Death Record of Catharina Elisabeth (Rödiger) Lotz

This is the record that established that Conrad Tobias Rödiger/Roediger did indeed have an older full sister. I have had to extrapolate the header info from the info contained in the columns, but with the help of a friend at the South East Ohio Historical Society in Athens, Ohio I have learned what caused her death

#110--
Column 1 [deceased's name and immediate family]--Catharina Elisabeth Lotz geb. Rödiger, Tochter die Eheleute Tobias Rödiger und Anna Margaretha Eichenauer zu Tann; Ehefrau des Puddler Jakob Lotz
Catharina Elisabeth Lotz, née Rödiger, daughter of the married couple Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer of Tann; wife of the Puddler*, Jakob Lotz

Column 2 [deceased's occupation and residence]--Ehefrau, Bochum
Wife, residing in Bochum

Column 3 [age and birthdate]--25 [Jahre alt], geb 28 November 1848
25 years old, born 28 Nov 1848

Column 4 [relationship of informant]--der Ehemann
the husband

Column 5 [date and time of death]--18 achtzehnter Juli, Abends 6 Uhr
18 July [1874], 6 in the evening

Column 6 [cause of death]--Schwindsucht
consumption/tuberculosis

Column 7 [date and place of burial]--21 Juli; Bochum
21 July [1874], in Bochum

*See the previous post for an explanation of the occupation of Puddler

By comparing this record, with that of her marriage record (see previous post), it becomes clear that she had only been married for one and a half years when she died. I'm no expert on TB, but my understanding is that usually a person lives a year or more before succumbing to the disease, so it is likely that Catharina Elisabeth had the disease before she was married or contracted it afterwards, but she probably suffered with it for most of her married life.

The question of whether she had any children was answered by the record immediately above her own death record.

#109--
Column 1 [deceased's name and immediate family]--Johann Georg Heinrich Conrad Lotz, Sohn der Eheleute Puddler Jacob Lotz und Catharina Elizabeth Rödiger
Johann Georg Heinrich Conrad Lotz, son of the married couple, the Puddler Jacob Lotz and Catharina Elizabeth Rödiger

Column 2 [deceased's occupation and residence]--Kind, Bochum
Child, residing in Bochum

Column 3 [age and birthdate]--geb. 30. November 1873
0 years old, born 30 Nov 1873

Column 4 [relationship of informant]--die Eltern
the parents

Column 5 [date and time of death]--17 siebenzehnten Juli, Abends 1/2 11 Uhr
17 July [1874], 10:30 in the evening

Column 6 [cause of death]--Brechreiz
diarrea and vomiting [often referred to in 19th century America as cholera infantum, a common cause of infant death]--this explanation is also curtesy of my friend at SEOHS

Column 7 [date and place of burial]--21 Juli; Bochum
21 July [1874], in Bochum

Next post will contain a surprise wrapped in a mystery, coming as it does from the same page as Jakob Lotz and Catharina Elisabeth Rödiger's marriage record in Bochum.

Reunited with Conrad Tobias Roediger's Sister

As you probably know if you have been reading these posts, my great grandfather was Conrad Tobias Roediger, son of Johann Tobias and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer. Our family has been aware that Conrad Tobias had three older brothers and a half-sister from his father's first marriage. And while a 19 year gap between the birth of his half-sister and the death of his father's first wife would suggest that Conrad Tobias may have had other half-siblings of whom we are unaware, we have always assumed that the full-siblings of Conrad Tobias Roediger were all accounted for, until now.

The timeline of the marriage of Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer and the birth of their children help to illustrate:

25 Dec 1847 Marriage of JT Rödiger and AM Eichenauer in Tann, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Hesse

22 Sep 1850 Infant Baptism of Gustav "Justus" Rödiger in Tann

24 May 1854 Birth of George Rödiger/Roediger in Tann

18 Mar 1866 Birth of Conrad Tobias Rödiger/Roediger in Tann

As you can see, there is time between each event above to squeeze in another birth. However, there was no information, either from the family or found in documents, to suggest that there were in fact other children--
until I accidentally stumbled across a death record for a Catharine Elisabeth Lotz in Bochum, Westfalen, a city over 200 km from Tann.

