Oldest record on Schochenmaiers in the Russian Empire ever found!

My dear relatives, the remote and close ones, after almost two years of posting solely on the historical Schochenmaiers from Germany, today, as I promised, I will show you the oldest record from the Russian Empire where the Schochenmaiers are mentioned. It's a new period, it's related directly to us and it's much more improtant for our Amercian and Canadian Schochenmaiers! I will explain why)

Here is the document from year 1844:

Previously, we could track the Schochenmaiers in the Russian Empire from the beginning of the 1850s.

For example, we could find out that:

Ludwig Schochenmaier (1830-1856, wheelwright) and Katharina Kuprian (Kuprijahn) (1833-1856) married on the 20 Dec 1851 (record from the church book in Worms / Beresan Colony / Odessa) and gave birth to their first daughter Margaretha (September 1852). All of them died during the cholera epidemy in 1856.

His brother August Schochenmaier (1825-1855, smith) married Maria Margaretha Ochsner (1834-1917) on 31 May 1854 (record from the church book in Rohrbach / Beresan Colony / Odessa). He died in July 10 1855 because of cholera.

Their brother Gottlieb Schochenmaier (about 1833, tailor) married Katharina Huber (1836-1856) on the 12 Oct 1854 ( from the church book in Lustdorf (please do not read it in English, it's German name - pronounce like "Loostdorf" / Grossliebental Colony / Odessa).

And, it seems to be that we have found the baptismal record of their forth brother -
Christian Schochenmaier. As you can see, he was born in 1837 but baptized in 1844. He was a cartwright. I suggest they worked together with Ludwig. In this context, it proves the theory of origin of the Schochenmaiers presented in the Memory Book of the Canada by Clarence Schochenmaier.

Why could he be so interesting for the Amercian and Canadian Schochenmaiers? The answer is short: according to our family tree, he was father of Michael (1859-1937) and Jacob (1861-1923) Schochenmaier, who had left for the New World. We never knew when he had been born, but now we do.

Additionally to that, we can see the names of his parents!!! And what a great news - maybe now we have found the names of all four brothers, namely of August, Ludwig, Gottlieb and Christian, from who we all descend (technically from Gottlieb and Christian only, for August and Ludwig either had no children or gave birth to girls only).

In the next post, we discuss names of the parents, what else can we find thanks to this new record and where was the church book from.

My great grandfather's 100th anniversary

Two weeks ago my great grandfather Wladimir would mark 100 years. I am happy to understand that I could talk to him in 2001 and 2003, and ask lots of questions about the past.

He was born in 1915 in Belarus. When he was 3 years old, the Bolsheviks hacked his father to death with sabers. He grew up in a village with his relatives.

My great grandfather met my great grandmother in the Ukraine in 1930s.

When the WWII started, he and his-father-in-law Wilhelm were brought to Germany for a work. He wasn't given a citizenship of the Third Reich but he worked as a driver of an army officer. As a result, after the WWII was finished, he was sentenced for 10 years as Enemy of the Soviet People in 1946. Fortunately, he was back in 1954, two years earlier, thanks to the Khrushchev's amnesty. With Khrushchev's amnesty program, as a former prisoner and his relatives could now live a normal life without the infamous "wolf ticket." 

Below you can see one picture of Wladimir with my great grandmother and my mum on funeral of my great great grandmother Eva Bender (1896-1973):

   

Two pictures with my great grandmother Annetta Schochenmaier (1918-1998) in Orenburg.

Spouses' ancestors of our earliest Schochenmaiers. Part 1: Gottliebs' wives

Trying to understand where we come from, we may reach our limits: no documents, no archives, no information, no hints concerning any of the Schochenmaiers... We hold officially documentary data on our forefathers from the 1850s in Rohrbach (Odessa, South Russia), we can approximately suggest years of their fathers' birth who might arrive from Germany in 1820s (no direct documented traces but certificates of their marriages or death already from the same Rohrbach!) and we suppose that they stem from Gottlieb Schochenmaier born in Germany in 1800s (no data at all - neither direct nor indirect!).

But there are some indirect methods to be used to dig up our past.

Taking into account the history of Germany, namely feudal disunity up to the 19th century, it's logical to assume that our ancestors would marry a fellow villager, a neighbor, anybody who they could communicate with, who they speak the same dialect with, and who they share a similar background with. It does concern the language, the religion, the traditions and the area as well.

Let's check up if the history of the earliest spouses and life partners can help us to discover more. I am going to localize and map them all together.

1. Well, for Gottlieb Schochenmaier (ab. 1800, my 5th great grandfather) there is no registered spouse.

2. His first son Gottlieb Schochenmaier (ab. 1828, my 4th great grandfather!!!) was married twice. On October 12, 1854 he was married at a registry of Lustdorf (today's Chernomorka, north-eastern district of Odessa) to Katharina Huber. As we may conclude from the documents she died two years later: on March 24, 1856. By the way, there were lots of deaths between 1855 and 1856 possibly because of the Crimean War 1853-1856. After she died, Gottlieb married Elisabeth Korb, the date is unknown.

On my family tree, it looks like follows (click to maximize):

 What do we know about those two ladies?

Katharina Huber was born on June 26, 1836 in Brücken (Pfalz). It is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It's here:



As you can see on the map above, it's to the North from Alsace or Lorraine!

Her parents were Mich(a)el Huber and Margaretha Blees. They married on May 23rd, 1823 in the same Bruecken. It seems to be that they were Catholics, although it could be explained by the fact that at that time they belonged to Bavaria and Bavaria was always Catholic.

