger, born in Tann in 1681 to my 6th great-grandparents, Jost Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Schlein.

For those of you who are into relationships like I am, that makes him my 4th cousin 3 times (generations) removed. If you don't get it, don't fret. It ain't exactly germane to today's topic. Just bear in mind that he is related and so has a place in my family tree.

But there are many people who are in my tree who are not related. For instance, Johannes' wife, Anna Maria Seelig is not related, but she is in my tree because she is his wife. And of course, Anna Maria Seelig's parents are not related, but they are in my tree because they are the parents of the person who married my 4th cousin 3X removed.

But wait a moment!-- Anna Maria Seelig was the daughter of Nicolaus Seelig and Anna Maria EICHENAUR who was born in Friedewald in 1763!

That means that all of the Eichenauers of Friedewald could now be added to my tree, though apparently unrelated to my Eichenauers.

So, this I have been doing, working backwards in time, looking for an Eichenauer who had some identifiable connection to Tann, Niederthalhausen, Grebenau, Angersbach or Rudlos.

This led me finally to Andreas Eichenauer, the great-grandfather of Anna Maria Eichenauer. And as often happens when one reaches the oldest extant church records, facts begin fade as the records begin.

What I know, is that Andreas Eichenauer of Friedewald had at least seven children born to his wife, only known by her given name, Anna Maria. They were born between 1690 and 1704.

There is no marriage record for Andreas and Anna Maria, either because the marriage records don't begin until 1690 (as is the case) or because they were married elsewhere.

And I cannot know for sure that they didn't have other children before the church records began. But, because Anna Marie's burial took place on 21 April 1753 in Friedewald at the age of 84 years, 7 months and 2 weeks, I can figure her date of birth to be about 7 September 1668 and this means she would have been 21 years old when the oldest known child was born. So she couldn't have had too many children before 1690.

And what I have been able to learn about Andreas is even more sketchy. According to his wife's death record, she was widowed, so I know he died before 21 April 1753. His son, Johann Melchior Eichenauer was married on 28 May 1723, and his marriage record states that his father, Andreas Eichenauer was a deceased Zimmermann (carpenter) from Friedewald, so it appears that he died prior to that date. However, I have not been able to find his death record, so I must be content to know that he died sometime between the conception of his last child in about June of 1703 and May of 1723.

In spite of the sketchy details, what stands out starkly about these records, is that there is nary a hint of another Eichenauer of his generation. There are no Eichenauer birth records between 1690 and 1725 except those attributed he Andreas and Anna Maria. And beginning in 1725 the only Eichenauer births recorded are those of his grandchildren.

And there are no marriage records of any other Eichenauers between 1690 and 1730 except that of his own children.

What I am driving at is this: It would appear that either Andreas was the only child of previous generations of Eichenauers in Friedewald who lived to a marriageable age, or he came to Friedewald from elsewhere, married and settled down.

And the latter begs the question, where could he have come from?

Until today, I wouldn't have had a clue. But as I was reviewing the baptismal record of Andreas and Anna Marie's sixth child, Johann Conrad, born in 1701, I noticed that his Gevatter (baptismal sponsor) was Andreas' Stiefbruder (step-brother), Conrad Broll from Schlitz. So, I got out my good friend Google Maps and looked up Schlitz:

What I discovered is that Schlitz, the residence of Andreas' step-brother, is in fact just 10 miles from the "cradle" of the Tann/Niederthalhausen Eichenauers that Ohio Roedigers and Eichenauers know to be their ancestors. This is very tantalizing, but the proof of a connection between any Eichenauers of Schlitz and Eichenauers of Rudlos may be very hard to prove without Church records from the 1600s in Rudlos. Those either don't exist or haven't been released yet.

The good news is that Schlitz has records that stretch back to about 1610. The bad news is that they are extremely difficult to read. The results of a perusal of the Schlitz records will require many bleary-eyed hours looking for any records pertaining to either Andreas Eichenauer or his step-brother, Conrad Broll.

But I think a subsequent Blog post will have to address the results of that endeavor.

Until then,

Stephen Roediger (reporting from geosynchronous orbit above Hessen, Deutschland) 

Correction Concerning George Rödiger

Now that I am retired, I have been working hard on creating a database of abstracts from the Church records of Tann, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Hesse.

I have completed the goal of abstracting the marriage records from 1830-1850 and connecting as many of those couples to my tree as possible.

Currently, I am working on the baptismal records from the Churchbook covering 1830-1909.

