Unexpected Bonanza--Stories of my Ancestors
This article appeared in the German Genealogy Group newsletter for Feb 2017
Tower in Gelnhausen where accused witches were kept
My aunts talked often about my great-grandparents who in the mid-19th century emigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio. I listened with eager interest and developed a strong desire to know more about the lives of my ancestors. All four of my paternal great-grandparents came from a small cluster of three villages—Grosskahl, Grosslaudenbach, and Edelbach—deep in the interior of Spessart Forest, in what is now the northwestern corner of Bavaria.
Over a period of eight years, I made five trips to my ancestral homeland. I speak enough German to get by and met many people in the Spessart, including proprietors of guest houses where I stayed, who were tremendously helpful in my quest—introducing me and referring me to valuable sources such as local historians and museum curators. In addition, I found a wealth of written material in nearby bookstores, municipal centers, museums, and archives.
Several jaunts helped me to “feel” my roots. One jaunt was the annual “witch tour” in Gelnhausen on the northwestern border of Spessart Forest, a guided tour which wound its way through the narrow streets from the court house where the interrogations of accused witches took place to the dark cellar of the tower where the alleged witches were held. Another tour was of the Grimm brothers’ enchanting boyhood home in Steinau on the northern edge of the Spessart. At other times, I hiked the old trade routes, ate delicious bratwurst broiled on the grill of an old community bake oven, visited the sites of old glassworks, or the ruins of a robber-knight’s castle.
Every day was an eye-opener to another world I never imagined. I learned about serfdom and the heavily structured rules and obligations our rural ancestors lived under. The overlord had control over practically all aspects of the people’s lives. The villagers were serfs—bonded to their lord. A serf did not own his own land but leased it from the lord, under many stringent and oppressive regulations. Without the lord’s permission, there was no relocating from one village to another, or looking for better employment elsewhere. Farmers, and workers such as miners and glassworkers, were all serfs.
Over a period of eight years, I made five trips to my ancestral homeland. I speak enough German to get by and met many people in the Spessart, including proprietors of guest houses where I stayed, who were tremendously helpful in my quest—introducing me and referring me to valuable sources such as local historians and museum curators. In addition, I found a wealth of written material in nearby bookstores, municipal centers, museums, and archives.
Several jaunts helped me to “feel” my roots. One jaunt was the annual “witch tour” in Gelnhausen on the northwestern border of Spessart Forest, a guided tour which wound its way through the narrow streets from the court house where the interrogations of accused witches took place to the dark cellar of the tower where the alleged witches were held. Another tour was of the Grimm brothers’ enchanting boyhood home in Steinau on the northern edge of the Spessart. At other times, I hiked the old trade routes, ate delicious bratwurst broiled on the grill of an old community bake oven, visited the sites of old glassworks, or the ruins of a robber-knight’s castle.
Every day was an eye-opener to another world I never imagined. I learned about serfdom and the heavily structured rules and obligations our rural ancestors lived under. The overlord had control over practically all aspects of the people’s lives. The villagers were serfs—bonded to their lord. A serf did not own his own land but leased it from the lord, under many stringent and oppressive regulations. Without the lord’s permission, there was no relocating from one village to another, or looking for better employment elsewhere. Farmers, and workers such as miners and glassworkers, were all serfs.
The lord determined if a serf could marry or not. In time, this determination was passed to the village elders (also serfs, but more highly positioned), who could be extremely strict. Did the prospective groom have in their opinion the means to support a family? Was the applicant a shoemaker and the community already had enough shoemakers? Since his sons would most likely go into the same trade, the application could be denied.
There was mandatory and sometimes arbitrary labor to be done for the lord when the peasants had their own fields to take care of. There were inheritance laws. In this area of Germany, peasant-serfs were required to divide their (lease-held) land and possessions equally among their off-spring. Over time, this resulted in smaller and smaller individual land holdings. Taxes and fees were many and burdensome and could be added to unexpectedly for special collections such as for wars being fought. There were severe restrictions in hunting and fishing and in the gathering of wood, no matter how bad conditions were. Punishments for poaching were unsparing, such as a year’s hard labor, or for repeated offenses, exile to a foreign land with no hope of return, such as being sold to The Netherlands for populating penal colonies in Australia.
There were few options for poor villagers during times of war and famine and during the height of the witch persecutions. During the worst of the witch frenzy (1560-1670), many of the villages in Spessart Forest saw 5-10 percent of their population burned at the stake. In 1631, the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) hit the forest, bringing more death and torment. Of the population in Spessart Forest, 75% is estimated to have perished during this war.