The dialect, they speak in Brücken, is called Moselle Franconian (German Moselfränkisch) and it is a group of West Central German dialects, part of the Central Franconian language area. They are spoken in the southern Rhineland and along the course of the Moselle River, in the Siegerland in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, throughout western Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, in the south of the German-speaking Community of Belgium and in the neighbouring French département of Moselle (in Arrondissement of Boulay-Moselle).



So, this dialect covers four countries: Germany (f.ex. Trier), Luxembourg, Belgium (f.ex. Arlon) and France (f.ex. Thionville).

Gottlieb and Katharina had only one boy: Johann Georg Schochenmaier (1855). No info about him...

The distribution map of absolute share of this surname demonstrates that it can be a place to meet lots of Hubers:




Elisabeth Korb was born on August 15, 1834 in Rohrbach (Beresan colony, near Odessa, South Russia). Her parents were Heinrich Korb (1809 - ????) and Christina Schneck (1817-1901). Heinrich Korb is to be found among the first newborn babies of "Russian" Rohrbach in year 1809!!! His parents were Heinrich Korb (1777-1836) and Salomea Elisabetha (maid name unknown, abt. 1790-1851). They came to Russia from Gersbach, today's part of Pirmasens.

Pirmasens is an independent town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, near the border with France. It is famous for the manufacture of shoes. You can see it on the map:



Wow, it's almost the same area))) It's in 40 km from Brücken where the first wife of Gottlieb Schochenmaier had been born. So, the theory works!!!

The distribution of that surname shows the principal concentrations to be found in Germany:




 The parents of Christina/Christiana Schneck (Gottlieb's mother-in-law!) were John Henry Schneck (1780-1864) and Katharina Luise Vollmer (1778-1820). John Henry is spelled like that because he immigrated to the New World and changed his name. I suggest he was Johann Heinrich))). He died on May 19, 1864 in Shelby (Richland, Ohio). But he was born in Oberriexingen (Neckarkreis, Württemberg):

 

It's in 125 km from Pirmasens, for instance, and very beautiful:





His parents had lived at the same place: Gottlieb Schneck (1735-1798) and Katharina Margarete Rugart (1741-1816). They married in 1760.

The distribution map of the absolute share of the Schneck family name proves that they did origin from the same area:



 On my FamilySearch tree, you can see them all together:

So far for today, it was about Gottlieb Schochenmaier's wives. As you may conclude, there is a sort of spatial continuum between them. They all are coming from the area where Franconian dialects were spoken:



or



The women were born on the territory where the Central (Moselle, Rhine) and or possibly High (South, Upper) Franconian were spoken. If Gottlieb married them, it means they could easily understand each other.

In the next post, after having told you about Gottlieb (abt. 1828), who's my direct bloodline, I will present the wife of Ludwig Schochenmaier (abt. 1830), then that of Christian (abt. 1833) and finally the spouse of August Schochenmaier (abt. 1835).  As you know, the descendants of Ludwig and August are not to be found today, either they had only girls or no children. But, for our American and Canadian Schochenmaiers I'd like to say that I have a surprise for them. Spoiler: we are more related than you thought))) Guess why!

Merry Christmas, my dear relatives!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Russian Jacob Schochenmaier on TV

It's a Russian video ("Without term of limitations") dedicated to victims of Josef Stalin. It's about Jacob Schochenmaier (1896-1937) shot dead in Soviet Georgia (Caucasus where he had worked as a book keeper) for being active Christian of German nationality.

Jacob is grandfather of Walter Wahler (1959), son of Gottlieb Schochenmaier (1862-????), husband of Margaritha Grauer (1899-1952) and brother of Wilhelm Schochenmaier (1897-????) who is my great great grandfather.

"The genocide committed against the ethnic Germans of Russia comprised a series of mass murders and genocidal actions that unfolded in the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. In all, from 1915 to 1945, probably over one million Russian Germans perished from unnatural causes under three successive Russian governments—those of Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin, and Stalin—chiefly by means of mass executions, forced labor, deliberate starvation, and brutal deportations."

From 1930-1937, around 300,000 to 350,000 Russian Germans lost their lives as a result of the deliberate starvation, deportation, or massacres of resisters to "collectivization."

The German-Russian Genocide: Remembrance in the 21st Centuryby Samuel D. Sinner

 

Wilhelm Schochenmaier (1897-1970s) - my great great grandad

As for me, I have one photo of my great great grandpa, it's the oldest photo of our family. You can see Wilhelm Schochenmaier on it.

The photo had been taken in the 1920s, in Odessa, the biggest city of that region in the South Ukraine. You can find Wilhelm staying together with his wife Eva Bender (daughter of Michael Bender)

and their children Annetta (1918), Frieda (1922), Wilhelm (1924) and Edwin (1926). Annetta is my great grandma (on your right).

Wilhelm was born in 1897, although in some databases 1887 is noticed. I am not sure if it's a mistake or not. He was born in Neu-Rohrbach (Russian name is "Ieraklievka"). I was surprised by getting to know that he had been trompet teacher, because I thought that all of them were farmers or smiths but it's not the case.

My grandma Johanna (Zhanna - in Russian style) does still remember her grandad and she told me some very interesting stories about him. I will write them on our blog later. It's worth to be read))) In 1943 he could reach Germany and then he was hidden in the Switzerland till the end of the WWII. It's a pity that he had been devided from his family and had no idea what had happened to his wife and his children. As consequence, he stayed in Germany and in 1959 only he descovered that the rest of the family was deported from Poland and Ukraine to the South Ural near Kazakhstan. I can't imagine what he felt, he was already married for the second time and he was living in Radolfzell on the Lake of Constance. It was a real tragedy... for him as well as for us who stayed in the USSR...