In May of 2006, I journeyed with my wonderful cousin, Daryl, to the Washington Co. Va. Historical Society in historic downtown Abington, VA.

I was delighted to discover that they had computerized a great deal and that they had an amazing records collection. Several databases are online, including a vertical surname file.

I was hot on the trail of Andrew McKee and his wife, Elizabeth, and was fortunate enough to meet a cousin in Washington County who was familiar with both the local terrain and the McKee family.

She said that there were supposedly 3 McKee men who arrived in Pennsylvania. One stayed in Pennsylvania, one came to Washington County, Virginia, and one went elsewhere. The old “three brothers” story. Sometimes those stories are true, sometimes kind of true, and sometimes anything but.

We don’t know where Andrew was born. In addition to the Pennsylvania story, he was reported to have been born to an earlier Andrew McKee, and also to a Hugh McKee, variously in Gloucester, VA, and also in other locations.

Finding a man by the same name doesn’t mean they are father and son, or even related at all. There’s no evidence to connect them, although I don’t think thorough systemic research has been undertaken.

The bottom line is that we don’t know.

The Old Country

Almost all of the earliest recollections of the various McKee lines contain some version of the “brothers” story, and also some variation of what happened in the old country. I’m always skeptical of these stories, because I’ve seen so many of them be proven wrong, but this one might, just might, be somewhat different.

In part, we do know that the family is Presbyterian, which, combined with the surname, location, and time, equates to Scots-Irish. Secondly, regardless of whether or not the specific McKee men identified back in Ireland are accurate, the situation likely is, and reaches back to the legendary Battle of the Boyne, fought near Drogheda, north of Dublin, in 1690.

The armies of James Stuart the II of England and William of Orange faced off, above, with four McKee men, supposedly brothers, fighting for the latter. These four men are not the immigrants, but one is believed to be the father of the immigrant McKee brothers who settled in Pennsylvania.

The best summary I’ve seen is in the McKee Family Matters Newsletter, published by Kevin McKee (1954-2013), here. I encourage all McKee researchers to read what Professor James Y. McKee had to say about the McKee origins in Scotland, England, and Ireland, and the historical information he was able to gather. I’ve compiled the old  McKee Family Matters Links, here, but given the age of these pages, I’d suggest saving the information if it’s relevant to you.

Professor McKee posits, based on naming patterns and other information, that Alexander McKee, who we know exists and settled in Antrim after the famous 1690 battle, was likely the father of the four (or more) brothers who immigrated to Pennsylvania between 1725-1738, and whose descendants scattered across Pennsylvania, into Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky.

That Irish Alexander was buried under the arms of the Strathnaver and Reay branch of the Clan Mackay.

Of course, there are other potential Scots-Irish progenitors, as well, and it’s probable that multiple families and lines migrated at different times.

Early McKee Immigrants

I found an old typewritten book, titled “The McKees of Virginia and Kentucky” by George Wilson McKee in the Tennessee State Library and Archives. In this book, the author, quoting from a letter written from Samuel McKee to William McKee in 1869, states that “In 1738, 10 or 11 brothers McKee emigrated to America.” He then goes on to say maybe as few as five. Those men, Samuel recounts, were the sons of “one who had borne a part in the defense of Derry and settled near Lancaster, PA. From there, some settled near Wheeling, West Virginia, and some in Pittsburg, PA.”

John and Robert “went almost directly to Virginia, about 1757, and settled on a portion of Borden’s grant on Kerr’s Creek in what is now Rockbridge Co., about 8 miles northwest of Lexington and about the same distance from Timber Ridge, which is north of Lexington on the Staunton Road, and was within a mile or so of the Cyrus McCormick Historical Site. In 1760, William, another brother, also removed to Augusta County.”

• Robert McKee died in Rockbridge County on June 11, 1774, which I suspect is the date his will was probated or the date of his will. His wife, Agnes, died in 1780, age 84. “All the traditions refer to Robert as a perfect type of Sturdy old Scotch Irishman. He was a strict Presbyterian but by no means an overbearing or aggressive Calvinist. On the contrary, he was a mild-mannered man and attended to his own business in both religious and secular matters. He was a man of the greatest integrity, respected by all who knew him, of sound sense and judgment, and a good citizen.”
• John McKee settled on Kerr’s Creek where his wife was killed by the Shawnee in 1763. He died October 29, 1791 in Rockbridge County. “I have always heard John spoken of with the greatest respect and admiration by the Kentucky McKees, but he had not, from all accounts, the mild manner which characterized Robert. He was most positive in his language and actions and, in his day, made his full share of enemies.”
• William McKee initially settled in either Botetourt or Augusta County, but moved to Kentucky about 1788. His descendants live in Montgomery County, KY, but William was said to have died in Virginia at an unknown date.

First cousins Miriam, daughter of John, and William, son of Robert, married each other and kept a Bible recording the deaths of both John and Robert. The dates differ slightly from the dates given above. John’s death is recorded as “March 2, 1792, in the 84th year of his age,” which means he was born about 1708. Robert’s death is recorded as “June 11, 1766, in Rockbridge County, age 82,” which means he was born about 1684.

Another book, “One Who Gave His Life” by James Lucy, states that a group of men, including the McKees, came and settled near the coast.

The Ulster-Scots from County Down left Ireland for America about 1735. They were staunch Presbyterians and descendants of one of the defenders of Londonderry who had “acquitted himself with great gallantry and suffered patiently the horrors of that awful siege.” The McKees established themselves in Lancaster County, PA, and two of the family members took part in the ill-fated Braddock expedition of 1755.

Later, William, Robert, and John removed to the Valley of Virginia, but James stayed in Lancaster County, having sons John and Robert who inherited his lands. One tract was in Lancaster County, but James had also acquired land “in the Tuscarora settlement in western Pennsylvania, and in North Carolina.”

In 1752, James’s widow, adult children, and young son, William, went to North Carolina, where three years later, two miles to the west, Fort Dobbs was built as a border defense against the Indians.

The Scots-Irish passed further and further westward, into North Carolina and beyond, carrying with them their racial strength, religious bent, and their enthusiasm for freedom.

Another author, Rev. A. J. McKellway in 1905 writes in “The North Carolina Booklet,” that:

The migrants from Pennsylvania, including William McKee, were already and speedily establishing cultivation. The versatility of the early settlers, men and women alike, was as remarkable as their thrift and perseverance.

William McKee first served in the campaign under General Rutherford against the Cherokees in the summer of 1776. In the spring of that year, this tribe, incited by the British, descended from the mountains in a succession of murderous forays, and by the 28th of June, 200 western settlers had been slain. General Griffith, 400 men of the militia under his command, by swift movement into the Indian country, surprised the savages and completely destroyed their power to harass the frontier. Rutherford’s forces started on their march for the trackless mountains on July 19, and after the accomplishments of their arduous task, the men were disbanded at Salisbury on October 3. Afterwards, McKee served under General Davidson and Colonel Locke and refused to accept any compensation for his military service. His country needed the money more than he did, he declared. It was his belief that a man should no more accept pay for defending his country than for protecting his family. While Wiliam McKee was soldiering with the North Carolinians, his older brother, Robert, served as a Captain of a Pennsylvania company, and a first cousin, Colonel William McKee of Rockbridge County, Virginia, marched with the Old Dominion troops from Point Pleasant to the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.

After the war, these men went quietly back to their farms and workshops and turned their energies to improving their own and their children’s circumstances and building up the country.

Early Appalachian Virginia McKees

There were McKee men in the Washington County, Virginia region about the same time as Andrew, based on records I found.

• There is an Alexander McKee whose will was entered on March 17, 1778 in Washington County. He received 3000 acres in 1774 due to his service during the Revolution.
• There was a Lt. William McKee who served in the Revolutionary War out of Botetourt County and was the son of Robert, one of the original brothers. This man signed the Virginia Constitution and eventually moved to Kentucky about 1790.
• An Elias McKey or Mackey served in Washington and Montgomery County. Elias McKee is found on the 1782 Washington County tax list.
• Then, the local cousin reported, “I have a stickey note that says “Andrew McKee died in W. Chester Co., Pa. July (I think July, J something) 25, 1732.”

It’s quite likely that Andrew McKee descends from this line of men, especially given the names of his sons and the migration route into Washington County, Virginia.

I’m hoping to find a male McKee who descends from Andrew and is willing to do a Y DNA test which will help us connect our McKee line back in time to earlier McKee men. If that is you, or someone you know, I have a Y DNA testing scholarship for you! Just reach out. Y DNA testing is the single most productive thing we can do for our McKee line genealogy.

Based on the first records we do have for Andrew, he was probably born sometime around 1760.

Based on the ages of his proven children, Andrew was probably likely around 1788, so born sometime between 1760 and 1765. The 1810 census tells us that he was over 45 years of age, so we know he was not born in 1765 or after.

Washington County on the Frontier

The lands within Washington County had been contested by the Shawnee and Cherokee tribes. The three branches of the Holston River provided prime hunting grounds.

Early settlers in the region fled due to the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The first permanent settlement began in 1769. Most of the early settlers streamed down the valley from Pennsylvania, a generation or two after the first immigrant in their family line. Many were Scots-Irish, hardy men who knew battle and hard work, and weren’t afraid of either.

In 1779 and 1780, men from Washington County marched with William Campbell to King’s Mountain, where the Tories were resoundingly defeated by these mountain men that the Tory leader had the bad judgment to mock and disparage. HUGE mistake.

The Tories were gone, but not the drama. Nosiree, not for a minute.

In 1782, Arthur Campbell led a movement to establish a new western state, the State of Franklin. Washington County residents were divided in their opinions, but after attempting to run a “parallel” government for some time, the effort collapsed into disarray.

The State of Franklin attempted to push into Cherokee land, and in March of 1788, the Chickamauga and Chickasaw attacked again.

Finally, in February 1789, the failed State of Franklin disappeared altogether.

Andrew McKee was in this area because on October 5, 1789, his land was surveyed.

Land

Land was so often the lure that crooked her come-hither finger and caused young men to set out with nothing more than a horse and dreams.

Andrew McKee may well have been one of those young men. His father and uncles and maybe older brothers would probably have fought in the Revolutionary War, but Andrew was too young.

When that war ended, vast swaths of land opened on the western frontier. Officials back east hoped that frontiersmen, particularly the difficult-to-manage Scots-Irish, would move westward and provide a barrier between the Native tribes that were still somewhat volatile, not fond of treaty-breaking whites that settled on their land, and the cities and towns further east. If anyone got attacked, let it be the Scots-Irish who were experienced and certainly knew how to wage battle.

