Friedrich Benkelman

Notes:

Probably died as a young man. He can not be located on an census records subsequent to the 1870 census at which time he was shown as age 15. Jane Zimmerman writes that "supposedly he set out for California & was killed by Indians on the way." Jane further indicated this has never been proved or disproved.

Notes:

Leonhard, named for his father, was the trailblazer of the family. Parish records in Waldhausen show "ist 1849 Ausgewandert," meaning he emigrated in 1849. This makes him the first of the ten children [who lived into maturity] of Leonhard and Dorothea Benkelmann to leave Germany for America. Every one of his siblings eventually followed him.

BonnieMargaret Jacobs wrote that "as in all areas of German life, there were strict requirements to be met in order to be free to leave. The emigrant had to obtain certificates from the tax collector, the pastor and from school officials that he was free from taxes, tithes of other debts. The emigrant also had to renounce their citizenship, and have a specified amount of money to sustain them in their new country until they could establish themselves." (p. 80)

Leonard settled first in Lancaster, New York, but sometime after 1851 moved to Wisconsin, taking his newly arrived younger brother Johannes with him west. They lived first in Milwaukee, and later Leonard alone moved to Manitowac county, where he spent the rest of his life. BonnieMargaret wrote that "pamphlets about Wisconsin had been prepared to be circulated amoung the villages back home in Germany. The Wisconsin Germans were anxious to create a German community with a German culture and they aggresively recruited immigrants to their area...The early settlers in Manitowac were primarily German, Swiss and Irish. They brought with them their cheese making skills and turned Wisconsin into the dairyland of the nation. But manufacture and shipbuilding developed quickly in Manitowoc, with its access through the Great Lakes to endless markets." (Jacobs, p. 1022)

Leonard was a veteran of the Civil War, enlisting on 8 Sept 1861 for 3 years as a private in Company A, 1st Regiment, Mechanics Fusileers, though the company disbanded, and he was and discharged on 28 Jan 1862 at Camp Douglas, Illinois. BonnieMargaret Jacobs states that at the time of his enlistment, his occupation was listed as weaver. He reenlisted in 1865 for 1 year in Company D, 48th Regiment of the Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and mustered out 19 February 1866 at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. BonnieMargaret Jacobs cites his Civil War Pension record as No. 696589, filed on 9 Oct 1890.

His war record showed him as an engineer. The 1880 city directory listed him as the same.

Leonhard appears to have remained in close contact with his family. The Cass City, Michigan paper had several articles over the years mentioning his visits. This brief article appeared one week after the death of Adam Benkelman. "Leonard Benkelman, from Wisconsin, brother of the late Adam Benkelman, is in town and will remain for some time." (Cass City Enterprise Published in Cass City, Mich., Jan. 6, 1898).

A few years later, these articles also mention Leonard:

Cass City Chronicle
November 8, 1901

Local Mentions

A farewell party was given at Mrs. J. Schwegler's Monday evening in honor of her brother, Leonard and his niece Miss Cora Benkelman [daughter of Johannes Benkelman], who left for their respective homes in Manitowoc and Portage, Wisconisn, Tuesday.

Cass City Chronicle
October 30, 1908

Local Mentions

Leonard Benkelman of Manitowoc, Wis., is the guest of his sisters, Mrs. Louisa Striffler and Mrs. John Striffler and other relatives.

A notice of his death was in the Friday, May 30, 1913 issue of the Cass City Chronicle:

"Word has been received of the death of Leonard Benkelman, residing at Manitowoc, Wisconsin. He died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Clark* [nee Mary Jane Clancey] Sunday morning and was buried Wednesday. Mr. Benkelman was a brother of Mrs. M.M. Schwegler and the late Mrs. John Striffler and has visited Cass City a number of times.

*It appears from the obituary published in the Manitowoc paper that Leonard actually died in the home of his other daughter, Ella Benkelman Bodwin.

