Hot mid-summer days in Indiana were so stifling that you felt like you were trying to breathe water through a hot, saturated, oppressively heavy blanket. The air was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Before you even woke up in the morning, you were sweating. Your PJs were already sticking to your skin.

The sun rose, shining on dew-kissed leaves, and before you could even see the rays over the horizon, we were already hustling, trying to get as many of the day’s chores done before the thermometer rose even higher.

The windows were all open, held up by a piece of an old broom handle, but that didn’t matter. It was so hot that even the wind was too overtaxed to put forth the effort to stir.

Our house didn’t have air conditioning. No one did back then. Some stores did, and businesses, but not homes. That was decades away, far in the future.

Mom tried to get a head start on her Avon route on those blistering summer days, delivering quite early to other farm wives who were also up before the roosters, and long before breakfast.

Mom would pack her demonstrator bag with samples the night before. When it was this hot, Mom had to carry the entire heavy bag into each house, because leaving it in the car, even with all of the windows down would melt the lipsticks and ruin the cosmetics in about 2 minutes flat.

Plastic tubes and bottles would melt and warp. Sometimes it was so hot she would put the customer’s orders in a cooler alongside paper milk cartons filled with water and frozen into ice blocks so their purchases wouldn’t overheat and be ruined before she delivered them. She only had one old metal cooler though, so she could only take as many orders as would fit there, or in cardboard boxes, if the contents weren’t in jeopardy from heat.

The Avon order arrived by UPS every other week. Mom would unpack the order and sort the contents of the boxes on the Formica kitchen table. She put each customer’s order in a white Avon paper bag with their name and the amount they owed written on the front, plus an Avon book of course, in case they wanted to order something for the next time.

Those bags with customer orders would be placed into cardboard boxes sorted by the delivery order.

The hotter it was, the more often Mom had to return home, at least until cars had options for air conditioning and she would part with the $$ for that luxury. When Dad bought a car with AC, she never said a word about the cost.

Even after she had AC in the car, she didn’t want to let the car run while she was in someone’s house. No, not because of the danger of theft, but because it wasted gas. Literally, every penny mattered on the farm where a hailstorm could wipe out an entire year’s crop, and income, in the blink of an eye. I remember some of those years all too well.

Automobile theft was non-existent in Hoosier farm country. Heck, everyone knew everyone’s car or truck. No one needed security cameras back then. We had nosey neighbors who knew when everyone came and went. Speaking as a former teenager, trust me on this one😊

That neighborhood security force of church ladies came in handy more than once over the years and saved more than one life too. Farm country was inherently safe, at least in this way.

On this particularly scorching summer day, Dad started working before dawn in the barn. The animals were all hot too, so he made sure to give them all extra fresh, cool, water, pumped straight out of the ground. He ran water for the hogs to be able to wallow in the mud. Sometimes he would take the hose and run it over their bodies so they would feel better.

He was a very soft-hearted farmer.

By the time he finished his morning chores, Dad was done just in time to help Mom load her car with her Avon deliveries.

This particular day, Mom knew it was going to be beastly, so she planned to return home mid-morning for a second box of deliveries. That would give her the opportunity to touch up her makeup, which would surely be running by then, use the bathroom and maybe make a phone call or two to see if people were home before going back out again.

Mom wanted to be finished on the road before lunch. She still needed to cook something for her and Dad to eat – although, on hot Avon days like that, we often had a quick meal like BLTs while sitting in front of the box fan in the kitchen. Of course, iced sweet tea and for the adults, ice coffee was the preferred beverage.

Mom would insist it really wasn’t THAT hot, while the rest of us had rivulets of sweat running down our backs.

But on this miserable day, even Mom wasn’t pooh-poohing the heat – and it was still quite early.

The Basement

The only cool place on that farm was the basement. The basement was called a Hoosier or Michigan basement. Our basement, maybe 15 by 20 feet, or perhaps slightly larger – wasn’t under the entire house. I suspect the original house had been built in the mid-1800s. It was Amish and square. No plumbing, kitchen, central heat, or wiring, of course.

The basement was only beneath the later addition, to the right of the original square house, above, which was built later, but still significantly pre-1950. The basement was old enough that there was no wall on one side – just dirt that receded into a spider-infested shallow crawl space under the rest of the house. There wasn’t enough tea in China to get me to crawl under there. Three sides had very old concrete blocks with two small ground-level windows that didn’t open. At some point, Dad had concrete poured over the dirt floor, facilitating a drain that emptied into a pipe that drained into the little creek down by the barn. I suspect he finished and leveled the concrete himself, because it wasn’t.

We had purchased a used pool table at an auction and played pool down there. It took about 6 men to get it down those stairs and it was never, ever coming out again, I assure you.

Later, Dad somehow rigged up a shower by running a pipe across the ceiling from the outside well by the windmill. It was the only shower in the house, and from that day on, Mom and eventually grandkids were the only ones who took baths instead of showers. In fact, Mom didn’t go down into the basement unless she had to.

That shower had one temperature – cold. Eventually, we got tepid warm too. That was a red-letter day!