I am still working on the exact translation of that record. However, that discovery led me to her marriage record, which was easier for me to read, so I will start with it:

The record says:
#2--The name and profession of the groom: Der Pudler Jakob Lotz zu Bochum, evang.
Jakob Lotz was a Pudler or Puddler (this was a man who worked in a foundry, stirring the molten pig iron to introduce oxygen into it, thus hastening the burn off of carbon), his residence is Bochum and he was of the Lutheran faith.

Name, occupation and residence of the groom's parents: der farbrikarbeiter Conrad Lotz und seine Ehefrau Catharina geb Krause zu Bochum
Jakob's father was a factory worker, Conrad Lotz, and his mother was Catharina née Krause. They lived in Bochum

Age of the groom: 27 J. (geb. 13. Febr. 1845)
Jakob was 27, born on 13 Feb 1845

Whether Jakob's parents or guardians gave their consent and in what form: Vater mündlich
Jakob's father gave oral consent

Whether the groom was previously married: Nein
Jakob was not previously married

Name and residence of the bride: Catharina Elisabeth Rödiger zu Tann, evang.
Catharina Elisabeth Rödiger, of Tann, and of the Lutheran faith

Name, occupation and residence of the bride's parents: der Landbauer Tobias Rödiger und seine Ehefrau Anna Margaretha Eichenauer zu Tann
Catharina Elisabeth's parents were the farmer, Tobias Rödiger and his wife, Anna Margaretha Eichenauer of Tann

Age of the bride: 24 J. (geb. 28. Novbr. 1848)
Catharina Elisabeth was 24, born 28 Nov 1848

Whether Catharina Elisabeth's parents or guardians gave their consent and in what form: Vater schriftlich
Catharina's father wrote his consent

Whether the bride was previously married: Nein
Catharina was not previously married

Date of Marriage: der 4. (vierter) Januar [1873]
4 Jan 1873

Name of the preacher who performed the ceremony: Kleppel
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If you would like a copy of this record, just let me know.
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Below is an updated Timeline which now includes Catharina Elisabeth:

25 Dec 1847 Marriage of JT Rödiger and AM Eichenauer in Tann, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Hesse

28 Nov 1848 Catharina Elisabeth Rödiger

22 Sep 1850 Infant Baptism of Gustav "Justus" Rödiger in Tann

24 May 1854 Birth of George Rödiger/Roediger in Tann

18 Mar 1866 Birth of Conrad Tobias Rödiger/Roediger in Tann
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My next post will provide Catharina Elisabeth's death record, which provides some additional information and a couple of new surprises.

Civil and Church Death Record for Anna Margaretha (Lötz) Rödiger

On the same page of the Tann Church Death Record book as the death record of George Roediger's first wife, Anna Martha Scheuch and their 9th child, Anna Katharina, is the death record for Anna Margaretha (Lötz) Rödiger, wife of the Bürgermeister, Justus Rödiger. They died just 2 months apart.

Today, I am going to provide an Auszug (Abstract) of the facts from Anna Margaretha (Lötz) Rödiger's death record as provide by the church in Tann, and then take a look at the Civil Record of her death which I found on ancestry.com

Tann Tod Kirchenbuch (Tann Death Church Book) p. 192 (1886)

Record #: 837

House Number of the Deceased: House # 8

Name: Roediger, Anna Margaretha

Maiden Name: Lotz

Birthplace: Meckbach

Birth Date: 16 October 1849

Death Date: 8 April 1886

Burial Date: 10 April 1886

Husband: The farmer/peasant and current mayor, Justus Rödiger

Sterberegister und Namensverzeichnisse, Mecklar
(Civil Death Register and Name Directories, from Mecklar)

This says (as best I can make out):

Page 14, Number 14

Mechlar, on the 8th of April 1886

Before the official who signed, today, the peasant/farmer George Rödiger, who lives in Tann, indicated that Anna Margaretha Rödiger was born Lotz, wife of Mayor Justus Rödiger, [she was] 36 years, 6 months, 22 days old; of the Protestant religion, living in House #8; [she was] born in Meckbach.