Washington County, VA, was a mega-county formed in December of 1776, along with Montgomery and Kentucky. Yes, one county would eventually become the entire state of Kentucky.

If Andrew McKee was slightly older when that land bug bit him, he was probably accompanied by a starry-eyed young bride who would pretty much have followed him anyplace – and obviously did.

To the frontier. Land of bears, wolves, bobcats, and danger. Also, the land of opportunity. Land available for the clearing and inhabiting of your own farm.

Jeffrey La Favre mapped this area of what was originally Augusta County, Virginia, and became Washington County and plotted the various grantees and original landowners on a map, here.

I am incredibly grateful! Thank you, Jeffrey.

We know that Andrew McKee was there by the fall of 1789 when his land was surveyed. It was subsequently granted on July 19, 1790 – just in time for the 1790 census if it existed for Washington County. But alas, it doesn’t.

Page 373 – Andrew McKee, assignee of Zephemah Woolsey, assignee of Joseph Posey – 228 ac – commissioners certificate – on a branch of the middle fork of Holstein River – corner to John Kelly’s land – supposed to be on James Thompson’s line – with a line of Dozers survey – in a valley – corner to Samuel Kithcart’s land – October 5, 1789

Andrew likely bought the patent rights to have this land surveyed from Woolsey.

Andrew was able to snag a nice piece, including a section of the Holston River and probably a crisp, clear spring that drained into the river.

The Washington County Surveyors Record 1781-1797 shows the grants of the neighbors too.

Page 415 – James Thompson – 41 ac – treasury warrant #11963 – on both sides of the middle fork of Holstein River – on the north side of the river a corner to his old patent track – corner to Wilson & John Kelly’s land with Andrew McKee’s line – January 18, 1794

Page 458 – James Robinson, assignee of Moses Edmondson – 100 ac – treasury warrant #8184 dated February 2, 1782 – on a branch of the middle fork of Holstein River – line of Thomas Edmondson, Sr.’s land – corner to David Snodgrass – line of James Robinson’s land – corner to David Martins land – corner to John Kelley’s land – corner to Andrew McKee’s land – June 27, 1796

Page 460 – Jacob Halfacre, assignee of James Thompson – 35 ac – treasury warrant #12173 dated June 4, 1782 – on a Spring Branch of the middle fork of Holstein River – corner to Halfacre’s old survey – in James Thompson’s old survey – corner to McKee’s land – August 23, 1796

If you were to fast-forward in time, you’d recognize a great many of these families purchasing goods at Andrew McKee’s estate sale in the future.

Selecting Land

Andrew would have selected his land with several things in mind. The terrain might have been difficult to view, given that the land wasn’t yet cleared.

Most importantly, it had to have fresh water that was not contaminated upstream.

On this topographical map, I’ve placed the red star where Andrew built his house, on the bluff of the hill. You can see the small stream running right past the house, which is likely why this location was selected.

Well, that and the hill is not AS prone to flooding. I don’t know if Andrew somehow knew about the Holston floods, or if he was just exercising good judgment about rivers in general – but he made an excellent choice.

Of course, it’s also possible that he built a small cabin first and learned the hard way – or there were ruins of someone else’s cabin.

Here’s the little stream that watered and sustained the family, right at the bend in the road leading to Andrew’s house on the right.

But, Andrew’s house wasn’t just any house. It was actually quite remarkable, and, amazingly, still stands.

Driving to Andrew’s Land

My cousin from Washington County was kind enough to drive us to the McKee land, while cousin Daryl recorded our pathway. Thank goodness, or I could never have found this again.

Me, I was busy fighting motion sickness – turning a funny shade of green. I don’t do well in the passenger’s seat on those twisty curvy mountain roads.

I’ve included directions in case you’d like to visit.

From Abington, drive north on 81 to exit 35 (Whitetop Road) – right off the ramp and immediately right on 762, S. River Road, which becomes Friendship Road. A sign says you’re leaving Smyth County and reentering Washington County. The road curves, a 90-degree turn to the left. The house on the right is the old McKee home – up on the hill. My cousin says the house has been recorded in a local book.

I “drove” this route with Google Street View, but unfortunately, the Google car doesn’t drive down some types of roads. The section in front of the McKee house at 12786 Friendship Road is missing, unfortunately.

However, we can see the clump of trees on the right, on the hill. The stream is running on the right side of the road now, where the cattle are watering, and runs directly in front of the house, which is located behind the trees.

Fortunately, Google Earth saved me. We can’t drive by, but we can see the house fairly well.

Someone erected a period split rail fence that, of course, is exactly what Andrew would have had.

You can see the creek path in front, meandering along beside the road.

Fortunately, I took pictures of the house all those years ago.

I told you, this house looks different than other original log cabins.

For the time, this was a HUGE home. At least four times as large as normal log cabins, which were often no larger than a single room – two at most. This house has two fireplaces, one on each end.

Let me share some thoughts with you.

In the photo below, you can see the original cabin logs, at the top, and a very tall field-rock foundation, beneath. Thankfully, the siding was cut away when I was there.

This was a massive, substantial building.

I’d wager that this house was built with the extra tall foundation at least partly due to Holston flooding. That also explains the raised second-story porch, and no porch underneath at ground level. But I think there’s more to this story.

The chimney reaches all the way to the ground, so it’s possible that there are actually two fireplaces on each end – one below and one above, with different flues in the same chimney. I wish this building was on the register of historic places. It should be.

Note those small windows by the fireplace. We’ll talk about those in a few minutes.

Let’s Visit Andrew

I found this home listed at Realtor.com. The listing says it was originally built in 1765, which would be right after the end of the French and Indian War, but before the first permanent settlement in the area. I wonder how that year was determined. I can’t help but think a year might have been carved on a beam someplace.

Come on inside.

I want you to take a minute here to relax and close your eyes. When you open them, you’re not in the here and now, but back in the late 1700s. You’ve just ridden up on your horse, or maybe walked a mile or so from a neighboring cabin, and you’re visiting Andrew.

Maybe someone is ill, and you’re bringing soup. Maybe you’re the midwife delivering another baby. Maybe you’re John Kelly, Andrew’s best friend and neighbor, and you’re going to sit by the fire and discuss crops and a fence.

Or maybe you’re the preacher making rounds, or visiting because that baby that was just delivered, died. The entire family is in tears, especially Elizabeth. You’ll be consoling the family, saying soothing preacherly things, then helping Andrew out in the barn make a small casket. You’ll be preaching that funeral tomorrow.

You rode up the path towards the barn and tied the horse, or maybe the mule, by the water, and you’re walking towards the house. A dog runs up to greet you, and you hear children’s voices.

You dug some potatoes and carrots, and stop to put them in the root cellar. Elizabeth sent some onions over last week, and everyone will need the food during the upcoming winter. Root cellars, built into the ground, keep everything cool. Some even have water running through one side, but this one doesn’t. The Holston river floods too high for that.

The newer log cabins are built with a door, but they only have a string that hangs out through the hole by the latch. Don’t want company, pull the string inside. No one has locks.

Andrew’s home is different though. His doors are barricaded. Bolts, reinforced wood and steel. A veritable fort. You can shoot from the holes above the door if you need to. We still have an Indian scare, here, from time to time. Andrew says he’s never felt entirely safe since John McKee’s wife was tomahawked and scalped by the Shawnee in the Kerr Creek Massacre.

Nope. Never have and never will. This is, after all, the frontier.

No one is getting through these doors, or these walls either. Since peace came to the valley, Andrew’s doors are never bolted after sunup, and generally not even shut during the day. Too hot for that in the summer.

You shout out, “howdy” as you climb those outside stairs and walk across the porch, alerting the family that someone was there, and walk on in.

You’ve never seen another cabin with outside stairs like that.

This house, like all cabins, didn’t exactly have rooms back then, at least not on the main floor. The kitchen was the center of the home where cooking was done in the fireplace, which was also the source of heat for the entire household.

The colder it was, the closer in people gathered by the fire.

The walls were thick. You looked out the window, as one of the older children was tending the bee hives outside. For a minute, you sat in the windowsill which was as thick as the wall was deep, and just watched. There would be honey in the fall to sweeten some of the baked goods at Christmas. What a luxury!

The wooden beams were hewn from the logs that had been cleared to make room on this hillside for Andrew’s home. The ceiling was low in order to contain heat in the winter.

The stones in the fireplace and hearth were dug out of the field, shaped to fit by a master stonemason, and placed so that the chimney flue would draft the smoke up and out. A poor fireplace and stray sparks were responsible for many cabin fires that burned families out entirely, or burned them to death.

Fire and Indians were a frontiersman’s worst fears.

Venison stew with beans was cooking in a pot over the fire, on the pothook, where it would simmer all day. The scent wafted through the house. As the hungry men came in from the fields, everyone was welcome to take a wooden trencher, a carved out wooden item that was a combination of a plate and bowl, from the mantle or cupboard, ladle in some stew, and cut some bread. Sometimes there was freshly churned butter for the bread too.

Them was good eats!

Of course, chairs were a luxury. Those pioneers made their own chairs, lashing them together as best they could. But mostly, people sat on benches by a table of long boards. A generation or so after an area was settled, you might be able to bid on some old pioneer’s chairs at an estate sale after he was gone. Bless his heart and soul.

Of course, the executor of his estate made sure to pass around some of the local whiskey. It helped the bidding and raised the prices.

But in the early days, chairs were scarce, so everyone pulled up a windowsill, sat out on the porch, or on benches at the table.

In the back room, or in Andrew’s house, on the lower level, crocks held cabbage and other brined vegetables that would see the family through the winters and early spring known as the starving time. This was especially important if hunting was too dangerous or the men came home empty-handed. Of course, when the wars broke out, which seemed to be often, the men were gone for long stretches at a time, and everyone had to make do – until, or if, the men returned home.

Andrew’s home was HUGE by pioneer standards, but that was because it was the local station, or fort. Most cabins were a couple hundred square feet, max, with rudimentary ladder-type steps to the “upstairs” where the kids slept. Rain and snow blew in between the boards, and everyone huddled together to keep warm.

At almost 3,000 square feet, with two fireplaces for cooking and heat, Andrew’s home could shelter several families in times of danger. Men could defend the fort using those high windows or shooting through the holes above the doors. Indians would have had to run up the hill, out in the open. Yes, this was the best place for a local defensive fort.

That also meant it literally felt like a community possession, and everyone felt at home here.

Bedrooms weren’t just for sleeping.

