Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Happy New Year, my dear Schochenmaiers!!!


Happy New Year, 

my near and remote relatives,

my dear Schochenmaiers !!!


Sunday, December 21, 2014

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:

Karte von Pirmasens

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:

Absolute Verteilung des Namens 'Korb'


 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):

Karte von Oberriexingen 

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!




Saturday, December 6, 2014

Johann Schochenmajer married on August 9, 1718

Hello again,

I'm still searching for the oldest Schochenmaiers throughout FamilySearch. Last month I stumbled upon a marriage certificate of the 18th century. Therefrom you may get to know that Johann Schochenmajer married to Maria Christina Dobler on the 9th August 1718.

Here it is:


As soon as I found this Johann, I remembered about the post on the second oldest Schochenmaiers where I presented one Johann Schochenmajer who had got a daughter Johanna Christina Schochenmajer. I am still thinking if these two Johanns could be the same person. 

1. Both of them have the same family name spelling. 

2. The wife's name of the first Johann is Maria Christina Dobler. The wife's name of the second Johann is Anna Maria, without any maid last name. Earlier it happened that the first triple name of Anna Maria Christina could be recorded as Maria Christina or Anna Maria. But I'm not sure about it. 

3. The year of marriage for the first couple is 1718, while Johanna Christina Schochenmajer had been born in 1716. On the one hand, these two dates are very close to each other. However, on the other hand, it means two years gap before getting married. The latter may signify that if it was the same Johann, then  he could marry for the second time. 

4. Unfortunately, there is no place-name in the marriage certificate. But, according to the birth certificate of Johanna Christina Schochenmajer, she was born in Kornwestheim - to the north by Stuttgart. Could it be valid for the first Johann? 

5. The wife's maid name of Johann Schochenmajer was Maria Christina Dobler. Her father was called as Johann Conrad Dobler. A very short research on this family name allows to affirm that such a surname was historically to be found throughout the 17th and 18th century to the east of Stuttgart (for example, in Waiblingen).  

 

Well, almost the same time and the same area. It's very possible that those two Johann are the one person only who got married twice. 

If so, we come up to the overlapping of archive documents and get more information on our ancestry.