Soap sat in a wire soap dish on a wooden crate along with a shampoo bottle. You carried your washcloth and towel up and down the stairs with you. There were no sides to the shower. You just stood in the corner of the basement in all of your birthday-suit glory and washed quickly.

My brother lived under threat of immediate and certain death if he DARED to come down to the basement or go anyplace near those windows when I was showering.

Of course, to a brother, that was simply an invitation to cause trouble. He would stand outside the window and sometimes kick it with his foot, calling my name. I would swear, “Damn it, Gary, go away.” Then, of course, I would get in trouble for swearing, which he thought was hilarious. Rinse and repeat.

On the far side of the dark, damp, but cool, basement room was Dad’s “shop.” Not to be confused with his shop in the barn.

Dad’s basement shop, even though the basement had no heat, was warmer than the unheated shop in the barn which was typically used to repair farm machinery. Repair might well mean forging a part or beating some misbehaving piece of mechanical gear into submission. Dad was good at almost everything.

The shop in the basement, over the years, came to be favored for things like working with wood and leather, making bone and wooden buttons for his rendezvous clothes and re-enactments where he was a mountain man – and working with vintage guns.

By vintage, I mean black powder muzzleloaders. Those all came and went through the side door to the basement.

Truth be told, I’m not sure Dad even owned one himself. Our guns on the farm were “put up,” meaning locked up in the house, taken very seriously, and never gotten out unless there was a need. If you saw Dad walking out of the house with a gun, something was wrong and you needed to ask how you could help.

Most often, it meant some poor animal needed to be put out of its misery. If there was any saving it, Dad would bring it in to me and Mom. Otherwise, we were instructed to stay in the house and he did whatever needed to be done.

Mom and I listened for the report, both of us winced and looked at each other – grateful that whatever it was, was over.

Dad loved to work in his shop.

People would bring him broken things at rendezvous encampments and asked him if he could fix them. He would often tell them he didn’t know, but he’d give it a try, which often meant recreating an obsolete part. He’d return the item to them at the next rendezvous. Over time, his reputation working with firearms grew and he always had something he was fixing. I think he enjoyed the challenge – and he was very good at figuring out how to repair things that seemed irrecoverably broken.

That Hot Morning

Mom pulled out of the driveway and headed north.

I pulled out of the driveway and headed south, the pavement so hot that the heat shimmered in the distance, creating optical illusions. I worked in town, some 20 or 25 miles away. Before I was past the first crossroads, my legs were already sticking to the seat.

I’m not sure where Gary was, but I think he may have been living in town at that time. He wasn’t at home.

Retrospectively, Dad probably relished the quiet of the household when Mom and I were gone, with the windows wide open and hearing the distant rustling of the animals making farm sounds.

Make no mistake, he loved us, but we weren’t exactly quiet. We were always busy, talking, doing something, cooking, canning, and complaining about the heat. Well, that was me.

After we left, Dad went down to the shop that he affectionately called his office, probably because it couldn’t have been further removed from anything resembling an office – although he had commandeered an old desk as a work surface. To this day, I have NO IDEA how that man could see anything down there in that sacrosanct dungeon that served as his man-cave. There was one light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and it was not in “his” corner of the basement, furthest from the windows.

After Mom left, Dad went downstairs to work on fixing a black powder muzzleloader that needed a part.

The thing about an Avon route is that while it might take all day, you were never terribly far from home. Mom knew all of her customers of course, but if she decided it would be better to return home to go to the bathroom, she probably wasn’t more than a few miles away, at most.

Mom had completed her first few deliveries. She was always torn between wanting to hurry so that she would get done before the worst of the heat, and not wanting to leave before someone had a chance to take a look at the sale brochure. Her best shot at getting a new order was right there in the living room or at the kitchen table when making a delivery.

As Mom left someone’s home, a very strange feeling came over her.

She couldn’t shake it.

She felt like she needed to go home.

Not like when she needed to go to the bathroom, this was different.

She tried to ignore it. It wasn’t rational, she told herself.

As she turned in the direction away from the house, heading on to her next destination, the feeling became more urgent.

Then it became overwhelming.

Mom turned around in the middle of the road and made tracks for home.

She heard the disembodied words, “hurry, hurry.”

Dad’s truck was parked at the barn, like always, so he was there.

A sense of foreboding had overcome her on the short drive home that seemed to take forever.

Mom parked in the driveway and scampered inside, somehow knowing something was wrong.

Had something happened at the barn?

Did the tractor flip over?

Where was Dad?

As she tripped across the threshold of the back door, dashed through the mudroom and into the kitchen, she saw it and stopped dead in her tracks.

Blood.

A trail of blood.

Everyplace.

She didn’t know which end of the trail was the beginning and which was the end.

What had happened?

Where was Dad?

There was blood, splatters, and misshapen partial footprints – like someone had been sliding in the blood, all blurred together.

Her head spun.

The bright red trail reached from the kitchen side door leading down the steps to the basement, across the kitchen in front of the refrigerator, and disappeared into the bathroom.

Worse yet.

There was total silence.

Nothing.

Not even the dog.

Where was the dog?

Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

Mom ran into the bathroom and stopped again.

Dead still.

Dad was laying on the floor, white as a sheet.

The dog was protectively curled around him, not moving.

Terror struck like a knife stabbed into her heart.