Women had to spin thread from cotton or linen that was then used to weave cloth to make clothing. Sheep were sheered, and their wool was spun into yarn that was knitted into socks, capes and such.

Everything had to be grown and then processed. Work was from sunup to sundown, and often later by candlelight.

The women often gathered together, making those communal tasks. Not only did many hands make for light work, but they needed each other’s companionship. The people you depended on were your neighbors, who might have also been your family.

Blankets were woven, and quilts were often made from clothing scraps. Everyone shared.

Young children would have slept in the bedroom with their parents, and older children likely slept in the lofts. Andrew, however, had two additional beds, one for boys and one for girls.

Andrew had quite a large family and would tell you just how lucky he was that 13 of his children lived. That was nearly unheard of. That meant that he had lots of help on the farm, of course, but it also meant he had 15 mouths to feed and needed three beds!

Our visit with Andrew has been lovely, but of course, we have to drift back to the present.

The owners have done an amazing job with modernizing without destroying the historical charm of the McKee home. It would have been so much easier to just cover everything up – and the series of owners from then until now has not done that. I don’t know who you are – but THANK YOU!.

Of course, as modernizing occurred, the ever-present threat of flooding was kept in mind, and it appears that the wiring is concentrated in the rafters. The old, original beams seem to have been reinforced. Andrew’s house may stand forever, a testament to those men who built it with nothing more than hand tools! If it was built in 1765, we’re now at 257 years. This may be one of the oldest remaining structures in western Virginia.

Click to enlarge any image.

In this satellite view, you can see Andrew’s section of the Holston River that I’ve labeled “Holston.” You can also still see the field lines that follow his property lines in the survey. And of course, his house.

I’m sure when the Holston floods, everything in this area is covered in water. The good news is that flooding makes the fields fertile, another important aspect of selecting land.

However, this makes the fact that this home still stands even more incredible! It must be built like a battleship.

Early Forts

I want to call your attention to those small windows near the crest of the roof.

The style, size and fortification of this home, in addition to these windows, suggest that this might have been a local station house. A fort, of sorts.

In the early deeds of many East Tennessee and Virginia counties, we find references to places with names such as “Carter’s Station” and “Martin’s Station.” For example, in what would become Hawkins County, Tennessee, on another branch of the Holston River, we find Carter’s Station established in 1787, and Martin’s Station in Lee County, VA. Stations were often the earliest homes, established along Native American pathways, which were often the same pathways settlers used when settling an area.

Stations were early “forts” where settlers rushed when any sort of attack was expected. Families gathered together inside for protection, and the men fought from, hopefully, an advantageous position.

Hence, the high windows of a building and a more elevated position would both confer an advantage. Was this McKee’s Station? I don’t know. We might find mention of that in the deeds of the neighbors or court notes. I don’t have access to the deed books without another trip either to Washington County, the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, or the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hmmm….

Let’s continue with a tour of Andrew’s neighborhood.

The McKee Cemetery  

If you continue to the end of the road and turn left on to route 736 – Kelly’s Chapel Road, you’ll have arrived at the McKee cemetery – or where it used to be. Behind the 1^st fence on the left, the old cemetery is near the trees, but nothing remains now. It was destroyed by cattle, according to the local cousin.

Google Street View doesn’t travel down this road either, but you can see the area from the satellite view.

It’s worth noting that this cemetery is not on Andrew’s original land grant, and I doubt it’s on the second piece he apparently purchased because his second “plantation” was adjacent his first. I think this location was beyond that and just the other side of John Kelly’s land based on the La Favre drawing.

My cousin didn’t know who, exactly, was buried here, just that it was the McKee Cemetery of long ago.

Andrew’s descendants probably rest among those trees, but it’s unlikely that Andrew himself is there.

According to the local cousin, on this same stretch of road, there’s also a newer, but still quite old McKee home that has been sided, shown above. This might have been the “second” plantation owned by Andrew that eventually was inherited by his sons, or maybe land purchased later by his descendants.

The McKee family still owns land across the road from the original homestead.

The Original Land

I was trying to gain perspective on Andrew’s original land.

This flat strip of the river that Andrew owned is about one-fifth mile long.

Andrew’s house was located about that far from the Holston River.

These are roughly his property lines, with the house in the red square and the McKee Cemetery in the red circle.

The Neighborhood

Going on past the cemetery intersection, you come to the fork of River Road and Loves Mill, which is Edmondson land. Down that road is Mt. Olivet United Methodist church and cemetery.

The Mt. Olivet cemetery is across from the church on Love’s Mill Road, below

The cemetery overlooks the beautiful mountains in the background

In the other direction, near the McKee Cemetery, we find Kelly’s Chapel Church.

According to my cousin, the McKees lived in the Kelly’s Chapel church area, which used to be called McKee’s Store, and was changed to Kelly’s Chapel to keep peace in the family and not to upset someone.

Kelly’s Chapel church, above, with its old foundation.

Many later McKee family members are buried here.

Ebbing Springs Presbyterian Church

The oldest church in the area was Ebbing Springs Presbyterian Church, 5 or 6 miles from Andrew McKee’s home and assuredly where he attended church. He would have loaded the kids on the wagon and set off for church in good weather. Not sure what they did in bad weather.

I’ve noted the locations we’ve visited so far.

In 1773, Ebbing Springs and Sinking Springs Presbyterian Church, in Abingdon joined forces to obtain the Reverend Charles Cummings who preached in both churches from 1773 to 1780. Men, including the good Reverend himself, came to church with their rifles at their sides.

Today, the old church and cemetery are long gone, replaced by the “new” church nearby, above, but the Glade Springs Congregation erected a memorial stone to commemorate the early settlers buried there. You can view some early photos, here.

The location of Ebbing Spring, shown above, which apparently actually does ebb and flow, isn’t actually at the present-day church. From the church intersection above, head down 736, Debusk Mill Road near the old mill on the banks of the North Fork of the Holston where the original church and cemetery were located. I was told that the old gravestones stones were actually pushed into the Holston River.

I would bet that Andrew McKee, his wife, and children are found resting here, along the river, in now-unmarked graves. We know that when Andrew’s neighbor and friend, John Kelly, died in 1834, his will specified that he be buried by his wife’s side in the Ebbing Spring graveyard.

Andrew’s son, William McKee is reportedly buried in the Cemetery beside the Sinking Springs Presbyterian Church in Abingdon. A memorial marker for the McKee family is located there.

Update: I subsequently proved that this William McKee, a merchant in Abingdon, is NOT the son of William McKee, who appears to have died about 1811. Please see the article, here, about Andrew McKee’s wife, Elizabeth, and their children.

The fact that the first church in the area was Presbyterian is a clue, as is the surname McKee itself, that Andrew was indeed Scots-Irish. Apparently, Andrew’s neighbor, John Kelly, who was also the executor of his estate, was Presbyterian and Scots-Irish too.

The 1810 Census

We find Andrew in the 1810 census, which was taken on August 6^th.

• 1 free white male 0-9
• 2 free white males 10-15
• 2 free white males 16-25
• 1 free white male over 45 (Andrew)
• 5 free white females 0-9
• 2 free white females 10-15
• 1 free white female 16-25
• 1 free white female 26-45 (Elizabeth)
• 10 total household members under 16
• 2 household members over 25
• Total number of household members 15

Andrew and his wife had 13 children living at home in 1810.

Thankfully, this census also tells us that Andrew did not own slaves, which I find hugely relieving. It also means that his family supplied all the labor themselves. Good thing he had 13 children.

The census is quite interesting because it ties in with Andrew’s will in a strange sort of way.

You see, Andrew wrote his will in 1805, but didn’t die until 1814. Andrew’s will names his children, and the census confirms them by age…and…tells us something more.

Two additional daughters and a son were born after Andrew’s will was written in 1805 and before the 1810 census. Otherwise, we might never have known – or more specifically, never understood what “strange” records 29 years later were telling us.

Andrew’s Will

I sure would like to know what happened in 1805.

Did Andrew get hurt? Was he so gravely injured that it was believed that his death was imminent?

Men at that time didn’t write a will in preparation for an uncertain future. They didn’t write a will until they believed they were going to need one. Andrew must have been gravely ill, calling his neighbors to his bedside to witness him writing and signing his will.

There’s no sign that any of his children died, so it likely wasn’t something like Cholera, Smallpox, or Dysentery that would have been shared by family members. The area wasn’t swampy, so no “swamp” fevers.

In 1805, Andrew would have been about 40 – in the prime of his life.

Yet, he was obviously thinking about his demise, shortly, and put his wishes on paper. You can tell this was spontaneous and not a “form” because it doesn’t contain the typical introductory paragraph. He got right down to business.

I have transcribed his will with the original spelling.

I, Andrew McKee of Washington County, Virginia do make and publish this my last will and testament. After my executors pay all espence (sic) of clothing and buriel my desire is that all my perishable property shall be sold and the money arising on it shall to go pay all my just debts and the balance shall be disposed of as will be hereafter directed.

First, I gave to my wife Elizabeth one third of all the money in possession or due and arising on the sale of the property after all by debts is paid to her untill she marry then it shall return to all my daughters but if she never married she shall have it during her life then to return to them all equally likewise she shall have the dwelling house untill she marryes but if she never marries then she shall have it during her life. Also she shall have her maintenance and as many of the children as she will keep until she marryes if not she shall have it during her life. The money to be paid her after the property is sold and the money collected and must be paid by the executors.

Second I gave to my four sons James, William, Edward and Andrew my two plantations the one on which I live the other joining to be equally divided between them when the youngest comes of age to be divided by the executors provided they can’t egree themselves. If any of them dye before the come of age or marry then their part shall go to the rest all equally but still Elizabeth my wife shall have her maintenance as was provided for her before. My will and desire is that the executors rent out both my plantations untill my four sons all come of age and the rents shall go to the seport of Elizabeth my wife or so much as is reasonable for her seport the balance shall be left for my four sons when the come to the age of inheritance.

Third. I gave to my six daughters Sally, Mary, Ann, Charity, Jain and Elizabeth all the money that is left after all my debts is paid and the one third that my wife is to receive and likewise my four sons shall pay my six daughters two hundred dollars in money when the girls comes of age. If any of my daughters shall dye before the come of age or marry their part shall go to the rest all equally

All the money goods or chattles which I have devised shall go to them and their heirs forever escept otherwise provided.

And further I desire my executors to bind out all my children escept such of them as my wife shall choose to keep with her to some good trade or calling.

And lastly I appoint my friends Samuel Kelly and John Kelly Jr. of this my last will…no security required…revoking all former wills.