My immediate goal is to abstract the records from 1830 through 1850, then add all of these children to their parents in my Family Tree on ancestrydotcom. It is taking me about 2 hours to abstract the records for each year. At this moment I am finishing the year 1837.

Which brings me to the reason for this Blog post: I found an error in a baptismal record that I have already placed in my tree on Ancestry and I want to set the record straight.

The record is for George Rödiger, but probably not the George Rödiger our USA Roedigers are familiar with. This George is the son of Justus Rödiger, the son of Johann Heinrich Rödiger and Anna Sidonia Schneider. Johann Heinrich and Anna Sidonia were also the parents of Johann Tobias Rödiger. And he should be very familiar to any Roediger or Eichenauer in Ohio who has been following this Blog. Johann Tobias first married Anna Eva Heÿer and together they had Anna Katharina Rödiger who married Johann Friedrich Eichenauer, progenitors of the Eichenauers in Ohio. After the death of Anna Eva Heÿer, Johann Tobias married Anna Margaretha Eichenauer (Johann Friedrich's sister) and together they had (among others) Justus, father of John Henry who came to Ohio; George, widower, who brought his four children to Ohio, then married Anna Grosse; and Conrad Tobias who came to Ohio as a 15 year old boy.

So, George Rödiger, of the corrected baptismal record, was a first cousin of those I highlighted in red, above. And here is the image of the first 5 columns of his baptismal record.

I mis-translated the date "dreißigster Dezember" as 17. December. It should be translated "30". If it had actually been the 17th, it would have been written "siebzehnter". EDITED

Many of the letters are probably unfamiliar to you. These records, for the most part, were written in the old German script. For those unfamiliar with the German alphabet  the "ß" character equals a double "s" and the Umlaut (those two dots over the vowels) transcribes as: ä (ae), ö (oe), ü (ue). I haven't figured out the ÿ equivalent yet. Maybe one of my German readers can instruct me on this.

EDITED: (have received some help with the "ÿ" from some German friends--the 2 dots over the "y" do not constitute an umlaut, but rather just help to identify the letter "y" when handwritten. So when typing this letter, whether in English or German, it should appear as "y" without the 2 dots above the letter.)

But, here is my translation:

Column 1: George was the 154th birth to be recorded in the 1830-1909 church book of Tann.

Column 2: His parents lived in Tann at House number 11, and presumably that was where he was born.

Column 3: He was born on the 30th of December [1837] in the 3rd hour of the morning (Morg. 3 Uhr), ie. 3am.

Column 4: He was baptized on the 1st of January 1838.

Column 5: He is listed as a boy/male (Knabe), and given the name George.

The record is spread over two pages with three more columns, but since the Remarks column was blank I didn't include it here:

Column 6: The names of George's parents--Justus Rödiger, a farmer (primarily of land cultivation Landbauer) and his 2nd wife (Ehefrau), Anna Katharina, born (geb.) Gossmann (Goßmann), from Friedlos. Here is a link to Google Maps so you can see the location of Tann in relation to Friedlos--https://goo.gl/maps/LsvZRLvd6xXADTYj7

Column 7: The name of the Baptismal Sponsor (Gevater)--George Heÿer, son of the brick maker (Ziegelbrenner), Johannes Heÿer.

NO EXTRA CHARGE: the brick maker, Johannes Heÿer is George's 4th cousin, and first cousin of Anna Eva Heÿer (highlighted in blue text above). I'll bet even the church recorder wasn't aware of those facts.

The Man Behind the Curtain,

Stephen Rödiger

Rödiger Curve Ball (The Rödigers in Tamaqua, PA in the 1870s)

BACKGROUND:
This all started yesterday when Regina sent me a message about a "John George Rödiger" who married a Maria Eichenbrodt at St. John's Ev. Lutheran Church in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania on 12/25/1863.
It was just a hint from a fellow researcher, suggesting that maybe I could find a home for him in my tree.

The ride has been interesting to say the least.

She put me in contact with another researcher who was born in Hazleton, 15 miles from Tamaqua. I will call her DSH. DSH was the one who originally found the marriage record. Hazleton, as you may remember was the setting of another deep dive into Rödiger relatives. See A Tangled Web.

So, this piqued my interest. Plus, I do NOT like loose ends. And John George Rödiger was definitely a very loose end. For some reason, initially I could find no other records about this man that would tell me where he came from, what happened to him after his marriage or who any of his relatives were.