She rushed to him, falling on her knees in the puddle of blood.

Thank God, he was still breathing.

Mom looked for the source of the blood and quickly realized he had been trying to apply a tourniquet when he lost consciousness.

His leg was hemorrhaging, but he had been able to apply at least some pressure, and the dog was actually laying on that leg, over the wound.

Bless that dog!

Mom grabbed something. His belt, I think, but I can’t remember for sure, and secured it around his leg. She had no idea why he was unconscious. Was it loss of blood, pain, or another injury someplace?

She turned him over and saw nothing more. It never occurred to her that maybe, just maybe, someone had shot him and might be in the house and they both might be in danger.

Those were the days long before cell phones. Mom ran to the desk in the kitchen where their only phone was located. There was no 911 back then either, but there was always a sticker under the handset on the rotary phone that displayed the phone number for the ambulance, “just in case.” That was that day.

Her hands were shaking.

It rang busy.

She tried the neighbor, hoping for help.

No answer.

Ran back to check on Dad – still breathing.

She decided to take matters into her own hands.

My 100-pounds-soaking-wet mother couldn’t lift Dad. She pulled him through the kitchen, out the mudroom, plopped him down the two steps, dragged him along the sidewalk, and somehow stuffed him into the passengers’ side door of the car.

Then, she drove like a bat out of hell the 20 miles to the hospital.

That was the first of two times she did exactly the same thing, both times saving Dad’s life.

That was, however, the only time Dad shot himself.

The Hospital

Arriving at the hospital, Mom called me at work. I knew something was very wrong. No one ever called anyone at work back then. She minced no words.

“Dad’s shot, come to the hospital.”

My heart stopped.

Just stopped dead.

I had no idea if he was alive or dead.

Who shot him?

Where was Mom?

Which hospital. I guessed the one closest to the farm.

I simply had no idea about anything…at all.

But I will tell you that my life stopped in that moment, time morphed, and I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of the actual drive to the hospital.

Pulling into the hospital property, I spotted Mom’s car abandoned in the driveway under the canopy, with the doors open and no sign of Mom or Dad. But blood. There was blood.

That’s all I could see.

Blood.

The security guards were looking quizzically at the car, clearly wondering what to do. I pulled up behind her car, leaped out of my car and ran into the emergency entrance.

Someone pointed me towards the curtained rooms in the back where I saw Mom emerging, looking like she was in shock, and covered in blood – even on her glasses and in her hair.

I could feel the anxiety squeezing my chest. I could smell the blood now.

“Where’s Dad?”

“They just took him up to surgery.”

“Oh my God, he’s alive?”

“Yes.”

Of course he was alive if they were taking him to surgery, but you don’t think clearly at a time like that.

Only then did it occur to me to ask Mom if she was hurt. All things considered, I presumed she wasn’t.

Mom and I both had a sobbing meltdown, right there, hugging and holding each other, which of course got me bloody too.

A volunteer took pity on us and shepherded us to a room that looked suspiciously like a chapel where we could cry in private. Plus, Mom was a mess and I’m sure they didn’t want us in the waiting room.

I gave the security guard our keys so he could move our cars out of the drive where they were blocking everything.

I asked Mom what happened.

I had no idea that she might not actually know.

Mom was in shock and could only cry.

What Happened?

After Mom left that morning, Dad had decided to work on a black powder muzzleloader.

Generally, he took a gun outside and made sure it wasn’t loaded.

But this gun was broken. Apparently, it was jammed somehow.

When Dad started to work on the gun in the basement, it discharged the bullet which then hit the concrete block wall. Ricocheting off the wall, the bullet hit Dad in the leg, badly damaging an artery and more.

Dad knew he was “hurt bad” as he put it, and decided to go upstairs to the bathroom to try to stop the bleeding.

Why he didn’t apply a tourniquet in the basement, and why he walked directly past the phone on the way to the bathroom, even touching the desk where the phone sat, instead of calling for help, I’ll never know. He was aware that his artery was involved.

He likely was shocky immediately. Who knows how much blood he had already lost by the time he had walked to the doorway, climbed the stairs, and made his way to the bathroom.

In the chapel, Mom suddenly realized that she didn’t know if she had shut the house door (she hadn’t) and was worried about the dog.

I told her I’d go home, take care of whatever needed to be done, get her some clean clothes, and come back to the hospital.

When I arrived, the dog was guarding the open door. The house looked like a massacre had occurred. Even a small amount of blood looks like a huge quantity, especially when on a flat surface like a floor.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.

Neither, apparently, was the sheriff, who we knew, and who pulled in right behind me.

Apparently one of those see-everything neighbors I mentioned noticed Mom driving with an intensity that belied an Avon delivery and after thinking about it, decided to drive up to the house to see if everything was alright.

The neighbor found the back door open, blood on the sidewalk, and the dog refusing to let anyone enter. They went home and called the sheriff.

The sheriff took one look at me, with blood residue on my clothes from Mom, but not realizing where it came from, and immediately put me in the squad car.

I got to sit in the squad car for some time while the sheriff radioed back to headquarters. It seems the deputies were already at the hospital – standard procedure in a shooting. The neighbor showed up again and told the sheriff what he saw.