Signed March 24, 1805 in the presence of:
Andrew Edmiston
John Todd
Andrew E. Kelly

At a court held for Washington County the 21^st day of June 1814 the last will and testament of Andrew McKee decd was eschibited into court proved by the oaths of Andrew Edmiston and Andrew E. Kelly two of the subscribing witnesses and ordered recorded. On the motion of Samuel Kelly and John Kelly Jr. the executors therein named…took the oath of an escecutor.

Andrew was by no means an old man when he wrote his will, nor when he died 9 years later. Based on that 1760 estimated birth year, he would have been 54. Some researchers put his birth year closer to 1765, which means he would have been about 50.

I can’t help but wonder if whatever was wrong back in 1805 resurfaced in 1814. Although the 1814 fatal event may have been sudden, because Andrew never updated his will with his three youngest children.

Estate Sale

Andrew’s estate sale took place in August. That’s actually quite speedy, which makes me wonder if the sale was actually 14 months later, not two. I can’t read the year clearly, but it doesn’t actually matter.

Two of Andrew’s sons were purchasers, as was his wife, who was noted as both “The Widow” and “Elizabeth McKee.”

Based on how his will was written, Andrew’s wife would have had to purchase anything she wanted. She would receive one-third of the estate value, and some of that value she would have wanted in the form of household goods and furniture. Put another way, she had to allow two-thirds of her household goods to be sold. Ouch!

Purchasers were:

• James McKee purchased a good deal of farming equipment, plus a saddle and bridle, a bull, heifer, 2 steers, black mare, grindstone
• Andrew McKee – saddle and bridle, farming equipment, black horse, sorrel colt
• “The widow” purchased a large kettle, 2 churns, 1 small pot, 1 pot, 1 oven, pail and wash tub, 2 pot racks, 4 cows, grey mare, 6 sheep, 2 pair cards and flat iron
• Elizabeth McKee – 1 bedstead, bed and furniture, 1 small and large bedstead and bed, 1 chest of drawers, 2 spinning wheels, 1 table, 6 old chairs, cupboard and furniture, 1 bed, 1 counting reel, 3 old keggs, 1 bag 2 baskets, 2 lines, 1 loom, 1 hackle
• Henry Bois (Boys)
• Daniel Boyd
• Moses Brooks
• David Buchanan
• John Casey
• James Cleghorn
• John Cole
• Robert Crow
• William Deen
• John Evans
• Andrew Gibson
• Thomas Gill
• James Grimes
• Thomas James
• Samuel Kelly
• John Larrymore
• Robert Larrymore
• Siberius Main
• John Main
• James McGill
• Robert Murdock
• Arthur Orr
• David Roberson
• John Roe
• Daniel Troscel

Estate sale Aug. 19

The sale document was filed with the court on February 20, 1816

Andrew was not a poor man, not even in 1805. At that point, he had two plantations. Of course, plantations then meant something a bit different than we think of today. Still, he had two nice farms, one that was 228 acres, and quite a bit of equipment and livestock

In total, Andrew had the following property, in addition to the farms:

All of the family possessions, less the real estate which went to Andrew’s sons, amounted to $671.69, of which $85.56 was sold to Elizabeth, his widow.

Andrew had obviously continued to farm after whatever happened in 1805. Two of his sons were purchasing farming equipment.

Andrew had four mares, a horse, and two colts, but only two saddles and bridles. Two of his sons purchased one set each.

It’s interesting what’s NOT listed in his estate. None of Andrew’s clothes, no guns, no butchering equipment, no knives, no crops or produce, no plates or silverware, and no quilts, bedcoverings, or blankets. You know beyond a doubt that Andrew’s household had all of these things.

Almost every farmer had a secondary skill, but there were no shoemaker tools, no candlemaking tools, no blacksmith tools, and no carpentry tools in Andrew’s estate.

I’d also bet Andrew owned a Bible, but that’s open to speculation. He did not sign his will with a mark, so he clearly could read and write. There were also no other books listed either.

We know one thing that Andrew McKee did, positively, He distilled whiskey in a fine Irish tradition. His still and tubs were the single most valuable item of his possessions. Sure enough, Andrew was a distiller. McKee’s finest!

Andrew’s sons didn’t purchase his still, either. There was quite a good market for whiskey, which was used medically and for another form of “medicine” as well.

Andrew’s widow, Elizabeth, still had every single child at home, all 13 of them, ranging in age from 4 to about 25 or 26, so she clearly needed all of the beds and furniture they had. If you look at the list, four beds for a married couple and 13 children isn’t much at all.

Maybe they had a boy’s bed and two girl’s beds.

Those upper windows – you know who was sleeping up there. I suspect some of those children were probably sleeping on straw on the floor – maybe by choice rather than sleep in a bed full of squirming siblings.

Children

When children are listed in a will, we presume that ALL of the children are listed – but that wasn’t the case. Well, let me restate. It was at the time the will was written.

Andrew and Elizabeth had three more children after Andrew made his will; Eliza, Rebecca, and Alexander, who was born about 1810. This suggests that Andrew’s wife, Elizabeth was probably 42ish in 1810, putting her birth about 1768 and her marriage to Andrew about 1788ish – just before or around the time he had that land surveyed.

Andrew didn’t die for another nine years after he wrote his will – which means he was still relatively young – someplace around 50.

Let’s correlate our data using the 1810 census, Andrew’s will, and what we know about Andrew’s children based on birth or marriage dates.

Perhaps on my next trip to Sale Lake City, I’ll have the opportunity to search through the Washington County deeds and court records for more information about Andrew’s life. Maybe Andrew has a few secrets yet to reveal.

Au Revoir for Now

It’s time to leave Andrew after one last look at the beautiful McKee land on the Middle Fork of the Holston River.

It sure looks a lot different today. When Andrew staked his claim, that was just the first step. The land had to be cleared before it could be farmed. Tree by tree. Felled and the stump removed.

Andrew would be proud to see his manicured land today, his beautiful home still standing. How I wish he could tell us stories.

Some of his family members, now several generations removed, still live on surrounding land and nearby, two and a half centuries later.

Like the details of Andrew’s life, most of his descendants have scattered hither and yon. It’s only in the last few years, through genealogy, then genetic genealogy, that we have discovered and reconnected with Andrew.

McKee DNA

Our DNA is reuniting us as Andrew’s descendants, confirming Andrew and Elizabeth as our common ancestors.

Andrew lives on in me on chromosomes 4 and 10, where I match other cousins.

Many of Andrew’s descendants carry a bit of his DNA, a gift that we can map on the palette of our chromosomes, like his land is mapped upon the earth. A wink and a nod from the past.

Now, like Andrew’s DNA, perhaps Andrew’s story will be carried forward as well so that Andrew’s life, as best we can resurrect, will never be forgotten.

Much like the three deaths.

The first death is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.

The final death is to be forgotten, to disappear entirely into oblivion, forever.

Andrew gave me life. I’m just returning the favor.

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here or follow me on Twitter, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

• FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
• MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
• MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
• AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
• 23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
• 23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

• MyHeritage FREE Tree Builder – Genealogy software for your computer
• MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
• Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
• Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
• Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
• NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Book

• DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
• DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US

Genealogy Books

• Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books

Genealogy Research

• Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

In the article about Katharina Gockeler, I reported that her parents were Hans Gockeler and his wife, Katharina.

That information was incorrect. Mea culpa. Live and learn. As genealogists, we correct mistakes as soon as we find them.

Based on earlier documents from researchers in Germany, Hans Gockeler and his wife were, indeed, having children in Schnait at the right time, and did have a child, Catharina Goeckeler. This seemed like the right family, especially since one Hans Lentz was the godfather of the Catherina Gockeler born on May 27, 1604, and roughly 30 years later, a Katharina Gockeler would marry Hans Lenz, probably the son of the Hans Lentz/Lenz who stood up at the baptism of the Catherina born in 1604.

Yep, it seemed that Hans was Katharina’s father, right up until Beutelsbach historian Martin Goll discovered Catharina’s death record, which led to the correct birth record.

Martin was kind enough to share.

Cousin Tom was kind enough to translate:

Death: 25 Oct 1677 Beutelsbach

Catharina, surviving widow of the late Hanns Lentz(en), age 65.

We know this is the correct Catharina because she was indeed the widow of Hans Lenz/Lentz.

Now we have her age, which means she was born about 1612, not 1604. Which Katharina or Catharina was born in 1612?

Martin provided the record of her birth.

Cousin Tom translates:

9 October 1612 Beutelsbach

Baptism

Parents: Wolff Göckeler(n) and Barbara, his wife

Child: daughter, Catharina was baptized

Godparents: Alexander Wagner and Anna, Leonard Kurtz’ wife, …the daughter Anna ?

Marginal Notation added at a later date: Catharina, as Hans Lentz(in)’s widow.

Tom notes that “the data from the death entry fits well with the baptismal entry.  I would be confident with this data.”

Hmmm, I guess I need to start spelling her name Catharina, not Katharina.

Wait? What?

Catharina was born in Beutelsbach and not in Schnait as we originally thought? Granted, they are only a mile apart.

Cousin Martin adds, “In Schnait, I know there was a family Wolf Gokeler, but it is not sure if he was the father of Katharine. According to the remark, there is no sign about this father coming from somewhere else. We are not sure. Schnait was a long time a part of the Beutelsbach parish.”

What Martin means is that when the father was “from” somewhere else, meaning a citizen elsewhere, the church records would reflect that.

Tom says, “Regarding the Catharina problem above, Mr. Goll has it correct. The only baptism of a child of Wolff Gockeler and wife, Barbara, is the one in 1612. None afterwards. The baptisms from 1609-1611 are not extant. The marriages and deaths from this time period do not exist as well.”

In other words, we’ve hit a dead end.

Or maybe not entirely.

Digging Up Wolff

What can I dig up about Wolff Gockeler?

To begin with, absolutely nothing in Beutelsbach. Not one thing. Just as Tom said. How frustrating.

However, as Martin mentioned, Schnait didn’t have its own church until the 1560/70s. Before that, everyone in Schnait attended church and had all of their religious work done in Beutelsbach, meaning baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and funerals.

German citizens typically didn’t have a child baptized in a church where they didn’t live and weren’t citizens.

However, records for this timeframe are very scarce and only partially exist. Not to mention that the area was devastated by the plague which arrived and retreated in waves.

Unexpected circumstances could have forced the family to have baby Catharina baptized in Beutelsbach. Maybe the child was sickly and in peril. According to the religious doctrine of that time, a baby needed to be baptized before death if at all possible.