[She was] the daughter of the deceased musician, Eckhardt Lotz and his wife, Eva Elisabeth, born Apel.

[She died] in her home on the 8th of April, 1886 at 11 o'clock in the morning.

[The next sentence is obscure to me. I can not make out one word, which is making the entire sentence unclear--hope to get some help on this soon. But the German that I can read is "Anzeiger ??? aus eigener Wissenschaft unterrichtet." I think that the gist is that George is stating that he has personal knowledge of the facts.]

Pre-read, approved, and signed, George Rödiger

The Civil Servant, [signature]

The conformity with the main register, Mecklar, on the 8th of April 1886

The Civil Servant, [signature]

SUMMARY

In addition to the information contained in the church record, in this document we learn who Anna Margretha's parents were, including her mother's maiden name, and the fact that her father was a musician by occupation.

What is curious to me is why her husband's brother, George, was the informant. Perhaps, the spouse was not permitted to provide this statement, or perhaps Justus was too overcome with grief to provide it.

It is sad to realize that less than 2 months later George's own wife would die from complications of childbirth.

In case you don't have access to Google Maps or Google Earth to see where Tann is in relationship to Meckbach and Mecklar, check out this map snapshot:

Coming Soon--

Meet the sister of Justus, George and Conrad Rödiger that we never knew they had until a few days ago!

New Information Has Surfaced!!

Before diving into creating new posts I have a little "old business" to take care of.

In my last post (July of 2014) I concluded with a section entitled: "Other things to note."

Within that section I said:

1) Conrad's father was, as far as we know at this point, born in 1797. He married Anna Heyer in 1828 at the age of 30. I almost hate to bring this up, but he could have been married even before his marriage to Anna Heyer and had other children. A more exact translation of the marriage document may confirm or deny such an hypothesis. I'm working on it.

From the records subsequently obtained from the Lutheran Church Archive in Kassel, I can now say with certainty that Johann Conrad Rödiger was born on 7 Sep 1797 in Tann and baptized on the 10th at the Tann Lutheran Church. The exact date of his marriage to Anna Eva Heyer was 7 Apr 1828 also at the Tann Lutheran Church. It is also made clear from his subsequent marriage to Anna Margaretha Eichenauer that he was only married twice, so while my thoughts about a possible earlier marriage was reasonable, it is not true.

I further stated in the last post:

2) Anna Katharina was born 10 months after Johann's marriage to Anna Heyer, certainly making her the first child of that marriage. As she is named in all the family records we have, along with Justus, George and Conrad, it also appears that she was the only surviving child of that marriage.

Appearances can be deceiving. I now know that there was a daughter born to JT and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer which no one in the family seems to have been aware of (see below). So, why not other children from JT and Anna Eva Heyer's 19 year marriage, of which we only know about Anna Katharina. I will explore this more thoroughly when I visit the Archive in April so STAY TUNED.

Catharina Elisabeth Lotz nee Rödiger, daughter of the ??? Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer of Tann, spouse of the ??? Jacob Lotz; born 28 November 1848; died 18 July [1874] at 6 in the evening; buried 21 July [1874]

(I will endeavor to get the difficult words translated, but the ??? marks probably stand for the occupations of these men.)

And lastly I wrote:

3) Anna Katharina married Friedrich Eichenauer (date as yet unknown--but it is on my list. Our records show that Friedrich was born in 1824 in Tann. That would make him just about 3 years older than his wife's step-mother, Anna Margaretha Eichenauer. It is certainly possible that Friedrich and Margaretha were siblings, or at the very least, cousins.

Their marriage took place 5 Oct 1851 in Tann. Friedrich was born 7 Oct 1824 in Niederthalhausen, a neighboring village and baptized there 17 Oct 1824. And it is now certain from Anna Margaretha Eichenauer and Johann Friedrich Eichenauer's baptismal records that they were indeed siblings.