DSH was actively researching her Eichenbrodt family when she stumbled into Mr. Elusive. And he was an enigma to her as well. The woman who married John George Rödiger was a widow of an Eichenbrodt. So, the Rödiger connection was really outside of her focus, except for the possibility of learning something about Maria (neé?) Eichenbrodt-Roediger's death and place of burial.

Though I couldn't see how this guy could fit in with our Rödigers from Tann, I was not about to just ignore the challenge. So I dug in.

I went back to the St. John's Church records and found George Rödiger as a Communicant between 1876 and 1879. And squeezed in just below his name was an August Rödiger who took communion between 1878 and 1879. This was encouraging. Maybe George didn't just drop out of the sky after all.

A little more research in the church records showed that George and Maria (Eichenbrodt) Rödiger had a son, Johann Christian August Rödiger in 1864 and that August was married to Anna Dorothea Herbig in 1856 and they had a child, Anna Catharina who was born in 1854.

At this point I had no proof, but hypothesized that August and George were brothers. Since records for George seemed pretty elusive, I turned to hints about August from other Family Trees on ancestry.com. That is when I cam across an obituary in Junction City, Kansas from 1919 that pretty much answered the questions I had been asking.

I am much indebted to a fellow researcher (Scrubjay81) on ancestry.com for posting the three part obit. from the Grand Junction Union Journal and the photo of Johann August Rödiger:

Johann August Roediger (1899)

Junction City Union Journal (1919)

From this obit I learned a number of things germane to my research:

1) August was born in Scherbda, which today is in the German State of Thuringia (Thüringen). A look at Google Maps shows it to be about 40 miles east of our ancestral home of Tann.

2) August arrived in New York on 8. July 1854, lived near Albany NY, Philadephia PA and New York before taking a job on the coal mine near Tamaqua for the next 23 years.

3) August enlisted in Co. B., 16th Pennsylvania Volunteers (probably in 1861)

4) August moved his family out to Alida, Kansas, in 1877 where he bought a 160 acre farm. (Another article in 1891 which extolled his virtues as a farmer stated that his farm had grown to 600 acres, with about 375 acres in cultivation, an orchard of 15 acres and timber enough to last for several generations. Not bad at a time when farm mechanization was still a thing of the future.

5) Surviving him when he died on 25 August 1919 were 7 of his 11 children, one of whom still lived in Tamaqua and a brother, George Roediger, of Tamaqua.

Back when I was just beginning my Roediger research, I examined every census record I could find in the 1860s 70's and 80's looking for Roedigers in the US. I still have those censuses and a niche in my tree where I have put the Roedigers from Geary Co, Kansas. When I saw the name August Roediger in the Tamaqua Church records this morning it made me think of the August Roediger I had seen in those records, but dismissed it as a big stretch. But it turned out to be true after all.

So, I have come full circle, starting with George and ending with George. The obit has confirmed what I suspected: August and George were brothers and that they were not from Tann and thus not closely related to us "Ohio" Roedigers.

But the 40 mile distance between Tann and their hometown of Scherbda makes the possibility of sharing a common ancestor worth looking into (at least for me).

To do that, I have messaged all ten of the owners of family trees on ancestry.com having Johann August Roediger amongst their branches. It runs like this:

My name is Stephen Roediger. I have been researching my family for about 10 years. I have often wondered if the Roedigers in Kansas were related to me. This morning I found Johann August Roediger's obit and learned that he was from Scherbda. My family is from Tann (36251), just a few miles north of Bad Hersfeld. So the distance between the two "hometowns" is about 40 miles. I am looking for a Roediger man who would be willing to take a y-DNA test to see if we have a common ancestor. Since you have Johann August in your tree, I am hoping you might be able to put me in contact with either a direct male descendant of Johann August or a fellow researcher who might be better able to help me with this. Your reply would be greatly appreciated.

So far, I have had two replies that said that they were unable to help, but wishing me luck.

I have a Plan B, but will only use it as a last resort. The people on ancestry.com understand where I am coming from, but Plan B would require me to call or write to the current crop of Roedigers in Junction City, Kansas and the that general area. As you can imagine, there would be strong misgivings about cooperating on this level with a total stranger who claims to be searching for the long lost DNA connection. But if it comes to that, I am not afraid to try. Maybe I'd even take a road trip.

Right now, the only match I have with my personal Y-DNA test is my third cousin Michael who was kind enough to take the test so I could verify that there wasn't something wrong with the test itself. I am happy to say that his test of whether we share a common Roediger ancestor came back positive.

