Travel Discoveries

AHSGR, Work Paper No. 13, December 1973

Research In Hesse
By Arthur and Cleora Flegel

(Excerpts)
…At Schotten, which lies directly north of Büdingen, we again met with remarkable success. The assistant pastor, Pfarrer Hoefle of the older Ev. Lutheran parish had spent some years in Brazil and was quite well acquainted with the Volga German history. He was helpful in reading records dating back to 1635. The following list reveals names which had related to the community for many generations. Thos names of unusual number are so indicated by the asterisk (*):

(MY NOTES: This is in no way a complete list. The following contains only family names which may or may not be blood relatives. I will expand this list later on, if need be.).

Becker**…, Ellenburger…, Wagner**….

(Page 33)
…Each family received besides many other benefits, as living provisions, two horses, one cow and of hard money, fifteen Rubels. So states one copied document of the early record books of Saratov concerning the foreign settlers of the settlers on the Hill and Valley sides of the Volga. It affirms that as an example, Jagodnaja Poljana was established on 16 September 1767 by 80 families of which 417 were male and 122 female in total 269 souls….

…We drove on to Haiger, where Pfarrer Becker of Berstadt had told us most of the records of the region were being stored. A very helpful Frau Schmidt, wife of the organist, showed us the records. Because of the lateness of the day, we dared not impose on Frau Schmidt too severely, and skimming through the lists, copied names of greatest familiarity. They follow:

Stoll, Müller, Schneider, Engelbardt, Weber, Michel, Koch, Stahl, Schmidt, Huck, Hoffman, Flick, Gerhard, Heinz, Pfeiffer, Krantz, Metz, Hartman, Frantz, Gross, Gress, Tielman.

(Page 36)
…Before we left Kirburg, the Pfarrer Stephan related an incident which had taken place in this community during 1890. A sizable number of the Kirburg parish members decided to emigrate to Russia at that time for religious principles. After less than a decade in Russia, the Germans, terribly disillusioned, returned almost en masse to the Westerwald. The records he possessed disclosed the Pastor’s admonition to his parishoners [sic] counseling them not to leave—evidentally [sic], much the same as had taken place a century earlier.

(Page 37)
…Retracing our route on Highway 414, we stopped at Hachenburg, one of the larger parishes. After a lengthy search, we located the parish house, but it was Saturday afternoon, and no one who could help us was to be found. Continuing east, we came to Herborn, a city in the vicinity of Giessen. Here we hoped to find information on the names “Heiser” or “Heuser.” The lists were very extensive and worthy of further study. However, that must be reserved for another time. Skimming over the names, the villages and towns most common to the family names we copied were: Amdorf, Braunfelz, Herborn and Hobach. A few of the marriages 1762-1767 follow:

(MY NOTES: This is in no way a complete list. The following contains only family names which may or may not be blood relatives. I will expand this list later on, need be.).
Joh. Jacob Clauss / Anna Katharina Weber
Joh. Jacob Weber / Christina Elis. Jung
Gottfried Weber / Anna Elisabeth Clauss