Caution! Do not attempt to follow this post unless you have thoroughly read the preceding two posts!

First, the bad news: We were unable to do research on the Rödigers and Eichenauers while in Germany, because the Archive was closed during the days we were in Tann.

The good news is that I have been able to have the Archive look up records for me since we have returned home. I initially requested three documents: the baptismal record of my great grandfather, Conrad Tobias Rödiger; the marriage record of Conrad's father, Johann Tobias, to his first wife; and the baptismal record of Anna Katharina Rödiger, daughter of Johann Tobias (and wife of Freidrich Eichenauer).

An examination of them provides conclusive proof of the relationships that I theorized in an earlier post. I shall endeavor to present the salient facts of each record and then draw my conclusions.
[Other information is included which I have been unable to decipher due to the script style and my very limited skills in the German language--see graphic below. I will have someone more knowledgable provide a more detailed translations and include them in a subsequent post]

Baptismal Record of Conrad Tobias Rödiger (from the Tann Evangelische Kirche Kirchenbuch, Taufen (baptismal) Records of 1866)
Entry: #734
Place: Tann
Name: Konrad Rödiger
Father: Tobias Rödiger, farmer
Mother: Anna Margaretha, maiden name--Eichenauer
Baptized: 18 March 1866
Emigrated: North America, 1 August, 1881

Marriage Record of Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Eva Heyer (from the Tann Evangelische Kirche Kirchenbuch, Trauungen (marriage) Records of 1828)
Entry: #2
"Marriage was on 7th of April, 1829(sic). Tobias Rödiger, farmer, with Anna Eva Heyer (not Geiger). Parents of him were mayor Heinrich Rödiger and his wife Anna Sidonia born Schneider. Father of her was lay assessor Nicolaus Heyer." [translation provided by the Archive and they accidentally gave the wrong year. The year should be 1828 as indicated by the title of the page, "Trauungen in Tann im Jahre 1828"]
In the margin the death dates are given as follows: Tobias (11/12/1877); Anna Eva (3/25/1847)

This is the marriage record described above. See why I have a little trouble translating it?

Baptismal Record of Anna Katharina Rödiger (from the Tann Evangelische Kirche Kirchenbuch, Taufen (baptismal) Records of 1829)
Entry: #2
“Anna Katharina, daughter of Tobias Rödiger and his wife, Anna Eva, born Heyer. She was born on February 11, and was baptized on February 15.” [translation provided by the Archive]

**********************************************************************

Things I learned from the marriage record:
1) Johann Tobias Rödiger's first wife's maiden name is Heyer. The name "Geiger" which I have been using came from marriage record pertaining to Johann's second marriage. He is named as a "50 year old widower, married previously to Anna Eva Geiger?" In all fairness to the person who translated this record, he did state that he was guessing it to be "Geiger" as it was nearly illegible.
2) We now have a date certain for his first marriage, ie. 4/7/1828.
3) Anna's father's name was Nicolaus Heyer and Johann's father was a Bürgermeister (Mayor) of Tann. I already had his father's and mother's names, but you may want to note them.
4) Johann's death date is given as 11/12/1877. This disagrees with the date given by Millie Sudman (11/15/1877). A copy of the Beerdigungen (Burial) record would probably resolve this discrepancy. It is on my list.
5) Anna's death date is given as 3/25/1847.

Things I learned from the baptismal records:
1) Conrad and Anna Katharina had the same father, but different mothers: Conrad's mother was Anna Margaretha Eichenauer and Katharina's mother was Anna Eva Heyer.
2) Katharina's birth date agrees with Liesel (Eichenauer) Schmitt's Ahnentafel entry for her great grandmother, Ann Katharina Rödiger. That makes Liesel my half third cousin.
3) Of course, now I have baptismal dates for both Conrad and his half sister Katharina
4) the date of Conrad's emigration to America (8/1/1881). According to ship records, Conrad traveled from Bremen to New York, arriving on 9/3/1881, with a stop-over in Southampton, England. That seems like a long voyage, but there may have been a prolonged stop-over in England or may include the time travelled from Tann to Bremen. Unfortunately, the ship records in Bremen were destroyed, so verification of the Emigration date found in the baptismal record is impossible.