Maybe the Reverend was ill or absent, and the Beutelsbach church was the closest nearby location. Typically the baptism record would state such, and it says nothing to indicate that the parents lived in Schnait, not Beutelsbach. The godparents were Beutelsbach residents as well.

The plague had ravaged this area in 1595, so maybe Wolff Gockeler and Barbara had moved to Beutelsbach for his trade or profession. Of course, we don’t know what Wolff’s profession might have been – but Martin Goll thinks that Catharina’s parents were wealthy, which is how her husband, Hans Lenz, a baker from Schnait, wound up with ten vineyards when most people had one, at most.

If that’s the case, Catharina’s father may have been a well-to-do vintner, which means he was probably also a merchant, selling as well as producing wine. Almost every family was tied to the grape, wine, and vineyards in this region – if not directly – then secondarily. If you were a baker, like Hans Lenz, your customers were vinedressers and vintners.

The Path Leads to Schnait

We find nothing in Beutelsbach, but in the Schnait family book, we find several men named Wolff Gockeler or derivatives, but none with a wife named Barbara. Of course, Wolff could have been married to other women, either before or after Barbara, or both. He may not have married in Schnait. Or, the records we need could simply not exist anymore.

In Schnait, from the family book, we find:

1. Wolff Gockeler, wife Dorothea, had son, Hanns Goeckeler on February 27, 1564, godparents Michel Ruele and Marta Schwegler. This birth date for Hanss puts Wolff’s birth sometime before 1540.
2. Wolff Gockeler, wife Maria, had a daughter Catharina on March 25, 1595. This clearly isn’t the correct Catharina. This birth date puts Wolfe’s birth sometime around 1570 or earlier. This may very well be #4 below.
3. Wolfgang Gockeler born October 15, 1598, died October 25, 1626 of the plague, and married Catharina Vaihinger, who died just a couple of months after Golfgang. Of their three children, the first child, Anna, lived long enough to marry, but the next two, born in 1622 and 1624, both died in the summer of 1635. (Note – keep 1635 in mind. More in a minute.) This Wolfgang Gockeler’s parents were Wolfgang Gockeler and Maria Dendler.
4. Wolfgang Gockeler born in 1565 in Schnait and died in September of 1635 married Maria Dendler, who died in 1622. (There’s 1635 again.) They had six children, one of whom was a Catharina, born on March 25, 1596, and who died on May 18, 1636, in Schnait. Her death record says, “daughter, 40 years old, died of starvation.” Wolfgang and Maria had five other children. Of those, four are baptized but never mentioned again, which most of the time means they died young. The other child, Johannes, also died in July of 1635. (1635 again.)
5. Wolfgangius Gockeler was born on March 11, 1582, to Lucas Goeckeler and Barbara Haan, but no further information is available about this child, or any of Lucas and Barbara’s five other children.
6. Wolfgangus Gockeler was born March 9, 1586, to Lucas Goeckeler and Catherine, surname unknown. No further information is known. Lucas and Catherine had six other children. Nothing is known about five of them, but son Lucas died in October 1626 in Schnait of the plague.

Wolff’s Age

Of course, we don’t know when our Wolff Gockeler was born, but traditionally, a German man didn’t marry until he was about age 25. He needed to be able to support a family first.

If Catharina was his first child, Wolff would have been born no later than 1587ish.

If Barbara was roughly his same age, and Catharina was their last child when Barbara was age 45, then Wolff and Barbara would have been born 1567ish. Of course, if Barbara was a younger wife, Wolff could have been born earlier.

Wolff and Barbara were born sometime between roughly 1567-1587.

Of the various men listed above, we can:

• Probably eliminate #1 due to age and a different wife, although clearly, people remarried. This Wolff was already having children in 1564.
• Combine #2 with #4.
• Eliminate #3 who was born too late.
• Eliminate #4 because our Catharina’s mother was not named Maria, and Wolffgang was married to Maria in 1612 based on their children’s births.

Both #5 and #6 are good candidates to be “our” Wolff, both due to the dates they were born and due to the fact that nothing more about either of them appears in the Schnait church record. This would make sense if Wolff moved to and became a citizen of Beutelsbach.

Given that there were two Wolfgangus/Wolfgangius Gockelers, both about the same age, and both living in Schnait at the same time, this tells us that they did not have the same father, but could well have had the same grandfather who might have been named Wolfgangus.

We also have two Lucas Gockelers in Schnait at the same time as well, both having children. It’s evident that even though we don’t have the records, the Gockeler family was in residence here at least two generations earlier, given that Hans was born by 1540, and likely before that. This family’s history reaches back before existing records.

As cousin Tom said, “This will have to be the end of the Gockeler story as anything prior to this would be speculation without some additional data from other sources. Martin Goll has done a great job on this massive history.”

Other Gockelers

While this is certainly the end of anything resembling proof, it’s worth taking a look at anything Gockeler in the region during this timeframe, or earlier.

My friend, Maree, who lives halfway around the world, down under, sent me the following phone screenshot that she discovered using her local library.

Some days she finds wonderful information surfing on her phone that gets missed otherwise. Apparently, not everything from the church records is not yet recorded in the online Schnait family book.

Thank you, Maree!!

Hmmm, look, another Wolffgangus was born in 1579 to Lucas and Barbara.

Here’s the actual entry.

Given that Lucas Gockeler and Barbara, assuming there was only one couple by that name in Schnait during this time, was the same couple that had the child, Wolfgangius in 1582, this 1579 child would have died.

There was an earlier Wolffgang Gockeler in Schnait though, one who married Maria Dalderls in 1588.

The record has been translated as Gackeler, but assuredly, it’s the same family.

This is the same man as #4 in our Wolffgangius list. We know this is not our Wolff because this man’s daughter, Catherine, died in 1636, at 40 years of age, in Schnait, of starvation.

Think about the larger ramifications of that cause of death.

Starvation

Starvation. Even that word makes me cringe – and ask exceedingly difficult questions.

How long does it take an adult to starve to death?

It can take months if water and even small amounts of food or any kind of nutrition are available. People ate acorns, wood, and sawdust, yet perished anyway. Starvation is utterly horrific.

She wasn’t the only one. Notice all of those 1635 and 1636 deaths, including many young people – far more than normal.

The fact that residents were starving, beginning in 1634 and reaching across 1635 and 1636, tells you how awful, complete, and prolonged the devastation was following the Battle of Nordlingen.

Family Name

Clearly, Wolffgangius was a name passed down in this family for generations which makes for same-name confusion. The Wolffgangius, who married in 1588 and whose father was Hans, would have been born around 1560.

Based on the earliest records, we know that there was a Hans Gockeler having children in Schnait early, probably by about 1535, so born about 1510 or earlier, but that Hans is not the father of our Wolff Gockeler who was born later. At least we’ve eliminated one person.

How many Gockeler families lived in Schnait anyway?

How Big was Schnait?

The earliest church records we have for Schnait are the final three months of 1562, the full year of 1563, and the first three months of 1564. Then we have a half page of German script that, instead of additional church records, reveals some local drama that was probably quite serious.

According to my native German-speaking friend, Chris, the first note was written by Georg Schilling, pastor in Schnait, and is about his predecessor Bastian Lutz, whom he describes as “alcohol-addicted and did not take care of his duties. Plus, finally, because of this behavior, Bastian Lutz was buried beside the church, not in it.” Hoo-boy!!!

The next note is not legible but seems to be a note to Pastor Schilling.

This drama may well have been why the Schnait church records were discontinued abruptly in 1564, as reflected on the next page, and did not resume until 1570. It’s possible that the church was without a pastor for that many years.

However, the existing 1562-1564 records, combined with the records from 1570-1579 provide enough information to be able to extrapolate more about the population of Schnait.

Math is Our Friend

These records show an average of 2.25 baptisms each month, but not all of those babies lived.

Some infants perished and were buried not long after their births, having little crosses painfully scribed above their names in their birth record by the Reverend. Therefore, several women would be bringing another child into the world about that same time the following year.

For those mothers whose children did survive the first year, they would be having another baby about 18 months later.

Using this information, the calculations are as follows:

• If every woman of reproductive age had a child once per year, that birth rate equates to about 27 couples having children.
• If every woman of reproductive age had a child once every 18 months, that equates to about 40 different couples.
• The actual number of couples is probably between those two numbers, so let’s say maybe 34 or 35.

There would be some households that were beyond childbearing years – maybe half as many as were having children since not many people lived beyond 60. However, I suspect that many households were multi-generational, with older couples living with family members, or maybe younger families living with one set of parents.

That gives us someplace between 35 and 50 total houses in Schnait in the 1560s and 1570s, and we’ve already seen that several families, at least 5 or 6, had the Gockeler surname.

Keep in mind that this is before the population was reduced by the Plague in 1595, and the dramatic reduction by about half in the first half of the 1600s due to the 30 Years’ War.

I have to wonder, were there Gockelers nearby too?

Cousin Wolfram’s Records

I’m related to Wolfram Callenius through multiple lines. He lives a few miles away and is deeply interested in both the history of the region and our families. You can find the index of his ancestors, here.

Under Gockeler, Wolfram shows several ancestors from Schnait.

Granted, none of these are mine, but that doesn’t mean we don’t share ancestors. Given that his and my Gockeler families are in the same small town, early, and have the same surname, it’s almost assured that we do connect, even if it’s before the preserved records.

His earliest listed Schnait Gockeler ancestor is Johannes, born in 1594:

Clicking on Johannes’ parents shows an earlier Hans born about 1566, during that records gap.

Clicking on his parents shows just the name, Hans.

This Hans would have been born about 1540 or earlier.

That’s the end of the Schnait line, but Wolfram has discovered an earlier Balthasar Gockeler (also Geckeler) in Grunbach, born about 1555. The Grunbach family book is here and the Gockelers in Grunbach, here.

I tracked Wolfram’s line closer in time, and about three generations later, one of Balthasar’s male Gockeler descendants arrived in Grosheppach, across the river from Beutelsbach, and intermarried with the Ellwanger family, also found in Schnait.

Was this perhaps a migration path for the Gockeler family?

Were the Schnait Gockelers related to the Grunbach Gockelers?

Well, where is Grunbach? That would tell us a lot!

AHA – literally just across the river, close to Grossheppach. Yep, these two Gockeler lines are very likely connected in the early 1500s, and earlier.

Y DNA Would Tell the Story

At this point, given that we are back beyond existing church records, the only possible way to definitively solve this mystery would be Y DNA testing of the Gockeler males from both Grunbach and Schnait/Beutelsbach. If any Gockeler male descends from these or nearby lines, please reach out – I’ll provide a DNA testing scholarship.