If there is a Kansas or Tamaqua, PA Roediger who agrees to take the Y-DNA test, we should be able to determine if we share a common ancestor (and hopefully not as far back as Noah--just kidding) but probably not who that common ancestor is. To do that, we would need a paper trail and that comes to a screeching halt about 450 years into the past unless one has royal or aristocratic blood. I am pretty sure we don't have von Rödigers in the family.

But maybe, just maybe, when the dust clears, I will know whether to dub these Roedigers in Tamaqua and Junction City with the title "Cousins".

To all my cousins everywhere,
Stephen Roediger

Detours Along the Highway of Genealogical Research

I have been indexing the baptismal records of the Church Book in Tann which includes the years 1791-1822 for several months now.  As you are probably aware if you have followed this Blog at all, Tann is the ancestral hometown of the Roediger and Eichenauer families of NW Ohio.

Sometimes things get a little more complicated then one might imagine when I'm trying to connect these people to my tree. If I could just force myself to stick to indexing, the task would go much faster. But, as I index each new baptismal record I just have to see if this child fits anywhere in my tree.

In this Blog post I am going to let you follow me on a detour I recently took off of the Indexing Task Highway.

Let me use Anna Martha Herdt as an example. This is her baptismal record which I was indexing and then checking to see if she connected with my existing family tree:

From this record I learned that:

Anna Martha was born on 19 November 1805 at 10 in the evening, and baptized on 24 November 1805 in Tann. The Cross above the figures 13/3 64 indicates that she died on 13 March 1864.

Her parents were Johann Heinrich Herdt (farmer) and his wife, Elisabeth, neé Glebe.

Her baptismal sponsor was her father’s sister, Anna Martha, the wife of Nicolaus Büttner from Rohrbach.

Upon reviewing my tree I realized that I already had the subject’s parents in my tree, plus two of her siblings. So I intended to add her to my tree. After all, she is the great-aunt of the husband of the niece of the husband of my 3rd cousin 2X removed. I won’t bore you with the details because the exact relationship is not the focus of this blog. But I will include the path between us at the end of this post.

The real focus of this post is the process that is sometimes necessary to ensure that connections are made with the correct people. (And to show you how much brain power I have to burn to learn). After all, the names in the area around Tann are repeated over and over as the example above proves. Anna Martha Herdt was named after her aunt, Anna Martha Herdt. And this can become confusing. I continually check to see if I might have someone in my tree already who matches the identity of one I am indexing.

In this case, I checked to see if I already had the aunt, Anna Martha Herdt anywhere in my tree. I did not, so I added her as a sibling of Johann Heinrich Herdt, our subject’s father.

Then, I checked to see if there was a Nicolaus Büttner in my tree that might might be a match for the husband of the “godparent”, Aunt Anna Martha Herdt, in the baptismal record. I found that I had two Nicolaus Büttners in my tree. One was born in 1800, so he definitely did not match. The information I had on the other Nicolaus Büttner looks like this:

As you can see, I have no information about this Nicolaus Büttner other than the information about his two children. I believe that he was named as the father of Anna Margaretha, and that either Elisabeth Knebell’s godmother was her mother’s brother’s wife, Elisabeth Scheuch, or that Anna Margaretha Büttner (daughter of Johannes Büttner and Elisabeth Scheuch) was named after her father’s sister, Anna Margaretha Büttner. In either case, the name of Nicolaus Büttner’s wife is never mentioned.

So, in order to figure out whether this Nicolaus Büttner is the match with the Nicolaus Büttner of the subject’s baptismal record, I needed to examine what data I did have. The daughter of Nicolaus Büttner in the above chart was married in 1795, so she was probably born at least twenty years earlier. So, just to get an idea, I will place her date of birth at 1775. Using the rule of 20 (which I just made up), her father would have been born at least 20 years before that, so before 1755. Just knowing the generational patterns of the Tanners--ie. inhabitants of Tann-- that more often than not, couples did not marry until age 25 or 30, this could push this Nicolaus’s date of birth back to 1735 or even earlier. 

I already knew that our subject’s father was born in 1774, so his sister, the godparent, Anna Martha was probably not more than 10 years older or 10 years younger than him. So I assigned a birthdate range for her between 1765 and 1785. So if she was the wife of the Nicolaus Büttner in the above chart, she would have been at least 10 years his junior, and maybe even 50 years his junior. Neither scenario is impossible. Though the latter case is most improbable, the former is at least conceivable. 