I was anxious to find the homes of my two great-grandfathers Andreas Wüst and Johann Fix, for whom I had old addresses from birth and death records, but these didn’t match the current addresses. I tried several places, including the local post office, without success. Finally, I contacted the mayor of the Kleinkahl community which includes my ancestral villages. She, in turn, referred me to a local historian, Hans Rosenberger, whom I contacted and arranged to meet with. Hans was absolutely the right person. He obtained copies of old plats from the tax office in Aschaffenburg, with which he could identify the homesteads of my two great-grandfathers. Hans took me to the two homes, which were largely rebuilt but on the original foundations. It was very stirring to contemplate the actual places of my roots.
I share surnames with a good percentage of the local population, which fed my hope of finding relatives such that we could establish a common ancestor. Then it happened, not once but twice. Johann Fix was one of my great-grandfathers. The proprietors of the guest house where I was staying in Edelbach invited over the “oldest Fix around.” Paul Fix brought with him a family tree that an American soldier stationed in Stuttgart had put together many years before. Paul and I did indeed have a common ancestor, going back six generations. Although I struggled with the dialect, we had an enjoyable time getting to know each other. The owners of the guest house kindly set two glasses of wine before us, adding to the enjoyment. And the American soldier? He turned out to be my third cousin and lives in Iowa. I have since met him also.
Gessner was the surname of one my great-grandmothers, Magdalena Maria Gessner, and was a particularly prevalent name in the villages. I made a “cold stop” at a small Gessner winery in an adjacent village. It paid off. They referred me to an aunt, Anna Maria Kilgenstein nee Gessner, who was the keeper of family records. Bingo. Once again, going back six generations, we found our common ancestor.
Totally unexpected though were the personal stories I learned about my ancestors. Hans Rosenberger, who had helped me find my ancestral homesteads, had a copy of an archived record from 1650 that listed my farthest-back known Wüst/Wuest ancestor, Peter Wüst, at the time he acquired the leasehold of a farmstead. This acquisition of property established the presence of the Wüst family in the village of Grosskahl for the next 200 years, up to the mass emigrations of the mid-nineteenth century.
The leasehold Peter acquired consisted of 8 morgen (about 5.3 acres) of farmland and 9 morgen (about 5.6 acres) of meadowland, plus a house and courtyard. Acquiring a farmstead at this time conformed to what was happening after the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648.
Directly after the war, the Archbishopric-Electorate of Mainz, wherein most of Spessart Forest lay, was desperate to rebuild its tax base. Because of the extensive loss of life during the war, it needed new settlers. Mainz offered generous tax incentives for two years to new immigrants and the chance to acquire the leasehold of a farm property. Assigned a property, the applicant had to show diligence in restoring the house and barns associated with the property, and bring the land back to fruition. The test period was two years. Those who came in 1848 would thus be eligible to acquire their leaseholds in 1650, like my ancestor Peter Wüst. A large number, if not most of the new immigrants to the forest, came from Alsace, in today’s eastern France. Wüst was a common name in northern Alsace before and after the war. It is therefore probable that my Wüst/Wuest ancestors originally came from Alsace. When Peter acquired his leasehold, it was as a serf.
There was mandatory and sometimes arbitrary labor to be done for the lord when the peasants had their own fields to take care of. There were inheritance laws. In this area of Germany, peasant-serfs were required to divide their (lease-held) land and possessions equally among their off-spring. Over time, this resulted in smaller and smaller individual land holdings. Taxes and fees were many and burdensome and could be added to unexpectedly for special collections such as for wars being fought. There were severe restrictions in hunting and fishing and in the gathering of wood, no matter how bad conditions were. Punishments for poaching were unsparing, such as a year’s hard labor, or for repeated offenses, exile to a foreign land with no hope of return, such as being sold to The Netherlands for populating penal colonies in Australia.
There were few options for poor villagers during times of war and famine and during the height of the witch persecutions. During the worst of the witch frenzy (1560-1670), many of the villages in Spessart Forest saw 5-10 percent of their population burned at the stake. In 1631, the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) hit the forest, bringing more death and torment. Of the population in Spessart Forest, 75% is estimated to have perished during this war.
I was anxious to find the homes of my two great-grandfathers Andreas Wüst and Johann Fix, for whom I had old addresses from birth and death records, but these didn’t match the current addresses. I tried several places, including the local post office, without success. Finally, I contacted the mayor of the Kleinkahl community which includes my ancestral villages. She, in turn, referred me to a local historian, Hans Rosenberger, whom I contacted and arranged to meet with. Hans was absolutely the right person. He obtained copies of old plats from the tax office in Aschaffenburg, with which he could identify the homesteads of my two great-grandfathers. Hans took me to the two homes, which were largely rebuilt but on the original foundations. It was very stirring to contemplate the actual places of my roots.
