Saturday, July 18, 2015

The oldest Schochenmaier ever 2.0

As we proved in some previous posts that Leopold Schochenmeyer was not the oldest Schochenmaier (because he was Schahenmeyer from Austria), I am asking myself again who actually had been the first Schochenmaier. Well, of course, it cannot be the very first Schochenmaier, but the first one known to us from the archives.

Let me remind you of Maria Schochenmeyerin which I presented to you attention on October 2014. Yes, it's strange enough to state that the oldest known Schochenmaier is a woman. Therefore, we suggest that she should have had a father with the same family name. Let's go deeper into details:

Playing with the spellings of Schochenmaiers, I stumbled upon a woman with the name of Maria Schochenmeyerin who, being married to Michaele Dettling, got a baby Christoferus Dettling in 1676 in Altheim.



1. The forename of Michaele Dettling is written in a correct way, it's just a south dialectal form of the full name Michael that expresses any aspect of being "small". It might be read like Mikhele (compare with the Swiss Company name "Nestle" - small nest);

2. The spelling of Maria Schochenmeyerin corresponds to that of Sara Schachenmeyerin where I explained that "It's not a problem at all. In the Southern Germany until the 18th century (and in the Bavarian dialect till now!) the female family names got ending -in.So, we may conclude that father of Maria had had the surname of Schochenmeyer. 

3. If Maria bore a child in 1676, she could be born between 1640s and 50s. Thus, her farther X Schochenmeyer should have been born in 1620-30s(?). But there are no hints in the digitized resources about him or any other relatives

4.  Maria had got her child (1676) in the catholic Altheim of the Schwarzwaldkreis within Württemberg. Where is it?

On Wikipedia you may find three different Altheims:


  • Altheim, Biberach, a municipality in the district of Biberach, Baden-Württemberg
  • Altheim (Alb), a municipality in the district of Alb-Donau, Baden-Württemberg
  • Altheim (Ehingen), a municipality in the district of Alb-Donau, Baden-Württemberg


  • All of them are not far from each other, but it's not Schwarzwald. On the net you may find a hole list of areas which made part of Schwarzwaldkreis:

    Below are the Oberamt cities for the Schwarzwaldkreis area of Württemberg: 
    Oberamt Balingen 
    Oberamt Calw 
    Oberamt Freudenstadt 
    Oberamt Herrenberg 
    Oberamt Horb 
    Oberamt Nagold 
    Oberamt Neuenbürg 
    Oberamt Nürtingen 
    Oberamt Oberndorf 
    Oberamt Reutlingen 
    Oberamt Rottenburg 
    Oberamt Rottweil 
    Oberamt Spaichingen 
    Oberamt Sulz 
    Oberamt Tübingen 
    Oberamt Tuttlingen 
    Oberamt Urach


    Under Oberamt Horb you may find the following:

    Parish Cities/towns for Oberamt Horb

    .........

    So, we found out where there was another Altheim in Schwarzwald, that is a part of Horb today.

    Horb am Neckar is a town in the southwest of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river, between Offenburg to the west (about 56 kilometres (35 mi) away) and Tübingen to the east (about 29 kilometres (18 mi) away).



    In addition to the main town of Horb, the municipality includes a number of communities which are recognised within the terms of the 1970s Baden-Württemberg local government reform, that is they have an elected council and council chairman. These are Ahldorf, Altheim, Betra, Bildechingen, Bittelbronn, Dettensee, Dettingen, Dettlingen, Dießen, Grünmettstetten, Ihlingen, Isenburg, Mühlen, Mühringen, Nordstetten, Rexingen and Talheim, the last of which is made up of the formerly independent parishes of Obertalheim and Untertalheim. These are referred to formally (for example, in postal purposes) as Horb-Ahldorf, Horb-Altheim, etc. 

    The history of Horb is relatively boring because from 1381 to 1806 it belonged to Austria, and that's why it was officially Catholic:


    Further Austria or Anterior Austria (GermanVorderösterreich, formerly die Vorlande (pl.)) was the collective name for the early possessions of the House of Habsburg in the former Swabian stem duchy of south-western Germany, including territories in the Alsacer egion west of the Rhine and in Vorarlberg
    While the territories of Further Austria west of the Rhine and south of Lake Constance were gradually lost to France and the Swiss Confederacy, those in Swabia and Vorarlberg remained under Habsburg control until the Napoleonic Era.

    Here is the Württemberg map of the 17th century. The Austrian territory is highlighted with brown:


    Some pictures of Altheim in Horb:

    Altheimer Tor in Horb



    The Catholic Church of St. Maria's Birth does exist till now. Who knows, maybe Maria Schochenmeyerin christened their children here: 



    I should add that on November 1677 Maria will get another boy called Conrad:



    but before those two boys she had got a girl Catharina Detling on the 29th March 1671: 



    So, she had two boys Conrad and Christofer who were Dettling as their father Michaele Dettling. 

    The surname distribution map proves that the highest rate of Dettling family name is precisely in Horb a.N. The bearers of this surname organized a real club dedicated to their genealogical research: http://www.dettling-familiengemeinschaft.de/index.shtml
     
    I have contacted them to question if they have any information on our Maria Schochenmeyerin but I have got no response since then. 

    Thanks for your attention and interest.