As soon as the sheriff confirmed that things were as I said, he took a few pictures, just in case, confiscated the gun, and then he and the neighbor helped me clean things up a bit. He told me I was too upset to drive and took me back to the hospital. Mom’s clean clothes got a police escort.

This time the sheriff parked in the hospital driveway and we entered together, heading off to find Mom. I’m sure our family was the talk of the hospital for weeks, if not months or years.

I know this incident became legendary in the neighborhood.

The Legend

Dad was fine, eventually. Not just fine, but he had a wonderful story, a wonderful yarn to spin to entertain his buddies.

When he got home, his first priority was to find the bullet.

Yes, find the bullet.

How would one ever locate that bullet that was bouncing around the basement?

Well, somehow Dad found it and made what was left into a memento which he wore from that day forward – especially to rendezvous.

He wore his bullet with his favorite shirt. After Dad passed away, Mom wore this as well to feel close to him.

When asked about why he was wearing this “thing” he had created, and what it was, the door was opened wide, providing him with the perfect opportunity to tell the story about when he shot himself. That story might, just might, have evolved a wee bit over time into somewhat of a tall tale.

Kids would gather, wide-eyed, and ask to see his scar from where the bullet went flying around the pitch-black room like a heat-seeking missile propelled by pitchfork fire.

His buddies wanted to know how that happened with the gun and all about when the sheriff arrested his wife and daughter.

Mom’s friends wanted to know how the heck she had managed to haul his carcass to the car. Dad didn’t really want to acknowledge that part. In his defense, he was unconscious and had plausible deniability.

They also wanted to know how Mom got the blood out of the linoleum and the seat of the car. She didn’t – she got a new kitchen floor with nary a whimper from Dad, and seat covers worked wonders.

In fact, sometimes the bloodstain on the seat would become part of Dad’s tall tale performance. He’d take those kids right over to see it, prefacing the great reveal with, “Are you ready? Are you sure?” before yanking the car door open to their amazement and horror. Ok, he might have enhanced the seat a bit, for effect.

The sheriff had a version of his own that he referred to as the Muzzleloader Massacre where the dog was the hero and saved Dad’s life. Sometimes, the sheriff would stop by the rendezvous and he and dad would tell dueling tall tales where they would both good-naturedly call each other liars. Those were something to hear. No matter how many times you had already heard them, they were funny. It seems there was always some new detail added by one or the other, or both.

Occasionally, I’d get to tell my own version, kind of as a tie-breaker, where I’d explain how Mom carried Dad to the car, kind of like a reverse wedding, carrying him outside over the threshold and then qualified for the Indy 500 on the way to the hospital. Then how she managed to get a new kitchen and new car out of the deal.

I think everyone always liked the dog-hero version of the story best.

Me and Dad

Dad, who was actually my step-father, and I had a wonderful one-of-a-kind relationship. We adored each other, as you can see by the look on our faces, above, at my wedding, just before he walked me down the aisle, after telling me it was alright to bolt out the back door if I wanted to change my mind.

I marvel at how fortunate Mom, along with me, were to have stumbled into his life. Or maybe he stumbled into ours.

It was my lucky day when they married.

Forever the prankster, you never expected that of Dad. He was always the quiet one, a man of very few words, and infinite love. However, he was always on the lookout for an opportunity to cause some mischief. My step-brother came by it honestly.

I’m positive, on the other hand, that I sorely tried that man’s patience, especially as a teen. He actually married my Mom when I was a teenager, in spite of me. Of course, I inherited that pesky brother in the deal, so I guess that was a two-way street.

Dad and I became incredibly close, bonded by our common losses and the joy of finding each other. I lost my father and he lost his daughter. One time, he walked past me sitting at the table, thunked me on the head with his thumb and forefinger, and said, “You know, when I married your mom, I got my daughter back,” and just kept on walking. Like I said, a man of very, very few words.

Not one time did any cross words ever pass between us. Not once. We loved each other, infinitely.

Only death would separate us, but not on that particular hot day in Indiana.

Back at the Hospital

Seldom did I get the best of Dad, but this time, I did.

I’m still secretly pleased by this.

Back at the hospital, when Dad returned from surgery and recovery, and we had cleaned up and changed clothes, they told us we could go to his room to wait.

As they wheeled the gurney in and got him settled, Mom was terribly relieved just to see him and started babbling – a release for hours of pent-up nerves.

Dad was all hooked up to IVs, a little groggy, but talking.

Mom asked him what happened.

He told her simply, “I shot myself.”

She asked, incredulously, “On purpose?”

“Hell no, Jean,” he replied, quite irritated at the question, probably because he was a much better shot than that.

I’m sure he thought he was about to receive a lecture, and he might just have been right.

I wasn’t sure he saw me, so I bent over the bedrail, looked down, smiled at Dad, and touched him. His irritation melted away immediately when he saw me, frown lines smoothing into the tenderest smile. I remember it so well, even today, all these years later.

He reached out to hold my hand. I could tell, in spite of his toughness that he was frightened and badly shaken. He knew how close he had come. So did I.

Had it not been for Mom, the dog, and perhaps the hand of God…

I took his rough, calloused, farm-hardened hand in both of mine, ever so gently and lovingly, and said…

“So, Barney, tell us what happened.”