I share surnames with a good percentage of the local population, which fed my hope of finding relatives such that we could establish a common ancestor. Then it happened, not once but twice. Johann Fix was one of my great-grandfathers. The proprietors of the guest house where I was staying in Edelbach invited over the “oldest Fix around.” Paul Fix brought with him a family tree that an American soldier stationed in Stuttgart had put together many years before. Paul and I did indeed have a common ancestor, going back six generations. Although I struggled with the dialect, we had an enjoyable time getting to know each other. The owners of the guest house kindly set two glasses of wine before us, adding to the enjoyment. And the American soldier? He turned out to be my third cousin and lives in Iowa. I have since met him also.
Gessner was the surname of one my great-grandmothers, Magdalena Maria Gessner, and was a particularly prevalent name in the villages. I made a “cold stop” at a small Gessner winery in an adjacent village. It paid off. They referred me to an aunt, Anna Maria Kilgenstein nee Gessner, who was the keeper of family records. Bingo. Once again, going back six generations, we found our common ancestor.
Totally unexpected though were the personal stories I learned about my ancestors. Hans Rosenberger, who had helped me find my ancestral homesteads, had a copy of an archived record from 1650 that listed my farthest-back known Wüst/Wuest ancestor, Peter Wüst, at the time he acquired the leasehold of a farmstead. This acquisition of property established the presence of the Wüst family in the village of Grosskahl for the next 200 years, up to the mass emigrations of the mid-nineteenth century.
The leasehold Peter acquired consisted of 8 morgen (about 5.3 acres) of farmland and 9 morgen (about 5.6 acres) of meadowland, plus a house and courtyard. Acquiring a farmstead at this time conformed to what was happening after the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648.
Directly after the war, the Archbishopric-Electorate of Mainz, wherein most of Spessart Forest lay, was desperate to rebuild its tax base. Because of the extensive loss of life during the war, it needed new settlers. Mainz offered generous tax incentives for two years to new immigrants and the chance to acquire the leasehold of a farm property. Assigned a property, the applicant had to show diligence in restoring the house and barns associated with the property, and bring the land back to fruition. The test period was two years. Those who came in 1848 would thus be eligible to acquire their leaseholds in 1650, like my ancestor Peter Wüst. A large number, if not most of the new immigrants to the forest, came from Alsace, in today’s eastern France. Wüst was a common name in northern Alsace before and after the war. It is therefore probable that my Wüst/Wuest ancestors originally came from Alsace. When Peter acquired his leasehold, it was as a serf.
Kaspar Scheinast House
AnnaMaria Kilgenstein, my new-found relative of my family’s Gessner line, introduced me to Lothar Schultes, who had done extensive research into the Gessner history, Gessner being a name in his family. Lothar informed me of the story of ancestors in my family tree who had a glass factory in the outskirts of Grosskahl. These were ancestors through my great-grandmother Magdalena Gessner, namely her great-great grandfather Johann Adam (Hans) Hubert and her great-grandfather Kaspar Scheinast, who was Hans Hubert’s son-in-law. Kaspar’s brother David Scheinast was also a co-owner of the factory, as well as being a son-in-law of Hans, the two brothers having married sisters. The principal owner of the factory was Hans.
Lothar Schultes had in his possession a 1982 publication, Die Mittelalterlichen und Frühneutzeitlichen Glashütten im Spessart, on the history of glass manufacturing in the Spessart, a publication which contained significant detail of my ancestors’ factory.
In 1761, Hans Hubert, along with his two sons-in-law, petitioned the Schönborn Counts for permission to establish a glassworks and to sublease three morgen (a little less than two acres) of land for their factory. The Schönborn Counts leased much of the area containing my ancestral villages from the Mainz Archbishopric. The petition was accepted and permission granted. Lothar took me to see the site of the factory, just barren ground now, but nevertheless fulfilling to actually see.
About five years after the establishing of the glassworks, things started to go downhill. A couple years before, a new foreman, and perhaps partner, Franz Hoffer, a skilled glass manufacturer, had come into the firm. Hoffer appears to have been ambitious and unscrupulous. Manufacturing of glass required a lot of potash (ashes from burned wood). The foundry could not make all of its own potash. It was dependent on local farmers who made potash in their spare time for extra money. All of a sudden and inexplicitly, the local farmers refused to sell any more potash to the foundry. The glassworks headed toward bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Hoffer had applied for permission for his own foundry, probably without the other men’s knowledge. The authors, Gerhard Kampfmann and Stefan Krimm, of the 1982 publication speculate that Hoffer had secretly gone to the farmers asking them to stop selling potash until he had his own foundry, with the promise of higher prices for their potash.
Hans Hubert and his sons-in-law could not hold on to the business and ended up selling it to Hoffer as part of a bankruptcy action. The sellers received enough funds however, that they were far from destitute. My ancestor Kaspar Scheinast established a successful cement-making business next to his large home. Hans Hubert owned a mill which he most likely went back to. David Scheinast started his own mill in a neighboring village.