What Do We Know?

Having gathered as much material as possible, what do we actually know about Wolff Gockeler and his wife, Barbara?

• Literally, all we know beyond question is that their daughter, Catharina, was born in Beutelsbach in 1612. We can, however, infer a few other things.
• Wolff would have been at least in his mid-20s and Barbara, at least in her early 20s in 1612 when their daughter was born, putting their births in the mid/late 1680s or earlier. Roughly 1567-1587.
• Based on Martin Goll’s opinion, extrapolated from later records, that their daughter, Catherina, was from a well-to-do family, Wolff was likely a vintner and/or merchant.
• Wolff Gockeler and Barbara were probably residents of Beutelsbach in 1612, based on the lack of any indication otherwise in the church records, and that the witnesses to Catharina’s baptism, her Godparents, were Beutelsbach residents.
• Wolff was probably the Wolfgangius born in Schnait in either 1582 or 1586 to either one of the Lucas Gockelers.
• Given that the Schnait records do mostly exist for this time period, and the Beutelsbach records mostly do not, it’s likely that Wolff and Barbara had additional children in Beutelsbach.
• The 30 Years’ War broke out six years after Catharina’s birth in 1612. Wolff and Barbara would have been between 30 and 50.
• Beutelsbach church records do not exist during that war and don’t begin again until about 1646.
• We know from the Schnait church records that the plague devastated this region in 1626, and it’s certainly possible that either Wolff or Barbara, or both, died during the plague outbreak.
• In 1634, 1635, and 1636, the residents of both Beutelsbach and Schnait were literally starving. Many died. We see that evidence in the Schnait church records.
• In December of 1634, following the Battle of Nordlingen, soldiers plundered and set fire to Beutelsbach, burning the town to the ground and killing anyone who attempted to resist. If Wolff and Barbara were still living, they would have been at least 50 years old, but possibly as old as 70. If Barbara had children into her 40s, who lived, they could have had children as young as 7 or 8.

Photo courtesy cousin Wolfram

If Wolff and Barbara were still living in 1634, were they able to get to the church, up the stairs, through the gate, above, and into the fortified churchyard in time, or were they destined to perish in the fire, or be massacred?

Their daughter, Catharina, married shortly after the fire to Hans Lenz, the Beutelsbach baker (originally from Schnait) who was widowed during the fire. Catharina would have been 22 years old in 1634, prime marriage age – but if her parents had died, that would have certainly encouraged her marriage sooner than later. What was an orphaned 22-year-old female to do?

If Wolff and Barbara witnessed their daughter’s marriage, they would have become immediate step-grandparents to 7-year-old George Lenz, whose mother had perished in the fire.

If Wolff and Barbara died either during the 1626 plague, the 1634 fire or the horrific starving time from at least 1634-1636, Catharina might have been the only child left to inherit her father’s vineyards, which would have explained her and Hans Lenz’s eventual wealth, after the war, when the vineyards slowly began producing again.

Photo courtesy Martin Goll

The grapevines on the hillsides rising above Beutelsbach and Schnait may have been the only things to survive the fire and the devastation of the region. Those grapes may have sustained the population when there was nothing else, nothing left. Wine was then, and is now, a fundamental staple in the lives of the residents of Beutelsbach and Schnait.

Wine is, literally, life.

Perhaps it was from that legacy, those vineyards, left by Wolff and Barbara that Catharina and Hans were able to survive and rise again.

Just as we descend from them, maybe this vineyard descends Wolff and Barbara’s vines that survived 400 years ago.

Their Deaths

We can infer that both Wolff and Barbara died sometime after 1612 and before 1646 when the Beutelsbach church records at least began to be sketchily kept again.

We can also, sadly, infer that Catharina was probably their only surviving child. At least she was their only child that died in Beutelsbach, because there is no further mention of Wolff and Barbara as the parents of anyone who died after the war. Generally, when people died, the minister recorded the identity of their parents. That’s how we know who Catharina’s parents were – her own death record in 1677. Were it not for that minister’s few words, we would never have known that Catharina was a Gockeler, nor who her parents were. I’m incredibly grateful to that long-deceased nameless minister in Beutelsbach.

Catharina herself had only one child that survived, so having no or few descendants certainly wasn’t unusual during that horrific, devastating three-decades-long descend into the fiery pits of Hell. Martin Goll tells us that the population of Schnait fell by one-third and Beutelsbach, by half. This means that the population wasn’t replacing itself, and essentially, every couple that was reproducing, on average, only had one child that survived. That’s incredibly grim when you remember that women often gave birth to a dozen children in their lifetimes.

By the time the 30 Years’ War ended, in 1648, Wolff and Barbara would have been on the north side of 60. Even without a war spanning three decades, successive waves of plagues and epidemics, not to mention the fire and starvation years, odds were against survival beyond 60.

I think we can reasonably infer that, by the end of the war, Wolff and Barbara were no longer with us and that they were likely buried in the Beutelsbach churchyard where Catharina visited them regularly – every time she went to church – or buried another child.

The days in which Wolff and Barbara lived were indeed sorrowful and sorrow-filled times.

Sunset

It looks like our Gockeler line has come to at least a tentative end in Beutelsbach, but maybe, just maybe, there’s still a little more to be distilled. Like fine wine that morphs into brandy.

If I were a betting person, I’d bet that our Wolff is the Wolfgangius born in either 1582 or 1586 to one of the two Lucas Goeckelers in Schnait.

I’d also bet that one of the Lucases is the son of the earlier Hans Gockeler in Schnait.

And, I’d bet that the contemporaneous Balthasar Gockeler line in Grunback is the same Gockeler family, connecting at some point back in time. Who knows which came first, Schnait or Grunbach. We know that Gockelers lived in both villages in the early 1500s. We also find Wolff Gockeler, clearly short for Wolffgangius, in Beutelsbach by 1612.

Those populations intermingled over the decades and centuries.

Harkening Back

The name Wolfgangius harkens back to the Catholic Latin naming conventions, not the more protestant Wolfgang. That’s not surprising.

The century before Wolfgangus’s birth had been violent and divided in the Germanic part of the Holy Roman Empire, both politically and religiously.

Wurttemberg was located dead center in the middle, in yellow.

This region had been a hotbed of conflict for a very long time, most of the 1500s – and our Gockeler family was there to experience it all firsthand.

Poor Conrad’s Peasant Revolt began in Beutelsbach on May 2, 1514, against Ulrich, Duke of Wurttemberg, following crop failures in 1509 and 1513, which caused an increase in taxes to fill the resulting deficit in the noble coffers. However, the peasants had no way of paying. They were desperate, but peasants and serfs had no legal rights and no opportunity to improve their lot in life.

The Duke didn’t care. He just wanted their money at any cost. His opulent lifestyle and resulting debt required funding, no matter the effect on his subjects. It would be safe to say he was intensely disliked.

The resulting uprising took place beneath the hilltop Kappelberg Castle, now in ruins, , but shown below before 1819.

The Duke sent troops into the Rems Valley, hauling some 1700 rebels off to Schorndorf, which only had a population of 3000, where torture, prison, and the beheading of the leaders dampened their spirit and deterred additional resistance, at least for a few years.

Were Gockeler men among the rebels? It’s likely, given the number of people involved and the size of the local villages, but we’ll never know for sure. If villages like Schnait, Beutelsbach, Grunbach, and Grossheppach had maybe 50 houses each, 1700 people would encompass many villages in the region.

Hang on tight, because next came the Reformation, which was the equivalent of lighting a fire under a powder keg.

The Protestant Reformation began in Germany with Martin Luther in 1517, eventually transforming most of Germany from a Catholic to a Protestant state. The Reformation, in turn, inspired the second peasant revolt known as the German Peasant’s War which spread throughout Germany, peaking in 1524 and 1525.

Unfortunately for the peasants, that revolt failed too, and more than 100,000 were slaughtered, or about one-third of the people who took part. Then, noble landowners increased the taxes once again.

It’s no wonder that few records exist from this time. It was in this timeframe that the Protestant church was born. Villages throughout the land saw their Catholic churches forcibly become Protestant.

From the 1530s through the 1560s, Catholic church records, along with the church statues and icons, were destroyed during the Reformation, followed by the church buildings being reconstituted as Protestant.

The recessed piscina, present in every Catholic church wall was used for washing the communion basin, chalice, and to dispose of sacred substances, such as Holy Water and Sacramental Wine.

Those sacred liquids that had become Holy by being blessed by the priest were returned to the Earth by draining inside the church wall to prevent them from being used in sorcery.

Piscinas were retired and sometimes filled in and plastered over, reminders that the church, and her attendees, had once been Catholic.

Parishioners’ faith and rituals changed as well, by edict of the ruling nobles and without consent or agreement of the governed. While many people would have welcomed the new religion, that certainly wouldn’t have been unanimous. It was unquestionably a time of great upheaval, fear, uncertainty, and angst.

It’s likely that Wolff’s grandparents would have told him stories about what happened. They might have been children, and their parents told them about participating in Poor Conrad’s Rebellion. About not being able to pay their taxes. About the people who were taken away and tortured – and about those who dared to speak up and never returned.

How the rebellion melted away because they knew what would happen, otherwise. And how the resentment continued to fester, like an infected boil. The scene was set and the situation primed. All that was needed was someone or something to light the match.

A few years later, probably when Wolff’s grandparents were young, or maybe young adults, they would have heard about a rebel priest named Martin Luther and how he came to reject several of the Roman Catholic teachings, beginning with indulgences – in essence, buying your way out of church-prescribed punishments. Of course, poor peasants couldn’t afford indulgences, either.

Luther believed and began to teach that salvation was not earned by specific deeds or behaviors but received as a gift of God’s Grace through faith – essentially challenging the Pope and his authority. Luther taught that the Bible was the only source of divinely revealed knowledge, not the Pope or any church authority.

Heresy, pure heresy.

Then, in 1517, that priest became even bolder. He authored the Ninety-five Theses and reportedly nailed them to the All Saints’ Church door in Wittenberg for all to see – which sent the church and everyone else into a tizzy!

Of course, the entire countryside would have been talking about Luther and his heretical writings. In these 95 numbered opinions, Luther claimed that the Bible was the central religious authority and the people only reached salvation by their faith, not their deeds. Even more controversial, he outright said that the Pope had no power over Purgatory and indulgences don’t remove guilt.

Was he right? Did people really deserve punishment? If they didn’t deserve church-imposed punishment, then there would be no need to purchase indulgences, right? Could this be true?