Gotcha Dad.

I love you and miss you incredibly. I am so privileged to have had you in my life along with these wonderful memories – and your bullet – one of my cherished possessions.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

 

Kirsch isn’t Anna Margaretha’s surname, at least not that we know of – it’s her husband’s surname. Unfortunately, none, not a single solitary one of the existing church records provides Anna Margaretha’s birth surname, including her death record.

A Shadow

Something happened in the small village of Fussgoenheim, Germany, about 1725 or so. We only glimpse shadows of this event, whatever, it was, and only because the local “Lord,” vol Hallberg alleged a few years later that the Fussgoenheimers refused to pay to build the Lutheran church.

I say “alleged,” because Hallberg wasn’t exactly known for his honesty and integrity. He seemed willing to say or do anything to extract more money and taxes from the villagers, so I take pretty much anything he says with a very large grain of salt.

Local history says that Fussgoenheim has been Lutheran since before 1728, which might suggest that 1728 is some sort of transition or line in the sand – maybe some reason to recall that year specifically.

We know from other records and old cemetery stones that the first known Protestant pastor was in Fussgoenheim and buried there in the early 1600s, so Protestantism reaches back a long time in Fussgoenheim – long before our Anna Margaretha was born.

Something happened about that time to cause the church to need to be rebuilt. Something also happened to all of the church records prior to 1726. I’m just guessing, of course, but I can’t help but wonder if the church burned, the fire consuming all of the records along with the identity of Anna Margaretha’s surname and parents.

Anna Margaretha’s husband, Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor, was born about 1700. We don’t have his birth or death date, but we do know he was referred to as Sr., so older than his cousin, Johann Michael Kirsch, the Baker, born about 1706. His wife was named Anna Margaretha too. Another Johann Michael Kirsch, the Eldest, referred to as a Judge, who died in 1743 was married to Anna Margaretha Spanier.

It seems that Anna Margaretha was a very, very popular name in the small village of Fussgoenheim. That probably started decades or even hundreds of years before, with one Anna Margaretha, then more after children were named after her. In the 5 years surrounding 1738, there were Anna Margarethas in Fussgoenheim with the surnames of: Rusch, Hauck, Keiss, Kirsch (3), Seeg, Metthert, Wohfferts, Gross, Schuler, Bross, Poross, Borstler, Eigel (2), Koob/Kob, Ritthaler, Giff, Klinger, Linckenstein, Seng, and multiples with no surnames. (Ancestry is notoriously bad at translating and transcribing names, so some of these may be misspelled and others may be missing.)

Three Johann Michael Kirschs, all with wives named Anna Margaretha. No, nothing confusing about that. I wrote about our Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor, here.

Fussgoenheim

Fussgoenheim Lutheran church baptismal records begin in 1726, but other records suggest that at least one child, Johann Jacob Kirsch, was born about 1725, which would suggest a marriage for Anna Margaretha in about 1724, assuming Johann Jacob was her first child. German girls typically didn’t marry until they were at least 20 and sometimes significantly older.

The village was small, with the church being just a short walk from the Kirsch home on Haupstrasse, in the upper red square. The original Kirsch home still stands, today, and remained in the Kirsch family for generations – at least three centuries, into the mid/late 1900s. This photo of the Kirsch family, standing outside the Kirsch home, was taken in the early 1940s or perhaps slightly earlier.

Anna Margaretha’s Life

We don’t know who Anna Margaretha’s parents were, or anything about her childhood, but we do learn about Anna Margaretha’s life after marriage through various church and historical records.

1724/1725 – If Anna Barbara’s birth, recorded in church records in 1726, occurred the normal 18-24 months after the prior child’s birth, that would put Johann Jacob Kirsch’s birth someplace between September 1724 and March 1725.

We know that son, Johann Jacob, survived, because he was confirmed in 1739, married Anna Catharina Elisabetha Klamm on February 12, 1750, in Ellerstadt, and died there in 1760.

Of course, Johann Jacob may not have been Anna Margaretha and Johann Michael Kirsch’s first child, especially if earlier children had died, a fate all too common in Germany of that day and age.

1726 – We know that Anna Margaretha had daughter Anna Barbara Kirsch on September 24, 1726.

Fussgönheim, Bavaria Evangelical Church records. Taufen_Trauungen_Bestattungen_Sonstiges_1726-1798_Bild9(1) from Archion.de

24 November 1726

Parents: Johann Michael KIRSCH and his wife, Anna Margaretha, a daughter was baptized and named: Anna Barbara.  Godparents: Johann Jacob Spanier and his wife, Anna Barbara.

Anna Barbara married Abraham Zeitler on February 16, 1774, in Dannstadt and died there on December 26, 1796.

It’s interesting that the Spanier family served as godparents. There is no direct ancestral line to the Spanier line, at least not that we know of, BUT, they are heavily married into the Kirsch family.

The Eldest Johann Michael Kirsch, the Judge, who died in 1743 was married to Anna Margaretha Spanier and was the brother of Johann Adam Kirsch, the father of Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor. Anna Margaretha Spanier was his aunt by marriage.