And Hoffer? For whatever reason, Hoffer failed to get going the foundry that was now in his name and went to work as the plant manager for another glassworks farther north.
Lothar Schultes had in his possession a 1982 publication, Die Mittelalterlichen und Frühneutzeitlichen Glashütten im Spessart, on the history of glass manufacturing in the Spessart, a publication which contained significant detail of my ancestors’ factory.
In 1761, Hans Hubert, along with his two sons-in-law, petitioned the Schönborn Counts for permission to establish a glassworks and to sublease three morgen (a little less than two acres) of land for their factory. The Schönborn Counts leased much of the area containing my ancestral villages from the Mainz Archbishopric. The petition was accepted and permission granted. Lothar took me to see the site of the factory, just barren ground now, but nevertheless fulfilling to actually see.
About five years after the establishing of the glassworks, things started to go downhill. A couple years before, a new foreman, and perhaps partner, Franz Hoffer, a skilled glass manufacturer, had come into the firm. Hoffer appears to have been ambitious and unscrupulous. Manufacturing of glass required a lot of potash (ashes from burned wood). The foundry could not make all of its own potash. It was dependent on local farmers who made potash in their spare time for extra money. All of a sudden and inexplicitly, the local farmers refused to sell any more potash to the foundry. The glassworks headed toward bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Hoffer had applied for permission for his own foundry, probably without the other men’s knowledge. The authors, Gerhard Kampfmann and Stefan Krimm, of the 1982 publication speculate that Hoffer had secretly gone to the farmers asking them to stop selling potash until he had his own foundry, with the promise of higher prices for their potash.
Hans Hubert and his sons-in-law could not hold on to the business and ended up selling it to Hoffer as part of a bankruptcy action. The sellers received enough funds however, that they were far from destitute. My ancestor Kaspar Scheinast established a successful cement-making business next to his large home. Hans Hubert owned a mill which he most likely went back to. David Scheinast started his own mill in a neighboring village.
And Hoffer? For whatever reason, Hoffer failed to get going the foundry that was now in his name and went to work as the plant manager for another glassworks farther north.
School Records of Author's Great-Grandfathers
One of the most exhilarating experiences I had was to hold in my hands the school record books from the time of my great-grandparents’ childhoods, from the 1820s and 1830s, almost 200 years ago. Some books were missing, including those that would have contained the grades for my two great-grandmothers, but I was able to follow the grades for my two great-grandfathers through their early years in 10 different categories of instruction and deportment. My great-grandfather Andreas Wüst had a little trouble reading when he started school, but soon started improving, and had mostly exemplary grades. My other great-grandfather, Johann Fix, didn’t have the stellar grades that Andreas had, and, I’m sorry to say, didn’t get very good grades in general deportment. He gradually matured, however, both in deportment and in his studies. It was very satisfying to see some human aspect of these two great-grandfathers whom I never met. My paternal great-grandparents all died before I was born. I again have Hans Rosenberger to thank for being able to see these books. Several years before, he had managed to salvage many of the school’s records when they were in the process of being destroyed.
Memorial in Spessart Forest for Sebastian Gessner
One of the customs of the area, as in many areas of Germany, is the Bildstock, a type of memorial, generally made of sandstone and similar to a column in appearance. In one of the books of local history I bought was a chapter describing the custom of the Bildstock, depicting several selected Bildstöcke (the plural) and the events behind them. I was startled when I came to the description of a Bildstock in the memory of Sebastian Gessner. My great-grandmother Magdalena Gessner had a brother named Sebastian. I subsequently verified through birth and death records that indeed the memorial was for my great-grandmother’s brother. A wooden cross has replaced the original sandstone Bildstock, which had eroded.
One day in 1892, long after his sister’s emigration to the United States in 1847, Sebastian was out with his wagon and oxen. He was under the wagon tending to a stuck or broken wheel when something spooked the oxen, causing them to lurch forward. Caught under the iron-rimmed wheel, Sebastian was killed.
I was very excited to learn these stories. During my years of researching the area’s history, I learned volumes about how the lives of the inhabitants had been. Now I had also found how much a living part of this history my ancestors were.
Mary E. Wuest is the author of Spessart Roots: A History of the People of a German Forest.
One day in 1892, long after his sister’s emigration to the United States in 1847, Sebastian was out with his wagon and oxen. He was under the wagon tending to a stuck or broken wheel when something spooked the oxen, causing them to lurch forward. Caught under the iron-rimmed wheel, Sebastian was killed.
I was very excited to learn these stories. During my years of researching the area’s history, I learned volumes about how the lives of the inhabitants had been. Now I had also found how much a living part of this history my ancestors were.
Mary E. Wuest is the author of Spessart Roots: A History of the People of a German Forest.