Our German Ancestors

I've known for sometime where our German ancestors came from and I know where the Heidelberg, Baden area is. But did all of our ancestors come from this area?

I pinned on a map the exact location (thanks to Google maps) where our ancestors came from.  (This is so much more accurate then my previous map attempts) I went through each individual line to gather this information.  Some of these lines go into the 1400s.  It was surprising that most of our ancestors stayed in the same area for many generations and some moved around a bit.

The cluster of stars is the Baden area.  This area was also known as Württemberg.  Württemberg, once a Duchy within the Holy Roman Empire, in 1806 became the Kingdom with the break-up of empire. This was during the reign of Frederick I of Württemberg. In 1918 it became a republic called the Free People's State of Württemberg.

After World War II, Württemberg was divided between the United States and French occupation zones and became part of two new states: Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern. After the Federal Republic of Germany was formed in 1949, these two states merged with Baden in 1952 to become the modern German state of Baden-Württemberg.

Württemberg, shown within the German Empire (1871–1918)

Baden-Württemberg, shown in modern Germany.

I've written about Württemberg before with the Scheef line.  This is also the region where our Falkner, Eckert lines come from.

Our Kohn family was a bit more north in Prussia.   

Belfort, France and Bern, Switzerland

Our Eicher and Wagner ancestors (and their ancestors) came from two main areas in France and Switzerland.  In France they came from the Belfort, Frenche-Comte region of France (red dot above).  In Switzerland they came from Bern (blue dot above) and the closely surrounding areas.

Surrounding Towns that we come from: (Taken from FamilySearch--from our closest ancestor back to the mid-1600s)

Switzerland:
Oberdiessbach
Rothenbach
Schwarzenegg (modern day map came up with Unterlangenegg)
Frutigen
Aeschi
Huttwil
Saaen
Lutzelfluh
Eggiwil
Signau

France:
Fontaine
Belfort
Montbeliard
Aspach
Rougemont

Photos from the Bern area:

Photos from the Belfort, France area:

Are we a bit French?

After seeing the new photo of Barbara Eicher, I decided to dig a bit on our French ancestors.  

Barbara Eicher was born on 14 March 1814 in Aspach-le-Haut, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France.
She married Jacques or Jacob Wagner about 1837.  Some references say they were married in Belfort, France while others say they were married in Basel, Switzerland.  

They are the parents of Christian Wagner.

I spent some time looking back through Barbara's line.  What is interesting are the names on her tree.  These names include: Eicher, Klopfenstein, Luginbuehl, Reiss, Oberli, Buetschi, Graber and Huenli.  I asked the returned Sister Missionary who served in France about these names.  She told me that these are not French names.  I have to admit that these names seem rather German.

Let's take a closer look at these names:

Oberli: google search bring up this name being from France from the Alsace region and the highest number being from Switzerland. The gap is about 5% France and 95% from Switzerland.

Huenli: came back with no search results.  The ancestor with this name is from Oberdiessbach, Bern, Switzerland so I feel safe to say that this is a Swiss name. 

Buetschi: Came back with search results from Switzerland.

Reiss: This is an old German name often used by Ashkenazic Jewish people as a metonymic occupational name for a dealer in rice.  The south German or Austrian Reiss is a leftover of a profession name Reußhäusler which could best be translated to maker of charcoal from wood in English.  Another source for the name Reiss - originated mostly from the County of Hessen (Frankfurth/Main) area is a Jewish name. Some Ancestral historians write it could come from a dealer in rice or from the profession of a water gate operator, or a fish basket fisherman. Since medieval Jews did not have the right to be fishermen in Europe, the latter is doubtful.  

Statisically this is a German name with some mention of the name in France, Baden, Austria, and Bavaria. 

Luginbuehl: South German (Luginbühl): topographic name from Middle High German luogen ‘to watch or (lie in) wait’ + bühel ‘hillock’.  This name is also Swiss in origin.

Klopfenstein: German: occupational name for a quarryman or stone mason, from klopfen ‘(to) strike or knock’ + Stein ‘stone’, literally ‘strike the stone’.  Statistically this name was evenly found in Germany, Switzerland, and France.

Eicher: German: topographic name for someone living by an oak tree, or habitational name for someone from a place called Eiche or Eichen. See Eich.South German: occupational name for a person who checked weights and measures against official specifications, from Middle High German icher.

This is also a German or Swiss name. 

For Jacob or Jacques Wagner, what does his line look like?  The names in his tree include: Wagner, Schegel, Ummel, Stucki, Hoeschelicker, Leuss, Gasser, Christen, Hummel, Braebdle, Entzler, Sterki, and Murray.

Wagner: German (also Wägner) and Jewish (Ashkenazic): occupational name for a carter or cartwright, from an agent derivative of Middle High German wagen ‘cart’, ‘wagon’, German Wagen. The German surname is also well established in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, eastern Europe, and elsewhere as well as in German-speaking countries.