Other things to note:
1) Conrad's father was, as far as we know at this point, born in 1797. He married Anna Heyer in 1828 at the age of 30. I almost hate to bring this up, but he could have been married even before his marriage to Anna Heyer and had other children. A more exact translation of the marriage document may confirm or deny such an hypothesis. I'm working on it.
2) Anna Katharina was born 10 months after Johann's marriage to Anna Heyer, certainly making her the first child of that marriage. As she is named in all the family records we have, along with Justus, George and Conrad, it also appears that she was the only surviving child of that marriage. Anna Heyer died in March of 1847 when Katharina was not quite 16 years of age. Her father remarried in December of that same year. Anna Margaretha Eichenauer, his second wife was 26 years old when they wed, thus, just 10 years older than her step-daughter. Son Justus was born in 1850; George in 1854; and trailing way behind was my great grandfather, Conrad, born in 1866. As there is a 12 year gap between George and Conrad, it is possible that there may have been other children born that did not survive childhood and are not included in our family records--yet. I'll be looking into that as well.
3) Anna Katharina married Friedrich Eichenauer (date as yet unknown--but it is on my list. Our records show that Friedrich was born in 1824 in Tann. That would make him just about 3 years older than his wife's step-mother, Anna Margaretha Eichenauer. It is certainly possible that Friedrich and Margaretha were siblings, or at the very least, cousins. As I discovered when "touring" Tann, the Rödiger house and the Eichenauer house were right next door to each other, so they would have known each other quite well.

This ends my present cogitations on the Rödiger/Eichenauer family. But stay tuned. As you can probably tell, we are just getting started. Hopefully, soon, we will know how the various Eichenauer "loose ends" fit into our family tree.

We now have accommodations in Bad Hersfeld for the nights of May 14 and 15 at Hotel Jägerhof-Bad Hersfeld.

While there, we will have the opportunity to meet several descendants of Johann Tobias Rödiger.

Jürgen Schmidt is the great grandson of Johann Tobias Rödiger's son, Justus. He and his wife, Edith will be our guides when we visit.

Liesel (Eichenauer) Schmitt is the great granddaughter of Johann Tobias Rödiger's daughter, Anna Katharina.

Jürgen's first cousin, Marion Scherer and Liesel's grand nephew, Jan Hebborn will also be there.

Interestingly, our plans to visit have caused Liesel and (Marion and Jürgen) to realize that they are related. They didn't realize it until now, even though they lived so close to one another.

Marion knows Liesel quite well because she is a nurse and took care of Liesel's husband in their home, when Liesel wasn't able to manage it. And Liesel remembers Jürgen when he was a small boy living just across the Rohrbach creek. She moved away from Tann in 1950, when Jürgen was 6 years old so he did not remember her. (She currently lives in Beenhausen, about 5 miles northwest of Tann).

There is also a possibility that we will meet Walter Rödiger, Jürgen's mother's brother, age 86 and the oldest living descendant of Johann Tobias Rödiger, there in Germany. But he is currently in the hospital, and I am unsure of the seriousness of his condition.

Fun stuff! And thank goodness that Jürgen and Jan speak English well so we will be able to have a meaningful conversation with our new found relatives.

Yes, it has been over a year since I last posted. Not because I lost interest, just have been busy on the Kantner side of things.
The news is that my mother and I will be in Germany/Switzerland from May 12 to June 2. For roughly the first week we will be staying with my 3rd cousin, Jürgen Schmidt and his wife Edith. Jürgen's mother was a Rödiger, and he was born in Tann, where Conrad Tobias Roediger was born. He will be taking us there for 2 or 3 days so that we can see the area and get all of my questions answered. Well, maybe, not all.