Luther was causing people to question their beliefs and the teaching of the Catholic church and to discuss and debate Luther’s bullet points.

Luther’s interpretation changed EVERYTHING. The Catholic church considered Martin Luther a heretic. The populace found hope in his teachings. The Catholic church banned Luther’s teachings and his Ninety-Five Theses – which of course, meant that everyone wanted to hear about them. Forbidding something assures it will be sought.

The farmers, peasants, merchants, and hausfraus would have been chattering like magpies, with word passing at lightning speed through the human grapevine.

Luther’s name was on the lips of every patron in every market and pub in Germany, where, assuredly, every person shared a strongly held opinion and was probably sharing it freely.

In 1521, the Pope excommunicated Luther, but Luther refused to recant his statements and teachings and was ordered to appear before the Diet of Worms, shown in the painting below, where he was, in essence, tried by a tribunal within the church.

For five days, private conferences were held to determine Luther’s fate. The emperor presented the final draft of the Edict of Worms on May 25, 1521, declaring Luther an outlaw, banning his literature, and requiring his arrest: “We want him to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic.”  It also made it a crime for anyone in Germany to give Luther food or shelter and permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence.

He was a condemned man – marked for death by the Catholic church.

It was open season on Luther, and one could be confident that his demise was all-but-assured, although they agreed that he could return home safely. Yea, right. Wink, wink.

On his way home, Luther disappeared, kidnapped by masked horsemen dressed as highway robbers. It was a sham, however, and he was taken into the protection of the Wartburg Castle, where he safely began forming the new religion that would soon become the Lutheran faith.

The Reformation movement had begun in earnest. The Diet of Worms had both struck the match and poured gasoline on the fire.

Luther, by then excommunicated, went further and condemned Catholic Mass as idolatry. Priests and nuns could break their vows without sin, because those vows were illegitimate anyway in a vain attempt to win salvation through unwarranted deprivation and an attempt to win favors from God – as prescribed by the Pope and church. Friars began to revolt, as did many in the populace.

Others were equally as strongly opposed to Luther and his teachings, convinced he would spend eternity burning in Hell and eager to send him there sooner rather than later.

Speculation about what Luther was up to, pro or con, would have been the daily discussion in every village marketplace and in hushed whispers, or maybe not so hushed, in every church.

Luther’s willingness to challenge the powerful Catholic church led German peasants, everyday working people, toilers of the soil, like the residents of Beutelsbach and Schnait, to believe that he would support their revolt against the injustices being wrought upon them by the nobility, much like he rejected the authority of the Catholic church. Emboldened once again. the German Peasants’ War began anew in 1524 and quickly spread throughout Germany.

Taking a lead from Luther, the leaders of the peasant troops drafted, printed and circulated their own Twelve Articles that, among other things, demanded that the tithes required by the Catholic church be rescinded.

The Twelve Articles demanded:

• The right for communities to elect and depose clergymen demanded the utilization of the “great tithe” for public purposes after subtraction of a reasonable pastor’s salary. The “great tithe” was assessed by the Catholic Church against the peasants’ wheat and vine crops, and often amounted to more than 10% of the peasant’s income.
• The abolition of the “small tithe,” which was assessed against the peasant’s other crops.
• The abolition of serfdom, death tolls, and the exclusion from fishing and hunting rights; restoration of the forests, pastures, and privileges withdrawn from the community and individual peasants by the nobility
• A restriction on excessive statute labor, taxes, and rents.
• An end to arbitrary justice and administration.

The peasants had misjudged Luther. In 1525, Luther condemned the violence and became enraged at the result of his own instigations, especially the sacking of convents and churches. He began to wonder what he had unleashed, but that freight train was already speeding headlong down the tracks.

The 1525 Peasant’s War ended tragically, with many who participated being slaughtered. Luther seemed to take credit for this turn of events, and many in the populace felt utterly betrayed. Crushed. They believed and trusted Luther, sacrificing everything, and found themselves in a spiritual and personal never-never land, a personal purgatory. What were they to think? What were they to do? Should they believe him? Why did this happen?

Luther married a former nun in 1526, and between then and 1529, established a supervisory church body and prescribed a new form of worship, replacing the Catholic rituals. He translated the Bible into German from Latin, finishing in 1534, so the German people could read God’s Word for themselves. They didn’t have to rely on a priest for translation and interpretation. They could have a personal relationship with God, without an intermediary.

The advent of the printing press meant that Martin Luther’s new Bible, along with thousands of pamphlets critical of Catholicism, could be printed in masse, distributed, and read by German citizens.

Everyone would have wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and discuss Luther’s points, probably at great length.

The resulting arguments were probably quite heated.

Wurttemberg became Lutheran in 1534 by ducal edict, just 50 years or so before Wolfgangius Gockeler was born.

The Catholic relics in the Beutelsbach church would have been retired or perhaps confiscated by the Duke for their monetary value, and the records destroyed. The priest was replaced with a Lutheran minister, a Bible written in German along with new teachings and traditions.

Perhaps Wolffgangius held the first German Bible his family owned in his own hands.

Did he read that Bible, interpreting God’s word for himself instead of relying on a language, Latin, that he didn’t understand and interpretation by Catholic priests?

Did he hold his grandfather’s German Bible close, or did he cherish a Latin Bible, perhaps because it had once belonged to a beloved grandfather or great-grandfather? Perhaps a man who had perished during the revolts?

How did the Gockeler family feel about any of this? Were they unified or find themselves deeply divided in their beliefs?

Did some people embrace the new tenets, finding them more in touch with their everyday lives, while others staunchly protected and defended the religion and rites they had always known, fearful of the fires of Hell if they did otherwise?

Beginning in 1534, they had no choice about their public religion, but their own personal convictions couldn’t be controlled by edict.

What stories were repeated from generation to generation around the table, to Wolffgangius, and then to his daughter, Catharina? Wolffgangius knew people, family members, and other village residents, who had experienced all of these events personally.

The fact that we have ANY records from that era is rather amazing. If our Wolfgangius Gockeler was born in the mid-1580s, he was probably only two generations removed from Catholicism – and maybe only one. His grandparents could easily have been and probably were baptized Catholic, and his parents may well have been secretly performing the Catholic rituals, like repeating the Rosary, that brought their parents and grandparents comfort in their time of need.

And there was so much need during this time.

In the Beutelsbach church, maybe the “Hail Mary,” repeated during the Catholic Rosary was replaced with the Lutheran “Jesus Prayer,” but using the same sacred rosary beads, passed down within families for centuries. Maybe the transition wasn’t all-or-nothing, bringing reluctant parishioners along slowly by allowing some retention of the familiar.

Catholicism wasn’t simply a preference, but a deeply held conviction taught from early childhood and reinforced on a nearly daily basis through universally-accepted, oft-repeated community and personal rituals and church services – baptisms, marriages, confessions, funerals, and burials in a prescribed manner. The requisite Seven Sacred Sacraments.

Perhaps Wolfgangius, a Latin name, given at his baptism, was a wink and a nod to the one thing citizens could still control – selecting their child’s name. Perhaps he was named for his grandfather and the men in preceding Gockeler generations. One thing is certain – Wolfgangius was a popular name in the family and likely had been for generations. It was, after all, a saintly name – Saint Wolfgangus was the Bishop of Regensburg, Germany, and canonized in 1052.

Photo courtesy Sharon Hockensmith

Family members could sit in the beautiful collegiate church in Beutelsbach, close their eyes, and harken back to the time when the Catholic priest was baptizing the newborn babies, speaking Latin, instead of the Lutheran minister. I couldn’t help but notice the month names in the earliest Beutelsbach and Schnait Lutheran church books in the 1560s and 1570s were still written in Latin – so perhaps the Lutheran minister sometimes spoke in Latin as well.

There is comfort in age-old rituals that sustained our ancestors. Old habits die hard.

Indeed, I can hear the minister’s voice echo in the stone church where so many baptizers’ voices had echoed since the Beutelsbach church was built in the 1200s. The Holy Water and Catholic Priests may have been gone, but the baptismal font and the intentions weren’t.

Salvation is salvation – in whatever language.

“I baptize thee, Wolfgangius Gockeler, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.”

Amen.

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here or follow me on Twitter, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

• FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
• MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
• MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
• AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
• 23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
• 23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

• MyHeritage FREE Tree Builder – Genealogy software for your computer
• MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
• Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
• Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
• Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
• NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Book

• DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
• DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US

Genealogy Books

• Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books

Genealogy Research

• Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

Catharina or Katharina Gockeler was born in Schnait, Germany on October 9, 1612, to Hans Gockeler and his wife, Katharina, whose surname is unknown.

(Update – her parents were Wolff Gockeler and wife, Barbara, not Hans and Katherina. See the Wolff Gockeler article.)

For some time, Katharina’s surname was recorded as Lenz. She did marry a Lenz man, but in a small German village, it certainly wouldn’t be unheard of for the bride’s surname to be the same since families had resided in that area for generations. Martin Goll, the local historian, discovered that her surname was Gockeler, not Lenz, and provided me with updated information. A HUGE thank you to Martin for this and all of his other research which he has generously shared.

Katharina’s Childhood

Photo courtesy of cousin Wolfram.

Katharina’s parents and godparents stood beside the minister at the baptismal font before the alter in St. Wendelin Church as baby Katharina was baptized.

Hans Lenz, the baker, would have been attending church that day too. He lived where the red star is located, just a few feet away, across the market square from the church in Schnait.

Hans Lenz had a son, also named Hans Lenz, who was born on January 24, 1602. Hans the younger would have been ten years old at the time and was likely attending church with his parents. During Katharina’s baptism, he was probably squirming and fidgeting in that hard wooden pew, the way 10-year-old boys do, not very patiently waiting for church to be over.

I wonder if Hans remembered being present at Katharina‘s baptism. If Hans was a normal boy, he was probably either annoyed at having to stay late for the baptism, or distracted by a bug, leaf, or some such. However, 23 years later, Hans Lenz would marry that baby girl.

A lot would happen during that 23 years, though.

Schnait

Schnait, shown here in 1685, was a beautiful, quaint, village, nestled between hills, just a block or two in either direction.

Most residents were vinedressers, tending the vineyards on the rolling hillsides outside town, except for the obligatory butcher, baker, and candlestick maker in every village, plus the minister, of course.

The Gockelers had family in neighboring Beutelsbach, as did most families in Schnait, according to early records. Prior to 1570, Schnait was too small to have its own church, so the families in Schnait worshipped in Beutelsbach and were quite intertwined.