Leonhard's step-granddaughter also ended up in Cass City. Cora Horn (daughter of Mary Jane Clancey Horn Clark) married George Albert Striffler, a nephew of Leonhard's.

Jane Zimmerman provided the following obituary of Leonard, published in the Manitowoc Daily Herald on May 30, 1913.

Leonard Benkelman

Manitowoc Citizen Well Known Among German Citizens here

From Manitowoc (Wis.) Daily Herald

While his comrades, assembled throughout the land for memorial services Sunday, listened to tributes to their deeds of valor, Leonard Benkelman, one of the best known veterans of the county, heard taps sounded and passed on, his death occuring at the home of his daughter, Mrs. John Bodwin at Kings Bridge, due to infirmaties of age. Mr. Benkelman had been looking forward to the Memorial day services in which he had been a participant for years and the keenest disappointment shadowed his last hours when he realized that he could not survive to join with his comrades another year.

Mr. Benkelman was born at Brech, Wuertenberg [BonnieMargaret Jacob's writes that Breech was just down and across the road from the Schneiderhof, both near B?rtlingen], Germany, July 5, 1828, and in 1848 came to America, locating at Lancaster, N.Y. where he remained two years and then came to this city where he has since resided.

When the civil war broke out Mr. Benkelman responded to the call for volunteers and enlisted in what was known as the First regiment, Mechanic Fussillers, attached to Co. A of which Capt. W. Bates, a Manitowoc man, was in command. Later, after being honorably discharged, Mr. Benkelman enlisted with Co. D, Forty-eighth Wisconsin, and served with the comman in trying experiences on the western plains. He returned here after the war to make his home.

Mr. Benkelman is survived by three children, Mrs. William Clark, of this city; William Benkelman, Marion, Wis., and Mrs. J. Bodwin, of Kings Bridge, sixteen grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. A brother, John Benkelman, Portage, and one sister, Mrs. M. M. Schwegler, Cass City, Mich. also survive. One sister preceded him just two weeks ago.

Decedent was well known in the county and was universally esteemed.

Funeral services will be held Wednesday afternoon from the Clark home, 410 Park Street, to St. James Episcopal church and interment will be at Evergreen.


Cemetery records, from the Manitowoc County, Wisconsin Genealogy website:

BENKLEMAN: [W2-150-3]-[Leonard Benkelman/bur. 05-27-1913/cause: adetic [aortic?] insufficiency/bur. on John Horn lot] (William/d. 25 May 1913/age 85/cause: arterial schlorosis/bur. Evergreen 28 May 1913/from record of St. James Epis. ch., Manitowoc)

BENKELMANN: Jane............Aug. 23, 1894 Cem.#44, same name, same year *same, vol.4, p.234

BENKELMANN: Leonard Benkelmann/Co. D. 48th Wis. Inf., ossw: Jane Benkelmann/1830-1894

ossw: CLARKE/HORNE, next to: L. Benkelmann/Co. D/48 Wis. Inf.

(Research):Census Information:


1860 Census
Wisconsin, Manitowoc County, First Ward
8 June 1860
Page 49 (bottom)/Page 50 (top)
389-390
Leonard Brinkleman 30 M Weaver Wurtemburgh
Jane Brinkleman 29 F Ireland
William Brinkleman 11 M Illinois
Mary Brinkleman 8 F Wisc
Frederick Brinkleman 3 M Wisc
Emma Brinkleman 1 F Wisc
Note: William and Mary are Jane's children from her first marriage

1870 Census
Wisconsin, Manitowac, First Ward
17 June 1870, Stamped 192
107-117
Bingleman, Leonard 42 M W Carpenter Ireland (sic)
Bingleman, Jane 40 F Keeping House Ireland
Bingleman, William 21 M Grocery Store Ill
Bingleman, Fred 15 M Wisc
Bingleman, Emma 11 F Wisc

