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

Horb 
Ahldorf 
Altheim !!!!!!!!
Baisingen 

.........

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 (German: Vorderösterreich, 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:

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.    

No Schochenmaier in prison!

I hope your remember my last post about Ernst F. Schochenmaier (born about 1855) who had been registered as an inmate in 1940 in the New York State.

Well, I searched through the web all the time in order to find out anything new about this mysterious person from our family tree and I must "disappoint" you: There was no Ernst Schochenmaier jailed in the USA. Do you ask if I have any proofs, well it's easy, because I have found a Ern(e)st F. SchAchenmaier. Yes, it's still the same story) The letters "a" and "o" are permanently confound.
As we suggested, the schAchenmaiers took their origin from the Western Austria (on the basis of place-names Schachen) and the schOchenmaiers are possibly the descendants of the business union of two families (the Maiers and the Schochs) somewhere in Württemberg.

Below you can see what I found on the Internet:

 
Here everything is distinctive and visible: schAchenmEier

He was born in 1855 in Germany, emigrated in 1883 or 1884 and naturalized in 1895. He lost his wife Adelheid Schachenmeier (born in 1857 in Germany as well) in 1913. In 1930 he lived in Richmond (New York) and worked as a book-binder.

It was the attestation of his naturalization, and now the petition for it:

It's even more interesting for we may read that his full name was Ernst Frederick Schachenmeier and he was born in Baden.

Now I begin to understand that he probably was the descendant of Leopold Schahenmayer, who escaped from Austria in the 30-Years-War (1630s) and got his daughter Maria in 1652 in Britzingen (Lörrach, Baden). He can be also the ancestor of the SchAchenmeiers still living in Baden: for example, in Efringen-Kirchen (between Lörrach and Müllheim) you can even find a company: http://www.schachenmeier.de/

Well, it's great that we know that Ernst Frederick didn't belong to SchOchenmaiers.

Let's going on)))

Schochenmeier in prison?!

Working on a new map of our ancestors, I've stumbled upon a very interesting person:

Ernest F. Schochenmeier 

He can be found in the U.S. Census from 1940 where you may read that he was a white man of 85 years old (born in 1855 in Germany!) and being at the moment of Census in PRISON !!!

The address is Ward 13, Utica, Utica City, Oneida, New York, United States

 
Perhaps, it looked like that:

I have no idea who he could be...

 It seems to be that he belongs to the generation of Michael (1859) and Jacob (1861).

When did he come to the New World? Did he have any children?

No answers, only questions... I have never met any Ernest on FamilySearch or Ancestry.

Very strange case...

Is the oldest Schochenmeyer fake?

On July 2014 I wrote about the oldest Schochenmaiers ever. I was really surprised that they had lived near to place where I am actually living. That's why I decided to check in the local archives. What I found out was even more interesting.

First, I remind you what is to be seen on FamilySearch about the oldest Schochenmaiers:

The oldest notice on the FamilySearch refer to Maria Schochenmeyer born on the 2nd March(baptized on the 7th March) 1652 in the family of Leopold Schochenmeyer and Anna Seueber at the Britzingen village (Lörrach area, in Baden):

  If the information is right, then Leopold Schochenmeyer should be born between 1620s-1630s, it's the beginning of the 17 century. So, we may suggest that the company had been found earlier, maybe between late 16th - early 17th century, or during the 16th century.

I was so proud of that information for it was pretty "ancient" and believable that I went to the local archives of the Freiburg University Library in order to take a picture of this notice. Below you'll find what I found in the historical book of Britzingen (village within Müllheim): 

Well, as you may see, we've got "Schahenmeyer" but no "Schochenmeyer".  For a handwritten text, the difference is of small account. a is twisted up with oc.  Who's wrong?

Let's compare the resources of the both notices. 

The first one is from FamilySearch: 



The FamilySearch.org website offers free access to digital images of genealogical records. These images can be searched along with a number of databases. The library holds genealogical records for over 110 countries, territories, and possessions, including over 2.4 million rolls of microfilmed genealogical records; 742,000 microfiche; 310,000 books, serials, and other formats; and 4,500 periodicals. The microfilm and microfiche can be ordered and viewed at over 4,000 library branches (called Family History Centers) worldwide. FamilySearch also offers research help through the FamilySearch Wiki, Forums, digitized books, and online free family history courses through the Learning Centre.

Ok, but who is transcribing the images from parish books? 



FamilySearch is in the process of digitizing its entire microfilm collection and making those images available online. The searchable indexes are created by volunteers using FamilySearch Indexing software developed by the LDS Church. To ensure greater accuracy, each batch of records is indexed by two separate indexers and any discrepancies are sent to an expert arbitrator. FamilySearch Indexing volunteers need not be members of the LDS Church. FamilySearch is currently working with genealogical societies all around the world to index local projects. At the end of 2010, 548 million vital records had been transcribed and made publicly available through the FamilySearch website. In April 2013, FamilySearch Indexing completed their goal to offer 1 billion indexed records online.



