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)
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