Mary, age 18 is no longer living with her parents. It is possible that she moved to Brown County, Wisconsin, as this is where her daughter, Cora Horn, was born in 1871. On the 1870 Brown County, Wisconsin census, a 19 year old Mary HORAN, House Servant, born in Wisconsin, can be found. This may be Mary Clancey Benkelman, already married but living apart from her husband? Or it may be someone else entirely. Living two households away is a 25 year old George McCORMICK, a teamster from Ireland. McCORMICK is the maiden name of Mary's mother, also born in Ireland. However Jane Zimmerman, a descendant of Leonard and Jane Benkelman, notes that McCORMICK was/is a fairly common name, and she does not know of a connection between Jane McCormick Benkelman and George McCormick.


1880 Census
1st Ward, Manitowoc, Manitowoc, Wisconsin
FHL Film 1255434 National Archives Film T9-1434
Page 17
RelationSexMarrRaceAgeBirthplace
Leonhard BINGELMAN Self M M W 52 WURTEMBERG Occ: Engineer Fa: WURTEMBERG Mo: WURTEMBERG
Jane BINGELMAN Wife F M W 50 IRE Occ: Keeping House Fa: IRE Mo: IRE


1900 Census
Wisconsin, Manitowoc, Manitowoc Ward 2
9 June 1900
SD 3 ED 72 Sheet 12B
412-227-264
Clark, William Hd W M May 1846 54 M18 NY England England Horse shoer
Clark, Mary Wf W F Feb 1852 48 M18 4/3 Wisc Germ Ireland
Clark, Cora Dtr W F Feb 1871 29 S Wisc Ny Wisc
Clark, Walter Son W M Sept 1883 17 S Wisc Ny Wisc At School
Clark, Warren Son W M June 1885 15 S Wisc NY Wisc At School
Bingleman, Leonard Father In Law W M July 1828 72 Wd Germ Germ Germ Retired

Johann married Jane McCormick on 19 Feb 1855 in Manitowoc, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. Jane was born on 13 May 1830 in Ireland; died on 21 Aug 1894 in Manitowoc, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin; was buried on 23 Aug 1894 in Evergreen Cemetery, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

On the Mantiowoc, Wisconsin, genealogy website, she is referred to as "a young widow from Chicago." Her dates of birth and death are based her tombstone in the Evergreen Cemetery in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The actual death certificate shows August 23, 1894, which appears to actually be the date of her burial. Some sources show that her first husband was named Richard CLANCEY. BonnieMargaret Jacobs shows him as William Richard Clancey, and Jane as a daughter of John and Catherine McCormick, citing Manitowoc County Marriage Records, Vol. 1, Page 67.

Her obituary, from the Evergreen Cemetery, Manitowoc County, website, follows:

JANE BENKELMANN
From Der Nord Westen, 30 Aug. 1894

Death of Mrs. L. Binkelmann, an old resident of our city, last Fri. Burial was Sun. in the Catholic Cemetery.

[Note: The newspaper was in error about the cemetery as well as the misspelled surname]

Jane Benkelmann/bur. 08-23-1894/age 64 yrs./cause: exhaustion

http://www.2manitowoc.com/44Bobit.html#benkelmannjane

Notes:

Married:
BENKELMANN: Leonhard (also Leonard Benkelman) b: Wurtenburg, Germany res: Manitowoc p: Leonhard and Toladea Benkelmann m: 19 Feb. 1855 at Manitowoc to: Jane (McCormick)Clancey (a young widow from Chicago) p: John and Cath. McCormick

source: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~tomanitowoc

Jane Zimmerman writes that Leonard was quite easygoing, whereas Jane was hard to please.