Let it be!

The second resource is a historical work from 1973 containing 4.896 families within 1602-1973 on 580 pages titled

Ortssippenbuch Britzingen mit den Ortsteilen Dattingen, Muggardt und Güttigheim, Landkreis Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald/ Baden 

The Ortssippenbuch is a book of the compiled records from a parish and sometimes from other local sources that organize people and their events into family groups. Each family group is usually assigned a number within this book and that family number leads to other family numbers so that you can connect numerous family generations together. Dates are given for births/baptisms, marriages and deaths and burials. It lists all the children that are born in this village and also if parents have come from elsewhere as well as other useful information. You might even find a reference if your ancestor immigrated to another country.

by Rolf Eilers (genealogist from Freiburg, http://www.rolf-eilers.de/)





and Eugen Eble, and  Albert Hofmann. 

So, if you asked me, who I believe and what is more plausible, I would prefer the German genealogical work. Choosing between American indexers / expert arbitrators and German family researchers, I'd vote for the latter ones. I think they have more experience in the German Gothic handwriting.

Besides that, let's pay attention to what is in.

Leopold Schahenmeyer - full name

in Dattingen    - local area, neighbor village of Britzingen, part of Müllheim

aus dem "Ländlin ob der Endtz" - this inscription is the most interesting because it corresponds to "aus dem Ländlein ob der Enns" or "aus Österreich". It means that this person had come to Britzingen from Austria!!!! In this regard, in the book I found the following: "The village was then populated by people from the "Ländlein ob der Enns", whcih is today a part of western Austria". Those people came to Germany after the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).

Well, we may conclude that Leopold SchAhenmeyer was not of the German SchOchenmaier origin. He was Austrian.

May I remind you that I have already explained the origin of Scha(c)henmeyers in the post on the solved puzzle. It was based on the work of Wolfgang Petz, Die Familie Schachenmayer in Kempten und Isny vom ausgehenden Mittelalter bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Schachenmayer Family in Kempten and Isny from the Late Middle Age up to the middle of the 19th century), Typoskript Kempten 2003. It probably traces back to the field name of Schachen in Langenegg, a municipality in the district of Bregenz in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg where we can find the very first mention in 1506 about the hunter Michael Schachenmmayer.

So, we stated that there was no German Leopold Schochenmeyer but Austrain Leopold Schahenmeyer. I've learnt that I should be careful with the data from FamilySearch.  Now the palm of victory is going to Johann Schochenmajer here:

Chronologically, the second mention on the oldest known Schochenmaiers refers to Johanna Christina Schochenmajer born on September 19, 1716 in Kornwestheim to Johann Schochenmajer and Anna Maria Schochenmajer.

If so, Johann Schochenmajer should be born in 1680s-1690s. 

Kornwestheim is a town in the district of Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated about 10 kilometres (6 miles) north of Stuttgart, and 5 kilometres (3 miles) south of Ludwigsburg:

That town is a lot older; Ludwigsburg was only founded in 1704, while Kornwestheim is, as far as I know, more than 1.200 years old, and while Ludwigsburg was carefully planned by the duke of Württemberg's court architects, Kornwestheim is a place that grew naturally, starting out as an Alemannic settlement with farms and not much else. 

It's almost one hundred years later and 140 miles (230 km) northward. It means we should start again searching deeper and it's good that we could cast out the wrong persons from our family tree.

Let's go on!!!  

Did the Schochenmaiers speak Franconian or Swabian German?

After we mapped the spouses' ancestors of the first Schochenmaiers married in Russia, we concluded here that our forefathers could either speak Franconian dialect (Franconian of Mosel river near France) or Swabian (in our case it's area between Stuttgart and Heilbronn).

Here is the map of some dialects:

High German dialects.
Austro-Bavarian dialects are in blue colours:
North Bavarian (7), Central or Danube Bavarian (8), and South Bavarian (9).
Swabian-Alemannic dialects are in red colours.
Two Franconian dialects are in green colours.
(Courtesy Wikipedia.)

How can we check it out? How could we find out it precisely? I think I need your help.

Below you'll find two videos with examples of those two dialects. If you do remember how your parents or grandparents spoke German between them, please, be so kind to comment what dialect it could be. I do understand that it's very subjective, but, however, it could help. By the way, if you are not a Schochenmaier, but your ancestors are from the Berezan Colony (Russian Empire, 19th century), then your help is appreciated.


Example of Swabian (in German Schwäbisch):

Example of Franconian (in German Fränkisch):

Thank you in advance for your help. 

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.