Furthermore, the brother of Mayor Johann Michael Kirsch, Peter Kirsch, married Maria Barbara Spanier.

Could our Anna Margaretha be a Spanier too? It’s certainly possible, but it’s also equally as possible that those families were simply close because they had been intermarried for at least two generations and were probably neighbors.

1728 – Anna Margaretha’s next child was born on August 17, 1728.

Taufen_Trauungen_Bestattungen_Sonstiges_1726-1798_Bild11 from Archion.de

17 August 1728

Johann Michael KIRSCH, the parent above and Anna Margaretha, his wife, a daughter was baptized named: Maria Barbara. Godparents: Maria, the late Wilhelm Kirsch’s widow from here.

Wilhelm Kirsch was the uncle of Mayor Johann Michael Kirsch. Wilhelm’s widow was Anna Maria Borstler, the Mayor’s aunt by marriage.

We find no further records about Anna Margaretha’s daughter, Maria Barbara. Most death records from this timeframe are missing, and it’s likely that she died.

It was about this time that the tides began to turn in Fussgoenheim, although that may not have been evident immediately. Jakob Tillman von Hallberg, a member of the House of Hallberg, inherited half of the village of Fussgoenheim.

1729 – The following year, Hallberg undertook a resurvey of the village, supposedly in order to understand the land, relationships of people, and taxes due. Emphasis on “taxes due.”

In 1730, the situation became worse when Hallberg obtained the other half of the village as well and set about to essentially bankrupt the villagers – his apparent goal to reduce them all to serfs over whom he could rule with impunity.

Hallberg stated that he, “tolerated in his village no stranger to serfdom.”

That set the stage for decades of conflict with the Kirsch family.

Kirsch family members owned land, apparently as third-generation land-owners – which pitted them against the Hallbergs. These families became mortal, life-long enemies. And I’m guessing into eternity as well.

In the Kirsch household, I’m sure many red-hot words were spoken, if not in front of the children, then at least between adults as they tried to figure out how they would cope.

Some things, however, didn’t change. Children continued to be born.

I do wonder if Anna Margaretha lost a child in 1730 for whom the records are missing since we have a three-year gap between children.

1731 – Maria Veronica Kirsch was born on July 24, 1731. Her godmother was Anna Veronica with no birth surname given, the widow of the late mayor Heldmayer.

1733 – We don’t know for sure when Johann Michael Kirsch became Mayor, but in January 1733, Johann Michael Kirsch, the Baker, had a child with his wife and the Godmother was the daughter of “Herr Schultheiss Koob,” translated as Mayor Koob, from here. Apparently, Johann Michael was not yet mayor, given that the Koob and Kirsch families were neighbors in the under-Village. Each half of the village had a mayor, but the Koob and Kirsch families would have lived under the jurisdiction of the same mayor.

In Fussgoenheim, the situation and relationship with von Hallberg was deteriorating badly, and rapidly. He pressured townspeople relentlessly, adding tax after tax, and they rebelled.

Suits were filed, and every time the villagers won an inch, von Hallberg took another mile, going so far as shortening the survey rod when resurveying the village, causing 2/3rds of the village to become “vacant,” which he, of course, claimed for himself.

The villagers were furious and revolted.

It was about this time that he raised taxes again, claiming among other things that the villagers refused to pay for the building of the Lutheran church. That’s our clue that something had happened to the original church.

Amidst this uproar, on May 6, 1733, our Anna Margaretha was again baptizing a baby, probably in that “new” church which still stands today, nearly 300 years later.

Taufen_Trauungen_Bestattungen_Sonstiges_1726-1798_Bild18 from Archion.de

6 May1733 Johann Michael KIRSCH and his wife, Anna Margaretha, a son was baptized and named: Elias Nicolaus. Godparents: Elias Nicolaus Specht and his wife from Durckheim.

Elias Nicolaus Kirsch, my ancestor, married Susanna Elizabeth Koob sometime before April 1763 when their first child was born. He died on February 4, 1804, down the road in Ruchheim, probably having evacuated over the Rhine during the war.

1735 – Like clockwork, two years later, in 1735, Anna Catharina Kirsch, a new daughter, joined the family.

Taufen_Trauungen_Bestattungen_Sonstiges_1726-1798_Bild24

Johann Michael Kirsch & wife, Anna Margaretha

A daughter was born, baptized and was named: Anna Catharina

Godparents: the honorable Johannes Schneer?, town councilman from Lam(b)sheim and wife, Anna Catharina.

Born the 17^th of July 1735 between 8-9 a.m. and baptized the 20^th.

We know that Anna Catharina survived childhood. On March 4, 1853, she stood up as the godmother for Johann Nicolaus Moeser in Ellerstadt, identified as the daughter of the Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor. We have no further information about Anna Catharina.

1738 – On February 6, 1738, Anna Margaretha, another daughter, joined the family as well and was baptized 4 days later.

Taufen_Trauungen_Bestattungen_Sonstiges_1726-1798_Bild26 from Archion.de

1738 Johann Michael Kirsch, Sr. and wife, Anna Margaretha

A daughter named Anna Margaretha

Godparents: Johann Georg Eigel, the member of the court and his wife, Anna Margaretha nee Ritthaler.