Notes:

In a 1979 letter that Margaret-Bonnie Jacobs wrote to Ben Benkelman, Jr she said: "You may have heard from one source or another that I'm putting together rather a comprehensive history of the Benkelman family. To date, it's taken me most of my time just to track the original 10 immigrants and get them firmly placed and dated and documented. This year I am concentrating on the reach back to Germany. I have hired a genealogist there to see how far back we can go with the family before the mass emigration of the '50s. Just by collecting the data on the 10 immigrant children I have learned a great deal. All of the boys were artisans with trades. In Germany that usually meant long apprenticeships. Since Adam and his brothers and sisters were born in different villages I assume the father, Leonhard, was also a tradesman of some sort rather than a farmer."

BonnieMargaret later concluded they were all actually born at the Schneiderhof, across from Breech, on the outskirts of B?rtlingen, and Parish records discovered later showed Leonhard's occupation as bricklayer

In her 1981 unpublished manuscript, BonnieMargaret wrote that "On February 6, 1796 Johann Leonhard Benkelmann was born to Katharina Bauer, and according to the parish record, he was born at the Schneiderhof. The pastor dutifully recorded that he was unehelic (illegitimately) born and that he bore the name of his unehelic father, Johann Jacob Benkelmann of Pl?derhausen. BonnieMargaret indicated that His mother was refered to on Leonhard's and his wife Dorothea's family register page as "Maria Katharina, frueher des Johannes Haeller auf dem Schneiderhof Ehefrau geborene Bauerin." This means that she was then the wife of Johann Haeller, and was born Maria Bauer. (pp. 56-58)

When Leonhard's father, Johann Jacob, married another woman the year after Leonhard's birth, he was first required to provide 75 of the 200 florins he had inheritied from his grandfather to his "Weibsbild" for the upbringing of his son born out of wedlock. (p. 58)

Leonhard was only 2l when his stepfather died , and as a result became the head of his mother's household. He must have discharged all of his responsiblities admirably, because only five years later he was allowed to be married to Dorothea St?hle, the daughter of a respected citizen and farmer of B?rtlingen. (Jacobs, p. 70).

On the Parish records, he is referred to as a "Bauer and Maurer"...farmer and bricklayer.

After Leonhard's death early in 1848, each of his 10 children that had survived into maturity emigrated to the United States. The first to leave was his namesake son, Leonhard, in the summer of 1849, who was age 21. The last was eldest son, Friedrich, and he left in 1873 at age 50, taking a large group of family members with him.

The Benkelmanns were not alone. A huge number of Germany left their homeland in and around 1848. This excerpt, from a website about the "The Origins of the Forty-Eighters" in Davenport, Iowa applies to the Benkelmann family as well, even though Leonhard and Dorothea's children instead settled in first in New York, and later Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado, versus Iowa.

Letters ... sent back to Germany were instrumental to channeling the influx of immigrants from Germany.....

Historian Scott Christiansen explains the purpose of the letters:

"They wanted to tell their friends back home how good it was in America. And they tended to exaggerate a little bit, because they were lonely and liked to have some of their compatriots come over and join them."

The decision to emigrate from one's homeland is generally informed by two forces: the so-called push and pull forces. Letters from family and friends who had already settled in the new world certainly qualify as pull factors. Other such factors were the multitude of job opportunities, inexpensive, yet fertile cropland, and - especially important to the politically motivated Forty-Eighters - the guarantee of democratic liberties such as freedom of speech and expression.

Many of the push factors are related to the causes of the German revolution. As the social and economic conditions in Germany worsened during the 1840s, many people were forced to look for new opportunities. [E]migration has become a matter of life or death, as one German newspaper put it. America with its promise of a new chance for everyone appealed to many Germans ready to emigrate. Reports from America, printed in German newspapers, underscored this notion. Iowa, for example, was described in 1847 as leaving little to be desired both to the productivity of its soil and the more bearable nature of its climate.

While economic necessity might have been a major driving force for many to emigrate, political reasons also factored into the decision to leave the homeland. In fact, the Forty-Eighters are per definition political refugees who for the most part did not struggle financially. But one might argue that a majority of emigrants regarded both political circumstances and economic distress as making life in Germany unbearable. The causes for emigration thus intermingle in many cases.

