Monday, April 14, 2014

Christian Schochenmaier, who had stayed in the Russian Empire

I found some information on when and how Michael and Jacob's arrived to the New World, but I wouldn't forget that they had 4 sisters: Margaretha (1864), Charlotte (1868-1910s), Barbara (1870) and Dorothea (1875) and one younger brother Christian (1866-1934).

As far as we know they stayed in Russia. We may understand that the sisters didn't move (even today the immigration concerns rather men than women). The question is: Why had Christian stayed? Rumors tell that he inherited the land to work from his father Christian Sch. (1833). Everything is possible, of course, but it sounds incredible that the youngest son got the land to his inheritance, isn't it? Do you know other reasons?

I am thankful to Natalya Schochenmaier from St. Petersburg who found for us the photo of her great grandfather. Here it is:


We don't know when the photo had been taken, but if he was born in 1866 and on the photo he looks like a man about 40 and 50 years old, then the year of photo-shooting might be around 1900s-1910s.

You can see his wife - Elizabeth Rossin (sometimes Rosin, 1870-1922) who was born in Hoffnungstal. It's about 120 km from Rohrbach. 

Before World War II Tsebrykove was known as Hoffnungstal, Гофнунгсталь (in Russian), and was populated by Germans. Hoffnungstal was founded in 1819 by Swabian settlers who were granted land. Some of them were Zionists who intended to go on to Palestine and settle there but were refused entry by Turkey. Some of that group settled in the Ukraine and some in Georgia. There is an active group of Germans from Russia who study the history of the area.

So, now we have the photo of Christian Schochenmaier (1866-1934), but we still don't have any photos of his brothers who left for U.S. Michael (1859-1937) and Jacob (1861-1923). I hope we will improve it)))


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