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

The Eichenauer Geography (pt. 1)

The Eichenauers of Mercer County, Ohio and the Roedigers of Auglaize County, Ohio have an intertwined family history which begins in a small village of about 300 inhabitants in the Hersfeld-Rotenburg District of the German State of Hesse called Tann. While the Rödigers had lived in this village for generations (Henn Rödiger was listed in one document from 1627 as one of 12 farmers in Tann, most of whom had 1 horse and oxen), the Eichenauers were relative newcomers.

It appears that Johann Konrad Eichenauer and his wife, Anna Katharina Jacob moved to Tann after their eleventh child was born on 21 September of 1833 and before their twelfth child was born on 10 September 1836.

My intention in this blog is to show via modified Google Earth Maps (since I can't take you on a personal bus tour) where the Eichenauers came from before moving to Tann and about how long they lived in those locations. Since my research has only been able to learn the birthplaces of Johann Konrad Eichenauer's ancestors back to his grandfather, this shall be a fairly short "lesson." But hopefully you will get a spacial concept that will serve you in further research forays. And, of course, if you have access to Google Earth or even Google Maps, you can follow along in one of those programs and enhance your experience by zooming in on whatever floats your boat.

First, let me show you a map of Germany in relation to her neighbors in Europe:


The individual States of Germany are outlined in blue. Hesse is located almost in the geographical center of Germany. Frankfurt is the largest city of Hesse, so if you find the blue line that surrounds Frankfurt, you have found Hesse.
Sadly, I have been stymied in my attempts to show all of Hesse and and also have Google Earth show some of the midsize cities in Hesse that you might be familiar with. So this next map does show Frankfurt in the south and Kassel in the north, surrounded by the blue line indicating the borders of Hesse. After you have studied it for a few moments you can move on to the next map which will zoom in on the northern area of Hesse indicated by the area outlined in red.

 

The map below is semi-sort-of the area framed in red on the map above, and begins to show some of the smaller towns. Again, I have framed an area in red that will be enlarged on the following map.



Zooming a little closer on the area framed in red above, we can now find Tann on the map below, which is about 4 miles north of Bad Hersfeld.



I am now going to enlarge the area around Hof Trunsbach so that you can see the locality a bit better before I explain it's significance.



As I wrote earlier in this blog, Johann Konrad and Anna Katharina Eichenauer moved to Tann between 1833 and 1836. But before coming to Tann, they had been residents of Niederthalhausen, about 3 miles up the road. Johann Konrad and Anna Katharina were married in the Niederthalhausen church, their first 11 children had been born in Haus 18 in Niederthalhausen and baptized the this church. When I visited Tann, I wasn't aware of the significance of Niederthalhausen to our family history, so never visited there. However, thanks to Youtube I was able to lasso a photo of the church there. If you search for "Evangelische Kirche von Niederthalhausen" on Youtube, you can watch a short video that shows several views of the church and captures the tolling of the bells in the church tower. The link is Niederthalhausen ev. Dorfkirche

The church is located just below the yellow pushpin

Although Johann Konrad lived in Niederthalhausen with his family from 1815 to about 1835 when they moved to Tann, he wasn't born there. He and his 7 siblings were born at the Hof Trunsbach, which I wrote about in a previous blog. If you refer back to the map image just before that of the Evangelische Kirche, you will see that the Hof was located about 3/4 mile SE of Niederthalhausen. Johann Konrad Eichenauer's grandfather, Johann George (1727-1822) had come to the Hof Trunsbach with his family to become its "Conductor" in 1794. Succeeding generations of Eichenauers held that position for almost 100 years (until 1888).

But of course, only one person could hold that position, so other members of the family found it necessary to find other positions either on the Hof or elsewhere. In a future blog, I intend to show where some of the children and grandchildren went from the Hof and what occupations they pursued.

[On 1 Feb 2020, I reviewed this post and was startled to discover several factual errors in this paragraph. Please see my post from 2/1/2020 for corrections and additions to this paragraph--SRR] I now know that Johann George Eichenauer, the first Eichenauer who held the position of Hof Trunsbach Conductor had at least three sons by his wife, Anna Catharina Schäfer who was born in Angersbach. The first two sons were born in Grebenau, where their father was born. 1. Johann Heinrich (1764-1813) was Johann Konrad's father. It appears that Johann Heinrich inherited the Conductor position when his father died, but about this I am not 100% sure. 2. Johannes  Eichenauer (1773-1836) married Barbara Elisabeth Sunkel from Reilos and had 9 children, two sons and seven daughters. 3. Konrad Eichenauer, about whom I have learned very little because the church records from Grebenau are not yet available online. I do know that he was living in Angersbach in 1823 (his mother's hometown) because of the baptismal record of a niece who was named after his wife, Anna Margaretha Möller. It may be that Konrad was already married and settled in a career in Angersbach when his father moved to Hof Trunsbach with the other two sons. Hopefully, sometime soon those records will be available to solve this little mystery.

From the above paragraph, I revealed where this branch of the Eichenauer clan lived prior to 1794. But look at the map below to gain some perspective:



First note the distance between Grebenau (where Johann George Eichenauer was born) and Angersbach (where his wife was born). [I subsequently have learned that Johann George Eichenauer, his wife and four of their five children were born in Angersbach. They moved to Grebenau between 1770 and 1772 where their fifth child was born--SRR] It looks to be about 10-12 miles as the crow flies. These two towns are located in a different district from Tann and Niederthalhausen which are in the Hersfeld-Rotenburg District. The District that Grebenau and Angersbach is in is called Vogelsbergkreis which is outlined in light green.

Now note the distance between Hof Trunsbach and Grebenau. It calculates out to be about 24-25 miles. I am not sure how to measure the significance of the distance between these two locations, but if they left family behind in Grebenau or Angersbach, it would certainly limit the number of times they would visit one another. Perhaps we will never learn the reasons behind making such a move but it prompts me to ask myself questions: Was the opportunity of being the manager of the Hof just too good to pass up? Were there limited economic opportunities in the Vogelbergkreis that forced them to seek work further from home?

Hopefully the following diagram will be legible. It provides the basic information that I have been able to learn about Johann George Eichenauer and Anna Catharina Schäfer's children and grandchildren. I believe this is all included in my ancestry.com tree "Rödiger Family Tree" and there, where possible, I have provided citations in the descriptions of each event. As a reminder, the NW Ohio Eichenauers descend from Johann Konrad Eichenauer, son of Johann Heinrich Eichenauer, son of Joann George Eichenauer.
And finally, just to ramp up your curiosity, I would draw your attention to the second son of Johannes Eichenauer (second column), Heinrich Eichenauer who died in 1899 in Lancaster Twp, Butler County, PA. Had you heard of Pennsylvania cousins?