The strong early presence ...triggered a chain migration...in succeeding years. The term chain migration is defined by the Dictionary of Geography as [a] migration process which depends on a small number of pioneers, who make the first moves to set up a new home in a new place. They send information back home, and this encourages further migration from the originating area.

BonnieMargaret Jacob's cited similar reasons in her manuscript, pointing out the decrease of demail for high-quality goods of the small town artisan, the reluctance of these artisians to move to cities to work in factories, the restrictive craftsman guild system that made it difficult to learn and advance in a trade, and the equally restrictive marriage laws.

"The auswanderer went less to America to build something new than to regain and conserve something old...to till new fields and find new customers, true enough, but ultimately to keep the ways of life they were used to, which the new Europe seemed determined to destroy...people who traveled thousands of grim miles in order to keep their roots, their habits, their united families and the kind of future they wanted for their families. They did not wait passively for their roots to be broken, to be sure; yet they were conservatives, who acted radically in order to preserve, and who journeyed to another world to keep their homes." (Walker, Mack, GERMANY AND THE EMIGRATION 1816-1885, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1964, Page 69, as transcribed by BonnieMargaret Jacobs on pages 77 and 78 of her manuscript).

Johann married Maria Dorothea St?hle on 20 Nov 1822 in Schneiderhof, Waldhausen Parish, Welzheim, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. Maria (daughter of Georg Friedrich St?hle and Anna Maria Leins) was born on 5 Jan 1800 in B?rtlingen, G?ppingen, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany; died on 22 Oct 1853 in Transit to America, Lost At Sea. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

On "January something" in 1983, Bonnie Jacobs wrote "A search for some years has finally yielded information for me. As you have probably heard, the last of the 10 Benkelman children to emigrate from Germany were the four girls and their mother [Dorothea, age 52, and daughters Dorothea age 23, Catharina, age 21, Maria, age 13, and Lena, age 7]. We had heard from family legends that the mother died at sea and I have pursued that information for years. I have finally retrieved it. It is a painstaking process to get the facts, but I finally found an obituary that identified the port of entry as Baltimore---a stroke of luck since Baltimore was one of the few American ports of entry that did have a Customs passenger list. I have retrieved the film from the Archives in Washington--but it has brought a new mystery. It is remarkable that finding the answer to one question almost always raises another. Missing from the party of four daughters and the mother is the second eldest daughter, Catharina. She was released from the Empire with the others on 20 September of 1853--but there is no record of her having arrived in Baltimore!

At least I have a death date on the mother now. She died at sea on 22 October, barely a month into the voyage. The ship arrived in Baltimore on December 15. Can you imagine being packed into one of those filthy sailing vessels for six to nine weeks? Try to imagine the day to day living with no privacy, no way to bathe or attend to personal needs and only buggy, dried food to eat! Our ancestors suffered much. I will go and try to retrieve the Captain's actual report now that I know the ship and the Captain--to see if a cause of death is listed. Cholera was rampant that year, but I think it was not the cause since the part of the list I have seen shows only one other death during the voyage."

BonnieMargaret Jacobs shows her, on her transcription of the familienregister page of the Benkelmann family, as a daughter of George Friedrich St?hle and Anna Maria REIK or RECH. However, Anna Maria REIK is actually the mother of Dorothea's daughter-in-law Catharina Schaufele, who married Dorothea's son Adam Benkelmann. Kathy Bonnell, on her transcription of G?ppingen church records, shows her mothers maiden name was LEINS. BonnieMargaret appears to have been simply confusing the two Anna Maria's. Additionally, the family register for the family of Georg Friedrich St?hle, listing his wife and children, shows his wife Anna Maria was born to Georg Friedrich Leins, a farmer.

On the Oberant Welzheim Emmigrants list, 1818-1891, She is listed as Maria Dorothea, Witwe (widow) des Bauers Johann Leonhard Benkelmann von Schneiderhof, Gd. Waldhausen geb. den 5ten Januar 1800. Their guarantor was Johann Georg St?hle, Bauer von B?rtlingen.