A couple of important developments have occurred as I have prepared for this trip.
1) Upon a closer inspection of Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer's marriage record, I noticed that there was a note at the bottom that hadn't been included in the translation that had been done earlier. There is a symbol of a cross and then the date 10 Oct 1883 (or 1885) under Anna Margaretha's name. When we get to the church records I will try to verify that I am reading the date correctly.
Previous family researchers have given her date of death as 1863, which if true would mean that she was not Conrad Tobias Roediger's mother. And because her name was given on Conrad's death certificate as "Gretchen Eichenauer" it was thought that Conrad's mother was his father's third wife (his first being Anna Geiger). As a matter of fact, Gretchen is a pet name for Margaretha, and if the death date that appears on Anna Margaretha's marriage record holds up, then there was no third wife. When Conrad Tobias said that he waved goodbye to his mother from a hill as he left to immigrate to America in 1881 and never saw her again, it would have been Anna Margaretha he was speaking of. And as she died within 5 years of that occasion, he would have had little opportunity to have seen her again.

2) The Eichenauers have always been a puzzle to me. A number of Eichenauers arrived from Germany and settled in Mercer Co, Ohio, and Conrad Tobias Roediger is said to have stayed with an Eichenauer relative when he first arrived here.
Anna Margaretha Eichenauer was his mother. She died in Germany. According to her marriage record, her father was Konrad, the Miller.
Anna Katharina Rödiger was his sister who married a Friedrich Eichenauer. But we do not know who his parents or siblings are. They also remained in Germany. But five of their 8 children emigrated and settled in Mercer County.
So my first order of business was to discover how this Friedrich Eichenauer who married Conrad Tobias' sister, Katharina, is related to Conrad's mother, Anna Margaretha Eichenauer.
In an attempt to learn more while we visit Germany I looked for Eichenauers in the Tann phone book. Lo and Behold there was a Friedrich Eichenauer listed (not THE Friedrich Eichenauer you understand, as he has been dead, lo these many years). So I wrote to him, and received an email from his grandson Jan, who informed me that his grandfather had died in 2012, and that he had inherited the house. Jan also informed me that his grandfather's sister Liesel Eichenauer was still living and might be able to help.
Yesterday I received a copy of a 4 generation Ahnentafel that Liesel prepared when she was 10 years old (1939). I discovered that her great grandparents were Friedrich Eichenauer and Anna Katharina Rödiger. BINGO! Except for one problem. Her Katharina was born in 1829. But Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer, as I supposed her parents to be were not married until 1847. And Anna Margaretha was only 8 years older than Katharina. Conclusion: Either Liesel's great grandmother was not the same Katharina as in our family, or our Katharina was a child of Johann Tobias' first marriage to Anna Geiger. The latter has merit on three counts. a) Both Katharinas married a Friedrich Eichenauer. That would not be impossible, given the number of Friedrichs and Katharinas in that neck of the world. b) Johann Tobias was born in 1797, so even if he married the first time at age 30, Liesel's great grand mother could have been his daughter. c) Of the births of Friedrich Eichenauer and Anna Katharina Rödiger which I have in my records, the three oldest were Tobias, born in 1850; Conrad, born in 1853; Margaret, born in 1861. According to Liesel's Ahnentafel, her grandfather, son of Friedrich and Katharina was Johann, born in 1857. See how neatly he fits into the family. In addition to the age fit, I also had a son Johann/John listed as one of their children but with no birthdate, or death date and the knowledge that he had not emigrated with his siblings.

For a probationary period during which I will attempt to verify the above "discoveries," I have placed my great grandfather as the son of Johann Tobias Rödiger and Anna Margaretha Eichenauer, and tossed Gretchen in the trash (so to speak). Actually, I will note that Anna Margaretha was aka Gretchen. On the other hand, I will take Anna Katharina away from Anna Margaretha and give her to Anna Geiger. So, in essence, Anna Margaretha lost a daughter and gained a son in this exchange. And Johann Tobias lost a wife he never really had.

Oh, and by the way, I still haven't figured out how Anna Katharina's husband, Friedrich Eichenauer fits into the rest of the Eichenauer clan, so stay tuned for more on this exciting topic.