Born: 6 Feb 1738            Baptized:10 Feb 1738

Margaretha’s Family in 1738

After Anna Margaretha’s birth in 1738, Anna Margaretha, the mother, would have had several children at home.

Her eldest, Johann Jacob would have been 14 or maybe even 15, a strapping young man who had probably been helping with produce and harvests for years.

The family lived in the house boxed in red and worked the fields immediately behind their home. All German villages were laid out in this manner, which the houses clustered together for safety. The first road parallels a stream that probably served the residents and their livestock as well.

Anna Barbara would have been 11.

Maria Barbara and Maria Veronica had probably passed away, but maybe not. If not, they would have been 9 and 7.

Elias Nicolaus was a spunky 4, almost 5. He probably shared the fact that he was “almost 5” with anyone who would listen.

Anna Catharina was assuredly an exasperating two and a half year old. The “terrible twos” weren’t invented in our generation, that’s for sure.

And then, of course, the new baby arrived in February of 1738. Everyone loves new babies.

They would have celebrated holidays by walking together to the church. Michael would have attended meetings, trying to deal with Hallberg shrinking his fields by two-thirds – and how to fight not “city hall” but a royal family.

The daily rhythm of life, preparing and cooking food, making and cleaning clothing, the never-ending needs of children, and spending time with her husband and family would have defined Anna Margaretha’s days. A woman with between 5 and 7 children has little time for much of anything else.

I hope Anna Margaretha found some time to walk alone in the fields, perhaps in the misty early mornings before anyone else was awake. Perhaps along the bank of the creek, listening to the rooster crow, and perhaps enjoying some dew-kissed wildflowers.

Then, Tragedy

But something went terribly wrong this time, before the end of the year.

Tom translates a bare-bones burial record:

December 10, 1738 – Anna Margaretha Kirsch, wife of the Mayor Kirsch

Such a brief entry with so little information provided. Perhaps the reverend was overwhelmed.

Anna Margaretha wasn’t the only one.

There were several Kirsch deaths. One in the middle of November, then another on December 6^th, then 4 days later, our Anna Margaretha succumbed, followed by another Kirsch death in January.

The church records reflect a total of 44 deaths in 1738, with almost half, 20 of them occurring in November or December, and I know the indexed list on Ancestry is incomplete because two of our Kirsch deaths are omitted. Using that as a yardstick, there could have been twice as many death – a devastating blow to a small village.

In 1739, there were 42 deaths, and 16 were in January and February, mostly January. Clearly, something fatal swept through the village, taking Anna Margaretha.

Most years saw less than 20 deaths. In 1720, the entire population of the village was 150-200 people. Assuming the same population in 1738, 22% to 29% of the population died, in each year. If there were even more deaths, then a higher proportion of the population succumbed.

In 1738, there were only 35 baptisms. Some years saw negative population growth.

Anna Margaretha was buried here, in the churchyard, outside the Lutheran church. New graves were dug weekly, and sometimes daily. I’d bet they had an ossuary someplace, or the original churchyard was larger because this small churchyard could not have accommodated that number of deaths without reusing graves.

The entire village probably attended Anna Margaretha’s funeral service, at least anyone who wasn’t ill with whatever was killing villagers. It’s likely that Anna Margaretha was a local girl with many relatives to mourn her passing.

Anna Margaretha was only about 38 years old. Her parents could well have been sitting in those pews, along with her siblings, nieces, and nephews. It’s not impossible that a grandparent or two was still living.

Someplace in this timeline, Anna Margaretha either buried her parents, or they buried her.

Anna Margaretha’s death record tells us that she was the mayor’s wife, so the church would have been packed from that alone. She was probably, literally, related to every villager.

The baptism records of her children indicate that the couple had close relations with people from surrounding towns as well. Those people, at least some of them, may have been relatives. Some godparents might have been selected because they were politically expedient – but still – a good German couple was NOT going to entrust someone untrustworthy to raise their children. They believed that the very souls of those children hinged on that selection – so they would have chosen well.

Parents didn’t expect to die, but with the high mortality rate before modern medicine, it was certainly a good possibility that at least one parent would bury the other and at least a moderate possibility that both parents would perish while the children were still young.

After the minister preached her funeral, Johann Michael Kirsch, now a widower, probably carried the baby and led the rest of the children, holding hands, youngest to oldest, as they walked through the doorway into the churchyard. Johann Jacob, Anna Margaretha’s oldest child, then a young teen of maybe 14 or 15 was probably trying not to cry publicly.

With heads bowed, final prayers would have been said, the coffin lowered, and Anna Margaretha was laid to rest.

What Happened?

What happened to Anna Margaretha?

We will never know for sure. Some death records provide a great deal of information, but not this one. No cause of death, no surname, no notation about the verses at the funeral. Nothing.

It could have been dysentery, typhoid, or perhaps the flu. Childbirth was unlikely just 10 months after giving birth to her namesake daughter, Anna Margaretha. She could have been very early in a pregnancy with their next child who would never be born. Perhaps a miscarriage.

However, there is one other possibility.