However, there is another factor which I needed to consider. If you will recall, the baptismal record said that the godparent and her husband were from Rohrbach. This does not fit neatly with what is known about the Nicolaus Büttner in my tree. In fact, all of the information I have on his known family is that they were firmly established in Tann.

Tann and Rohrbach are less than a mile apart. So maybe the reason the church recorder stated that they were from Rohrbach was to ensure that no one confused that Nicolaus Büttner with the one in Tann.

So, my next step was to determine if there actually was a Nicolaus Büttner in Rohrbach’s church records that fit the bill. If so, I could eliminate the one in my tree as a candidate and add a new Nicolaus Büttner from Rohrbach to my tree as the spouse of my subject’s aunt.

After searching I found this marriage record in Rohrbach:

This basically says that on 2 June 1800, in the evangelisch Kirche of Rohrbach, Nicolaus Büttner, Widower, married Anna Martha Herdt, daughter of the deceased Johannes Herdt, resident of Tann.

I should have mentioned earlier that I also previously had information about the subject’s Herdt grandparents in my tree. They were Johannes Herdt and Anna Margaretha Büttner who were married in 1767 in Tann. I had also known that Johannes had died prior to marriage of the subject, Anna Martha’s parents which took place in 1802. But I did not have a definite date of his death.

In spite of this lack of information, this record reveals a father's name and locality consistent with the the Johannes Herdt family in my tree.

So, my next task was to confirm that the Johannes Herdt, father of Johann Heinrich, and grandfather of the subject, Anna Martha Herdt, and of course, father of the godparent of the subject, actually died before Nicolaus Büttner and Anna Martha Herdt married in 1800.

As I already mentioned, His son, Johann Heinrich’s marriage record stated that his father had died prior to their marriage in 1802. And since Johann Heinrich was born in 1774, I know his father must have died no earlier than 1773. I could possibly narrow that window even more by looking for other children born to Johannes Herdt after 1774.

What I learned was that Johannes Herdt and Anna Margaretha Büttner had five more children after Johann Heinrich. I have now added those children into my tree:

*Johann Adam, born 25 Jan 1777

*Elisabeth, born 30 Oct 1779

*Anna Catharina, born 5 Feb 1782

*Johannes, 6 Jan 1787

*Johann Justus, 26 Oct 1794

This helps me shrink this window and look for a Johannes Herdt in Tann death records who was born before 1747 and died between 1793 to 1802. Working backwards from 1802, I found only one Johannes Herdt who fit my criteria:

This one died on 17 Jun 1798 at age 67 years 6 months and 23 days and was buried on the 19th. This would put his birth date at about 25 Nov 1730. Even though there is no information in this record about family members, the fact that there are no other viable candidates in Tann makes me believe that he is a match with the Johannes Herdt I am looking for. Plus this record also aligns with the statement in Nicolaus Büttner and Anna Martha Herdt’s 1800 marriage record that her father was deceased at that time.

As a further step in trying to confirm that this Johannes Herdt is indeed the father of Anna Martha Herdt, godparent of my subject, I have worked forward from 1794 looking for death records of any of Johannes Herdt and Anna Margaretha Büttner’s children or Anna Margaretha Büttner herself that might solidify that consideration. I found a death record for Johann Adam (b. 1777) who died on 1 Apr 1800 which states that his father had predeceased him. Since this date predates the marriage of Nicolaus Büttner and Anna Martha Herdt on 2 Jun 1800, I know that I am on the right track.

In fact, I am ready to commit myself to accept this as the correct death record of of Johannes Herdt.

But I was still faced with the question of whether this Nicolaus Büttner could possibly be the Nicolaus Büttner I already have in my tree.

Realizing that he was a widower when he married Anna Martha Herdt, I delved further back into the Rohrbach records and discovered that he was actually previously twice widowed. In his first marriage I learned that his father's name was also Nicolaus and his mother was Juliana Goßmann.

He had 7 children from his union with his first two wives and all were born in Rohrbach, and none match up with the children of the Nicolaus Büttner from Tann in my tree.

In addition I learned that the Nicolaus Büttner of Rohrbach was born in 1754 in Rohrbach and died there in 1814. His third wife, Anna Martha Herdt was born in 1768 in Tann. After Nicolaus died, she married Johannes Sunkell in 1816. She died in Rohrbach and was buried there in 1829.

So, to summarize, I believe that I have been able to rule out the Nicolaus Büttner I had in my tree as the husband of Anna Martha Herdt’s godparent and aunt, and to rule in the Nicolaus Büttner of Rohrbach.