The War Begins

In 1618, the 30 Years‘ War changed everyone‘s life – causing terror for the next three decades. Nothing would ever be the same.

Of course, when the war began, no one knew how long it would last, or if Schnait and this part of Germany would be directly involved.

Katherina would have been six years old. Perhaps her parents tried, at least at first, to shield her from what was going on so she wouldn’t be afraid. Soon enough, though, everyone knew. And everyone was afraid.

Unfortunately, the war came to their doorstep and barged into their homes as an unwelcome guest. Catholic and Protestant Princes faced off against one another, their armies battling for decades on German soil. Wurttemberg was a central battlefield of the war, with its population declining by 57% during that time.

Starvation, illness, displacement, and the actual war itself, of course – all took a terrible toll.

The Plague

In 1626, a plague swept through the region, fueled by military conditions, battles, troop movements, and the behavior of the soldiers. Plague and illness were rampant in the camps, and the soldiers moved from place to place, marching across the countryside, again and again.

Celebrations and rituals of normalcy would have been most welcome.

Daydreaming

It’s likely that, a few years later, Katharina attended the wedding of Hans Lenz the younger when he married the Schnait church minister’s daughter, Agnes Eyb, about 1627. The girls certainly knew each other, even though Agnes was older than Katharina by 11 years. Perhaps Katharina looked up to Agnes as the Reverend’s daughter. They had known each other all of their lives and may have been related in one way or another, or many.

At 13, Katharina may have sat during weddings imagining herself as the beautiful blushing bride, one day marrying the love of her life.

God willing, and the war didn’t interfere, one day, it would be her turn.

The war, and thoughts of the war, permeated everything. Even a young girl’s daydreams.

That damned war.

Beutelsbach

Hans Lenz, the baker, and his bride settled up the road in Beutelsbach, while Katherina continued to live in Schnait with her parents.

Infant mortality hovered around 50% during normal times when a war was not taking place, but lack of food, marauding soldiers, pillaging, burning, and the destruction of homes and sometimes entire villages caused the infant mortality rate to rise steeply.

The war dragged on, with soldiers coming and going, taking whatever they wanted, and laying waste to wide swaths of the countryside. Everyone was in danger, all of the time, no matter which side the soldiers were on.

Pressure began to build leading up to the horrific Battle of Nordlingen, arguably the most important battle of the war, fought in September of 1634 not far from Beutelsbach, involving 58,000 soldiers.

Someplace between 12,000 and 16,000 were killed, mostly Protestants, with another 4,000 Protestant soldiers taken captive. How does anyone even begin to bury that many bodies?

The Protestant troops lost that battle, soundly beaten, routed, defeated, making the situation infinitely worse for the German Protestant towns, now occupied by angry, emboldened Catholic soldiers in direct, daily conflict with villagers.

What could possibly go wrong in that pressure-cooker?

By 1634, soldiers were quartered in Beutelsbach. After the Battle of Nordlingen, citizens and village authorities alike were reduced to either begging or bribing soldiers NOT to burn their homes – meaning that in most cases, the pitiful residents had literally nothing of any value left, and no food. Soldiers on both sides took everything.

Until that time, because Hans was a baker and vintner, his property was probably spared because the soldiers enjoyed eating and drinking. Armies run on their stomachs. In other words, Hans was useful to them, but after Nordlingen, that wouldn’t matter anymore.

Fire!

On December 6, 1634, three months after Nordlingen fell, the anger boiled over, and their greatest fear was realized.

Beutelsbach was torched by the soldiers. Anyone who resisted was brutally killed.

Katharina would have watched from Schnait, a mile or so away, as flames rose up and licked the sky. Black smoke billowed over the landscape, for hours, and pretty much everything, save the walled and fortified church, was consumed.

Residents in both locations were cousins probably hundreds of ways. In other words, there wasn’t anyone you weren’t related to, and often, closely.

There was nothing they could do in Schnait while Beutelsbach burned, except to gather as safely as possible, probably in the church, pray, and prepare to shelter any survivors.

God, let there be survivors.

The Schnait minister’s sister was Hans Lenz’s wife, Agnes, living in Beutelsbach.

Agnes was severely burned and was brought to her brother’s home in Schnait. Three days, later, on November 9th, she died and was buried in the Schnait churchyard the following day after her brother preached her funeral. Her brother scribed an agonizing entry in the church “Book of the Dead“ about his “dear sister“ who was burned in the great fire set by the soldiers. His grief-stricken entry is how we know what happened, and when Beutelsbach burned.

Agnes left behind her husband, Hans, and probably young children, if any survived.

Agnes and Hans had been married about seven years, so she would have given birth to at least 3 or 4 children in Beutelsbach, where they lived, although Beutelsbach church records don’t exist for this timeframe.

It’s likely that Hans and Agnes’s children either died as babies, children, or during that horrific fire.

It’s also possible that one of their children outlived Agnes. Martin Goll believes that Georg Lenz (1627-1663), who became a barber-surgeon in Beutelsbach was their child.

If that’s the case, then when Katharina Gockler married the widower, Hans Lenz, sometime about 1635, she would have raised her friend, Agnes’s child or perhaps children as well.

Katharina Marries Hans

As Katharina sat in the church watching Hans and Agnes exchange wedding vows when she was 13 years old, never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined for one minute that SHE would one day marry Hans.

In fact, if Katharina were dreaming about someone as her eventual groom, it would have been some cute boy closer to her age, sitting a pew or two over, thinking about frogs, not a man a decade older at 23.

Yet, it would come to be. Rising from the ashes.

A few months after the fire, sometime about 1635, Katharina Gockler married the widower, Hans Lenz. Again, we have no church records.

Given the circumstances when they began their married life, they did surprisingly well. The war was in its 17th year, give or take, and must have seemed “normal” in a terrible way. They had known nothing else as adults, and war had been a fact of life for most of Katharina’s lifetime – since she was six years old.

Katharina moved to Beutelsbach, where Hans was the baker and vintner, and, as a team, they started over.

Martin believes that a good portion of Hans Lenz‘s wealth came in some way from his wife, Katherina. During his lifetime, Hans built a new house at Siftstrasse 17, pictured above, which still stands today. Additionally, he had at least eight vineyards with just under one hectare, or about 2.5 acres. Most families made do with about one-tenth of that, or a quarter-acre vineyard.

Children

We know that Katharina had four children, based on either records after the war or their church death records as adults, where her name is spelled both Catharina and Katharina. We have no records of children who were born and died during the war, except inferences by silent, vacant spaces in the too-large gap years between births of known children, all of whom were born and died in Beutelsbach. If they died elsewhere after the war, we have no record of them.

• If Hans and Katherina were married about 1635, they would have had about five children, every 18 months to two years, before having the first child who lived. How soul-crushing for Katharina. I wonder if she dreaded each pregnancy, fearing the death of yet another baby.

Finally, finally, a son was born and survived. Katharina must have been ecstatic and held her breath daily, praying for the best, but fearing the worst.

• Hans Lenz, my ancestor, also a baker who became a vintner, was born in 1645, during the war, and died on January 22, 1725. He married Barbara Sing in 1669 in Beutelsbach and had 11 children, 6 of which survived to adulthood. Barbara was living for the births of her first six grandchildren, which must have brought her immense joy.
• Daughter, Katharina Lenz was born on October 26, 1646, and died on October 13, 1689, outliving her mother. She was described as “simple“ in the church records. After her parents’ deaths, she lived with her brother, Hans, who utilized her share of their inheritance to care for her.
• Another child would have been born in 1648, the year the war finally ended.
• Maria Lenz was born on January 5, 1650, and died a week later. Another small wooden cross in the churchyard.
• Another child was probably born in 1652.
• A daughter, born on March 9, 1654, was also named Maria. She died in 1677 at the age of 23. Martin Goll found no spouse or children for her.

By 1654, Katharina would have been 42. Her childbearing years were over.

Only one of her children would live to reproduce. Lucky for me!

After the War

After the war ended in 1648, Katharina and Hans did quite well for themselves. By the time Hans died 19 years later, in 1667, he had accumulated a significant legacy to leave to his children and grandchildren – a total of 5 houses, ten vineyards, and over 15,000 liters of wine in his cellars. No, that’s not a typo.

Katharina died in Beutelsbach on October 25, 1677, outliving Hans by two months shy of a decade.

Given that her daughter, Maria, died in the same year, although we don’t have a date, I wonder if the plague or pestilence, as epidemics were then known, savaged Beutelsbach once again. Katharina’s granddaughter was born on July 27, 1677, and we have no further entry. I wonder if she died as well. Two additional grandchildren, ages 6 and 7, died two days apart in July of 1678.

This war was with an unseen organism, a germ of some description. One they couldn’t see and probably didn’t know how to fight.

Final Rest

Katharina would have been laid to rest just a few feet from their home in Beutelsbach, probably in the churchyard following her funeral service inside, near her husband and children. Hopefully, it was a beautiful fall day.

Early graves always surrounded the church, but this 1825 map shows that a second cemetery was in use by then, a block or so away from the church and where Katharina Gockeler lived for more than 40 years.

The Beutelsbach church cemetery had been in use since at least 1321 and probably since about 1080, when we know the collegiate church was formed. Given the early date, many regular and plague burials existed in the churchyard. Were graves being reused in Europe at that time, or would villagers have been unwilling or superstitious about digging up plague or smallpox victims, perhaps?

Was the new cemetery utilized because the old one was full, or maybe there were just too many people to bury at one time at some point – like possibly the 1634 fire?

Red stars mark the churchyard, the home where Hans and Katharina lived, and the cemetery. Martin Goll’s red border shows the properties owned by Hans Lenz at his death that were inherited by his son, Hans.

The individual “farms“ and garden plots adjacent to homes are marked with tiny trees, so it’s easy to miss the subtle crosses in the cemetery if you don’t look closely. It appears that today, the cemetery is expanded as needed where those trees used to stand.

As you can see on the map above, the cemetery on the 1825 map is still in use. It’s unknown exactly where Katharina rests, in that cemetery or the churchyard, but we‘re within a few feet, either way.

I can’t help but look at those two burial locations, and in my mind’s eye, view bits of my DNA dotting the landscape, like twinkling stars, if the DNA of those ancestors that I carry today could fluoresce.

Part of me is there with them, and I carry part of them in me today.

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here or follow me on Twitter, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

• FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
• MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
• MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
• AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
• 23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
• 23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

• MyHeritage FREE Tree Builder – Genealogy software for your computer
• MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
• Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
• Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
• Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
• NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Book

• DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
• DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US

Genealogy Books

• Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books

Genealogy Research

• Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research