Schegel: German: from Middle High German slegel ‘hammer’, ‘tool for striking’ (Old High German slegil, a derivative of slahan ‘to strike’), hence a metonymic occupational name for a smith or mason, or a nickname for a forceful person.

Ummel: Swiss German in origin

Stucki: German: variant of Stuck.  Swiss German in origin

Hoeschelicker: Interesting name with no search results. 

Leuss: German origin

Gasser: German and Swiss German (also Gässer) and Jewish (Ashkenazic): topographic name for someone who lived in a side street or alley, from a derivative of Middle High German gazze, German Gasse, Yiddish gas.

Strong Swiss origin

Christen: Strong German and Swiss origin

Hummel: German and Dutch: from a pet form of Humbert or Humbold (a compound name with the same first element + bald ‘bold’, ‘brave’).German, Dutch, and Danish (of German origin): nickname for a busy or bustling person, from Middle High German hummel, Middle Dutch hommel ‘bee’, of imitative origin. Compare English humblebee, which in modern English has become bumblebee.

Braebdle: no search results

Entzler: no search results

Sterki: Swiss

Murray: actually a Scottish or Irish name.  Our Murray ancestor was born in 1745 in France. I have no information on her parents. 

My conclusion is that our French ancestors were not French but rather Swiss.  Parts of Switzerland speak French and others speak German. We are most likely Swiss-German and not French at all.

Prussia--Kohn Family

Barbara Kohn was born 2 August 1832 in Wallhousen, Kries, Kreuznach, Rhineland, Prussia.  She married Gottleib Scheef and they had Anna Augusta Scheef.

This is where the Kohn family came from.  According to the family tree on FamilySearch, it appears that this family was in this area for many generations.

I knew that this family was from Prussia and in my mind that meant Eastern Germany and Poland.  I studied up on Prussia today and was surprised to see how big it was.  This map is showing (in blue) Prussia at it's largest point around 1871.

A small part of our family was from Prussia but the part that is in modern day Western Germany.
Now to figure out that tiny big of Eastern European DNA.

History of Prussia from Wikipedia:

Prussia (German:  Preußen (help·info)) (Polish: Prusy) was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and centered on the region of Prussia. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised and effective army. Prussia, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 moved to Berlin, shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, German states united in creating the German Empire under Prussian leadership. In November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political power during the German Revolution of 1918–19, the Kingdom of Prussia was thus abolished in favour of a republic—the Free State of Prussia, a state of Germany from 1918 until 1933. From 1933, Prussia lost its independence as a result of the Prussian coup, when the Nazi regime was successfully establishing its "Gleichschaltung" laws in pursuit of a unitary state. With the end of the Nazi regime, the division of Germany into allied-occupation zones and the separation of its territories east of the Oder–Neisse line, which were incorporated into Poland and the Soviet Union, the State of Prussia had ceased de facto to exist in 1945.^[2][3] De jure Prussia existed until its formal liquidation by the Allied Control Council Enactment No. 46 of 25 February 1947.^[4]

The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians. In the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights—an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders—conquered the lands inhabited by them. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the formerly Polish region of Pomerelia with Gdańsk (Danzig). Their monastic statewas mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany and in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The Second Peace of Thorn (1466) split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, and the eastern part, from 1525 called the Duchy of Prussia, a fief of the Crown of Poland up to 1657. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.

Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom,^[5][6][7][8] and exercised most influence in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century it had a major say in many international affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great. During the 19th century, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck united the German principalities into a "Lesser Germany" which excluded the Austrian Empire.

At the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which redrew the map of Europe following Napoleon's defeat, Prussia acquired a large section of north western Germany, including the coal-rich Ruhr. The country then grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and then of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that Junkers and other Prussian élites identified more and more as Germans and less as Prussians.

The Kingdom ended in 1918. In the Weimar Republic the state of Prussia lost nearly all of its legal and political importance following the 1932 coup led by Franz von Papen. East Prussia lost all of its German population after 1945, as Poland and the Soviet Union absorbed its territory and expelled most of its inhabitants.

Württemberg--Our Scheef Family

Today I went looking for the part of Germany where our Scheef family came from.  Interesting enough, Wurttemburg did not become a part of the modern Germany until 1949 following WWII.

Here's what wikipedia says on the matter:

Württemberg, once a Duchy within the Holy Roman Empire, in 1806 became the Kingdom with the break-up of empire. This was during the reign of Frederick I of Württemberg. In 1918 it became a republic called the Free People's State of Württemberg.

After World War II, Württemberg was divided between the United States and French occupation zones and became part of two new states: Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern. After the Federal Republic of Germany was formed in 1949, these two states merged with Baden in 1952 to become the modern German state of Baden-Württemberg.

This is a map of Germany with the state Baden-Württemberg in red. 

Now for some photos of the area:

Bad Cannstaft:  Known for some vineyards

Neustadt: Traditional costume for the area

 Lake in Neustadt

 Waiblingen

 Fellbach-Schmiden