All of the above information and more I have dutifully entered into my Master Index and my family tree. I calculate that I spent 6-8 hours and added 27 to 30 new people into my tree while taking this detour and am now quite ready to move on to the next baptismal record.

At this rate, it might take me 5 years to index the baptismal records from this one church book, encompassing just 30 years. That's a happy thought isn't it!

As promised, just for kicks I am including the path that connects me with the subject, Anna Martha Herdt. I have to thank ancestry.com for making this path known to me. I am not sure I could have figured it out on my own:

I am the Son of Roger Dean Roediger, who is the

Son of Alfred Tobias Roediger, who is the

Son of Conrad Tobias Roediger, who is the

Son of Johann Tobias Rödiger, who is the

Son of Johann Henrich Rödiger, who is the

Son of Johann Adam Rödiger, who was also the

Father of Anna Dorothea Rödiger (2), who is the

Mother of Anna Dorothea Hoßfeld, who is the

Mother of Anna Katharina Hildebrand, who is the

Mother of Anna Maria Schlägel, who is the

Wife of George Leonhard Schuch I, who is the

Son of Leonhard Schuch, who was also the

Father of Valentin Schuch, who is the

Father of Anna Katharina Schuch, who is the

Wife of Heinrich Herdt, who is the

Son of Johannes Herdt, who is the

Son of Johann Heinrich Herdt, who is the

Father of  my subject, Anna Martha Herdt

If you have a tree on ancestry.com, this feature appears on each individual's profile page just below the birth and death information. Just click on the link and a list similar to the one I created above will appear. You can then print it out or clink on any person to go directly to their profile page. I think is a quite clever and helpful feature.

By the way, my subject, Anna Martha Herdt grew up and on 30 Dec 1832 she married Johann George Kauffman who was already in my tree and who is the nephew of the husband of a 1st cousin 4X removed from me.

The Self-Appointed Heritage Hound of the Eichenauer-Roediger Family,

Stephen Roediger

Reaching for the Topmost Branches--The Rödigers

 The release of Tann church book records from 1664-1710 has made it possible to extend our knowledge of our Rödiger heritage just a bit further into the past. To make these charts legible, I am limiting them to just three generations. I will start with Johann Tobias Rödiger. He was the father of: 1) Anna Katharina who married Friedrich Eichenauer, parents of five Eichenauers who emigrated to Ohio

2) Justus, father of John Henry Roediger (1874-1952) who emigrated to Ohio

3) George, who emigrated to Ohio with 4 children in 1888

4) Conrad Tobias, who emigrated to Ohio in 1881 at age 15.

As you can see from this chart, I have included the relationship of each ancestor to me, myself and I, to provide perspective. Their relationship to each of my readers may be different, but I will leave that for you to determine. Also, from this chart, it is apparent that I have not fully researched the Schneider side. I shall endeavor to do so in the not so distant future.

However, on the Rödiger side, I have the birth, marriage and death records for Johann Tobias, his parents and his paternal grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great grandparents.

Below is a continuation of this chart, beginning with Johann Tobias Rödiger's grandfather, Johann Adam Rödiger.

As you can see, the birth, marriage and death records for Johann Tobias' great-grandparents is complete, but those for his great-great-grandparents are sketchy.

This is due to the fact that the Tann Church book that has just been released begins in 1664. I have just emailed the Archive in Kassel to see if there is an earlier church book waiting to be digitized, but for now this is as far back as the records in Tann are available to me online.

I have Jost Rödiger's death record (due to the contour of the page I have had to capture part of the record above and below that of Jost):

"1 Aug [1710] Jost Rödiger, 53 Jahr alt"
(53 years old)

That isn't much to go on, but from his age at his death, I know that he was born about 1657, seven years before this church book's records.

I also found his marriage record in this book, which has provided the name of the mother of his children (THIS IS NEW INFO):

"den 23ten Januars [1679] ist Jost Rüdiger mit Anna Margaretha Schlein Coppulirt worde"
(on the 23rd of January [1679] Jost Rödiger was joined in marriage with Anna Margaretha Schlein)

Sadly, the names of their parents are not revealed, and when I attempted to find a death record for Anna Margaretha Rödiger, neé Schlein, I came up empty. Some of these records are difficult to read, so, I may have overlooked it. And I have been unable to find her birth record because it no doubt predates the earliest available church book, or she may have been born in a different village. So, this is as complete as the "tip-top" of Rödiger side of our tree can be for now. And as for Johann Adam's maternal side (the Wiegands), I have had much the same issue. The Wiegands were from the neighboring village of Rohrbach. And the earliest church book I can find for Rohrbach begins in 1701, so is even less helpful.