(BonnieMargaret's full source citation was: Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg, "Verzeichnis der Auswanderung aus dem Oberamt Welzheim 1818-1891" F 214 B?schel 91 Fortlaufende Number 42 [or possibly 47] ).

Notes:

Married:
BonnieMargaret and her husband Bruce visited Germany in September, 1980. In a letter to Ben and Avis dated October 13, 1980, she shared the following information "Then we were on to B?rtlingen, where Adam and Catherine were married. The church there was built in 1484 and is one of the most beautiful we saw anywhere. I decided to see the village of Breech--for no particular reason except I that I'd heard Elsie Anthes speak of it and it had turned up in various records. WE had no real family association there--but it was nearby. What a stroke of dumb luck! Without that decision we might never have found the Schneiderhof, where Adam and his siblings were born and lived until they emigrated. The Schneiderhof is not a town and is not on any map. It's just a cluster of about 4 houses and supporting buildings, just down and across the road from Breech, and if you were looking away for just a second, you'd miss the sign to it.

I cannot tell you my excitement! ...There is nothing new there. Adam would recognize it as if he had never left. The tools and equipment are there as they have been for who knows how long. It is surrounded by orchards (apples) and small plots of vegetables. B?rtlingen is on a hill and is lovely with good views. The Schneiderhof is on top of the world, looking out on miles of hills and valleys and villages. It is incrediably beautiful. Again I found myself out in some cabbage patch, trying to explain to some farmer that this was my family heimat (home)...Clearly Americans are accepted as eccentric and harmless!...Vocabulary doesn't reach the beauty of that hilltop and its vistas out over hazy valleys, looking at other hills where red tiled houses form little villages. I can just imagine it at night--looking out over perhaps two dozen sparkling little villages on other hills around. One climbs from B?rtlingen to the Schneiderhof. But going down the back side of the mountain, through dense forest, the trail winds back and forth across the mountain into Waldhausen--which the Schneiderhof also looks down upon. This is the trip the family took to get to church, and probably to work."

In her 1981 unpublished manuscript, BonnieMargaret noted that only the top floor of the Benkelmann home shows from the road leading in. The house is three stories high on the back side, two stories high in the front. It was built in 1733, by the state, to provide housing for state licensed artisans who were not allowed in the town as guild craftsmen. Apparently it gained its name from its first inhabitants, since the name literally means "the place of tailors." The official state description of the Schneiderhof in 1845 states that it was a place with 22 Evangelical residents, lying on the mountain top about one-half an hours walk from Waldhausen. The rents were paid to the city of G?ppingen, in 1845 twelve of those residents would have been Leonhard and Dorothea and their 10 living children, others would have included Leonhard's widowed mother and some of her children by Herr Heller, and likely their families. The land was described as rocky and and lying on a mountainside, "even today it is impossible to use machinery to work the land" and that the "people who lived there would have to have outside work." The house itself lies on the very crest of the mountain, with the house built on the downside of the mountain, overlooking Waldhausen. A very small patch of is on the level crest at the top of the mountain. When BonnieMargaret visited the home in 1981, she said it had four or five dwellings in all, and barns and sheds nearby the house and in the orchards. Just west of the house stands the old Bauernhaus, perhaps the homestead of Leonhard's maternal grandparents. The fields to the south were planted in potatoes and turnips, the high production crops that all of southern Germany turned to in the early 1800's. Beyond the westernmost buildings were apple orchards, beautiful and well tended. (pp. 68, 69 and accompanying photos).

BonnieMargaret also noted that German life centered in the family. Even today we're told that day to day life included few close relationships with people outside the family. Certainly they were cordial and friendly with neighbors and cooperating artisans, but the joy of living was carefully protected within the walls of the home. Country people had no protection but each other, and the trusted "other" were kinsmen. Unlike the towns that were structured to protect the citizens from difficult times, the country folk were on their own, in good and bad times. Parents carefully nutured the bonds of affection and caring, and though they may have experienced the sibling rivalry that modern children do, it was not expressed in the German home, where only mutual caring and consideration were approved and encouraged.

Names and birthdates for this family were from the Waldhausen Parish Kirchlichen Familienregister Band I, Blatt 244, Dekanat Welzheim, Schw?bisch Gm?nd. BonnieMargaret noted that all the family information shown on pages 95 and 96 of her book were certified by Pastor Rau of the Ev. Pfarramt Waldhausen to be the complete record of the family of Johann Leonhard Benkelmann, with the exceptions of the dates of death, which were included by BonnieMargaret from other sources. They had one stillborn child, neither name or sex listed, on 4 July 1838. She also noted that they were married on November 20, but the year was illegible.

The family register for the family of Georg Friedrich St?hle and wife, Anna Maria Leins shows that Maria Dorothea was the fifth of their 15 children. She was married at the Schneiderhof on 20 Nov 1822, approximately 10 months after the birth of eldest son Friedrich.

Notes:

In her 1981 unpublished manuscript, BonnieMargaret Jacobs writes that "Johann Jacob (III) grew up in Pl?derhausen with his sister and his cousins, but his father had died a year before the son would have begun his apprenticeship, thus he could not follow in his fathers trade as wannanmacher. He apparently apprenticed with his Uncle Christianius to become a weaver. When he was 20, perhaps in his wandering years as a journeyman, he met Maria Katharina Bauer, whose family had been citizens of Breech, in B?rtlingen parish, for several generations. There is, of course, no record of how the young couple felt about each other or what their intent was. But it was not long before they were faced with a difficult choice [because of Catharina's pregnancy]. Under the restrictive marriage laws of the time, it would have been economic suicide for young Jacob to marry Katharina, he would have had to forfeit his imminent promotion to master status. Katharina was pregant with no husband, and while her unfortunate situation was not unusual, it was still difficult. Though the illegitimacy rate in W?rttemberg was high, so was the infanticide rate. Many young women tried to hide their pregnancies and dispose of their children, but she did not. She would have been called before her pastor to explain the circumstances of her pregnancy and identify the father. In this case, both Katharina and Jacob acknowledged their relationship. In many other cases, that didn't happen and the child would bear his mother's surname. If the father was identified, and acknowledged his paternity, then the child would bear the name of his true father. (p. 56).

Johann married Maria Catharina Baur. Maria was born about 1776 in Breech, B?rtlingen Parish, G?ppingen, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany; and died. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Katharina's first child, Leonard Benkelmann, was born out of wedlock.

Katharina later married Johannes Heller, and had four more children. BonnieMargaret writes that "Johannes Heller's father was a citizen and farmer of Adelberg, Breech. But Johannes's own parish record identifies him as a citizen and S?ldner (mercenary soldier), but this would naot have been by choice. His actual occupation was listed elsewhere as steward to the state forester. Johannes Heller died August 3, 1817, and the parish records do not say where or under what conditions except that he was then impressed into the military service of the Prince." (Jacobs, p. 70). BonnieMargaret cites the records of Johannes Heller as being in the Evangelische Kirchengemeinde Waldhausen, Dekanat Schw?bisch Gm?nd Auszug aus dem kirchlichen Familienregister Band I Blatt 242 Schneiderhof.

Notes:

The family church registry records indicate he was a bailiff.

Georg married Anna Maria Leins on 4 Nov 1794 in B?rtlingen, G?ppingen, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. Anna (daughter of Johann Georg Friedrich Leins and Eva Herb) was born on 7 Aug 1769 in B?rtlingen, G?ppingen, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany; died on 24 Dec 1846 in B?rtlingen, G?ppingen, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Married:
May have instead been married in December. They had 15 children in all.