However, with the church book I do have from Tann, I have discovered that our earliest known Rödiger ancestors had four children: Our common ancestor, Johann Valentin, was the youngest. It appears that Nicolaus and Anna Margaretha may have died from some epidemic as they were both in their twenties and their death dates are less than two weeks apart. It appears that neither married. Valten's oldest sister, Eva married Johann Adam Webber. They had two daughters. So here is the chart, showing Jost Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Schlein's children and grandchildren:

There is an eight year gap between Valten and his next older sibling. I would not rule out the possibility of another child born in that gap, but I have checked pretty thoroughly for that possibility, and can not find such a record. However, this church book seems to be a bit disjointed and out of order, so I may have missed something.

One other thing struck me about this chart. Only one of Jost Rödiger's sons lived to carry on the Rödiger name, ie. Valten Rödiger. And only one of Valten's sons lived to carry on the Rödiger name, ie. Johann Adam Rödiger.

And Johann Adam Rödiger only had one son who lived to carry on the Rödiger name, and that, in spite of the fact that he was married twice and had five children, as you can see in the next chart.

It is a wonder that the Rödiger name even survived into the 1700s, at least through the Jost Rödiger clan.

I have found other Rödigers in this early church book, who may be brothers and sisters (or cousins) of Jost Rödiger. And there are records of those Rödigers marrying and having children. But unless an earlier church book is forthcoming, there will be no way to discover how they are really related.

What I do know is that those other Rödiger branches either died out or moved away from Tann. By the 1800s, only Jost's line continues to appear in the Tann church records.

Your Rödiger-Eichenauer Blogmeister,

Stephen Roediger

Reaching for the Topmost Branches--The Eichenauers

First, let me point out that my starting pointer this post is Johann George Eichenauer, the grandfather of Anna Margaretha  and Friedrich Eichenauer who figure so prominently in our family tree. Anna Margaretha married Johann Tobias Rödiger, whose sons, George and Conrad, and a grandson, Johann Heinrich (John Henry) emigrated and settled in Ohio. Her brother, Friedrich Eichenauer married Anna Katharina Rödiger, and five of their children, Tobias, Conrad, Adam, Gus and Lizzie Eichenauer also emigrated and settled in Ohio. So, hopefully, armed with this information, you can place your relationship with the "person of interest", Johann George Eichenauer.

Johann George Eichenauer is my 5G grandfather. Up until a few months ago, I only knew the name of his father (Georg) and the name of his wife (Anna Katharina Schäfer) and the names of three of their five children. I thought I knew where and when he had been born, but was mistaken on both counts. In actuality, both he and his wife, Anna Katharina Schäfer were born in Angersbach (see Addendum)

What I have learned since then has taken me one generation further up the Eichenauer tree. I now know that Johann George Eichenauer's father, Georg was married twice. First in 1717 to Anna Margaretha Rencker (I think this is the correct spelling). They had three sons, Caspar Georg, Conrad Georg and Johann Caspar. The first two were twins. In 1724, Georg's first wife died and he married Regina Kiesner on 3 October 1724 in Angersbach. To this couple were born four boys and one girl. Our common ancestor, Johann George was the youngest. His three older brothers all died before the age of 3. Of his sister, Anna Gertraud, I have yet to discover how long she lived and whether she married.
Georg Eichenauer, who is at this point the tip top of the Eichenauer tree, has been difficult to figure out. The church book that would have his death record had writing near the binding and when it was digitized some of the information was hidden in the shadow. I have found a record that could possibly be his death record, but here is what I have had to deal with:

Catalogus Defunctorum, Anno Christi 1750

The year is 1750. The death takes place on the 2nd of January. Just below the date is the name of the deceased. The first name ends with "org" which is probably "Georg" and the last name is definitely "Eichenauer". The age of the deceased is also partially obscured so that all that I can read on the last line  is a "0" or "6" followed by "Jahr und 8 Monath" (year and 8 months). So there is not enough of the years of age visible to know how old he was. But, I deduce from this record that "?org Eichenauer" was an adult, since no parents names are included.
Without knowing his age, I would have to guesstimate his birth year based on the date of his first marriage. That was in 1717. Since men rarely married before age 20 (and often not until age 30) I would guesstimate that he was born between 1677 and 1697. When I looked for baptismal records in  that timeframe I found three Johann George Eichenauers born in Angersbach who fit the bill. But at this point I have no way of knowing if any one of them is the correct one. So the climb to the top stops with Georg for now. Perhaps, if I have opportunity to talk with someone at the Archive with access to the actual books, they could read the name and age of the deceased person in the record above. Then I could decide if it could pertain to our Georg Eichenauer, or whether the facts contained there rule him out.
I had more success with Georg's wife (Johann George's mother), Regina Kiesner. I found her death record:

This is from the year 1758, the 7th of October. Can you see "Regina Eichenauer"? Yes, part of the "R" is in the shadow, but I am certain this is Georg's wife. Regina is an unusual name in this area and I have not found another Regina in all my searching in this church book. Her age is on the third and fourth lines "alters 64 Jahr [smudge smudge] Woche" (64 years ?? weeks). This would put her date of birth about 1684. From her marriage record, I also learned that she was born in Vaitshain, about 13 miles south of Angersbach. Sadly the records for Vaitshain have not been digitized, so I am stuck again. I will revisit if and when the records become available.
This then, is as far up the Eichenauer tree as I can climb for now:

Not that it means much to the main Eichenauer research, but in baptismal records, baptismal sponsors are named. And from the baptism of Georg and Regina's son, Johann Henrich, I learned that his baptismal sponsor was Regina's brother, Johann Henrich Kiesner. If the Vaitshain records become available, this information may become useful in learning the names of Regina's parents--my 7G grandparents

ADDENDUM

When I was researching past posts to see just how far up the Eichenauer tree I had taken you in the past, I discovered something that seems appropriate to address since it pertains to Johann George Eichenauer and his descendants.

25 January 2018 I posted a blog called "The Eichenauer Geography (pt. 1)" which turned out to have some incomplete as well as some inaccurate information. Now that records from Angersbach and Grebenau are available online, I am able to set the record straight. However, you may want to refer back to that blog in case you want to see the maps of the places being talked about here.

In that 2018 post, I asserted that Johann George Eichenauer (who moved to Hof Trunsbach to become it's manager in 1794) was born in Grebenau. That turned out to be untrue. He was born in Angersbach about 7 December 1737 (this is his baptismal date--his birthdate was not given).

On 11 October 1763 he married Anna Katharina Schäfer, who was also a native of Angersbach. Together, they had five children--all boys. The first four, including our common ancestor, Johann Heinrich, were born in Angersbach between 1764 and 1770. Sometime between 1770 and 1772, this portion of the Eichenauer clan moved to the village of Grebenau where their fifth son was born in 1773.
Of the five sons, two died in childhood. The three who survived into adulthood were:
1) Johann Henrich Eichenauer (our common ancestor)
b. 1 September 1764, Angersbach
d. 26 November 1813, Niederthalhausen
m. 10 January 1794, Niederthalhausen to Anna Christina Mürer (The Mürer the Merrier)

2) Johann Konrad Eichenauer
b. ca. 1 June 1768, Angersbach
d. 27. September 1845, Angersbach
m. 13 June 1803, Angersbach to Anna Margaretha Völler

3) Johannes Eichenauer
b. 3 June 1773, Grebenau
d. 2 February 1836, Hof Trunsbach bei Niederthalhausen
m. Barbara Elisabeth Sunkel

While, Johann Heinrich and Johannes accompanied their parents to Hof Trunsbach and subsequently married and settled down either at the Hof or in the nearby village of Niederthalhausen, Johann Konrad elected to return to his hometown of Angersbach, married Anna Margaretha Völler and settled down. At this point, I know that they had at least six children born between 1804 and 1813. On both his and his wife's death record, Johann Konrad's vocation is listed as "Schreiner" (joiner, woodworker).

The management of the Hof eventually fell to Johann George's son, Johannes, whose wife, Barbara Elisabeth Sunkel had 9 children. Seven of these were girls, four of which did not survive childhood. Their oldest son, Nicolaus inherited the management of Hof Trunsbach, and their second son, Heinrich, his wife and children emigrated to Lancaster Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania in 1847. Together. Heinrich Eichenauer and Eva Catharina Schneider had 14 children, the last three born after immigrating. So now you know that we have 5th and 6th cousins living in the area just north of Pittsburgh.

Your Rödiger-Eichenauer Genealogy Pointman,
Stephen Roediger