The scourge that came to be known as the Great Plague of 1738 – an outbreak of the Bubonic Plague that first arrived in Europe in early 1738 and claimed tens of thousands of lives through 1740. No exact number of deaths is available, but the 1740 Hungarian Diet said that the Great Plague had claimed 36,000 lives there. The Palatine in Germany was not among the hardest-hit regions, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t affected at all.

Under whatever guise the grim reaper arrived, death brought a great deal of grief to this little village.

The Mayor is a Widower

Probably just shy of 40 and a widower, Johann Michael Kirsch had at least 5 children and possibly 7 if the two girls we know nothing more about were still living. They ranged in age from a teenage boy to a 10-month-old baby girl who would have still been nursing. Or was, before her mother died.

The battle with the Hallbergs was still escalating. Michael was Mayor now, according to Anna Margaretha’s burial record, and not only responsible for his own family, but also for the other villagers as well. His village was under siege and Johann Michael had children who needed a mother.

Plus, he still needed to earn a living.

Single For a Few Months

Johann Michael Kirsch wasn’t a widower for long. He married Maria Magdalena Michet, the widow of the mayor of Alsheim on June 23, 1739, 7 months after Anna Magaretha passed, likely a marriage of convenience for both of them.

We don’t know how many children Maria Magdalena had, but given that she was born in 1700, it’s likely that she had 7 or 8 children too, assuming they all lived.

Johann Michael Kirsch’s family would have swollen substantially, but his children would now have a step-mother and her children had a step-father.

However, tragedy wasn’t done with the Kirsch family, and struck again.

Another Tragedy

Three months after his marriage to Maria Magdalena Michet, baby Anna Margaretha died, on September 23, 1739, just 19 months and a few days after her birth.

She was laid to rest in a grave beside her mother just 9 months after our Anna Margaretha had passed.

What a terribly difficult day this must have been for Johann Michael – to have lost both Anna Margarethas. I can only imagine how grief-stricken her children were. By this time, the older children had not only buried their mother and baby sister, but likely two more sisters as well, not to mention at least two grandparents. Plus other relatives in the village as they were plucked off, one by one.

I am left to wonder if my ancestor, Elias Nicolaus, who would have been 5 years and 6 months old when his mother, Anna Margaretha, died, had any recollection of her. I hope his last memories were not of her suffering. He would have been raised by Maria Magdalena Michet who didn’t pass away until 1784, back in Alsheim, where she likely had roots and returned sometime after Johann Michael Kirsch’s death occurred after 1757.

Maria Magdalena and Johann Michael had two children of their own, one in March of 1741 and one in June of 1742. Sadly, it appears that both of these children probably died as well.

The Fussgoenheim church records are remarkably incomplete during this time.

Mitochondrial DNA

The only one of Anna Margaretha’s daughters that we know survived to marriage is Anna Barbara Kirsch who was born on September 24, 1726, and married on February 16, 1774, to Abraham Zeitler in Dannstadt at the age of 47 – too old to have children.

Unless another one of Anna Margaretha’s daughters did survive to have children and has descendants through all females to the current generation, which can be male, Anna Margaretha’s mitochondrial DNA is extinct.

Unless we discover the identity of Anna Margaretha’s parents, and she had sisters who were more fortunate and had surviving female children, the information held in her mitochondrial DNA is forever lost.

_____________________________________________________________

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Genealogy Research

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Which Johann Michael Kirsch, wife Anna Margaretha, was the father of Elias Nicolaus Kirsch born in the beautiful little village of Fussgoenheim, Germany on May 6, 1733?

That’s the million-dollar question!

When I began this journey, we didn’t know that there were three different Johann Michael Kirschs that were candidates to be the father of Elias Nicolaus, nor that all three men were married to women named Anna Margaretha with no surname.

I mean, this was a tiny village, estimated to be 150-200 people total in 1720, or 30-40 families – not a city – so what are the chances that we would encounter this level of same-name confusion?

Most genealogical puzzles become easier as one obtains additional information. Not this one. Every new piece of information simply complicated the original question.

I wanted to pull my hair out. Even Tom, my trusty friend, was ready to throw in the towel from time to time. But thankfully, that’s not Tom, and he didn’t, viewing Johann Michael Kirsch as a challenge instead. Neither Tom nor Christoph bailed on me, and it’s a good thing because this would NEVER have been solved without the combined information and resources of both of them and several other people over the decades.

This is arguably the most difficult genealogical puzzle I’ve ever faced.

Just this week, Tom found the almost impossibly elusive nail that sealed the deal. I’ll share the answer after we work through the process, because our path of discovery may be beneficial to you as well. Additionally, I don’t want to waste any of the information we gathered that pertains to other Kirsch family members. Anyone who hits the Johann Michael Kirsch wall will need this.

Building Blocks  

First, I need to express my gratitude.

Over the years:

• Tom and Christoph searched out, found, and translated innumerable documents – and I mean probably hundreds. Several years ago, Tom told me that solving this one would require reading and translating every Kirsch record in Fussgoenheim, and it would take a lifetime. I would never have asked him to do that, but alas, he wasn’t going to let Johann Michael Kirsch get the best of him. As it turns out, not only did it require reading every Kirsch record in Fussgoenheim but in other locations as well, PLUS records of other families besides Kirsch.
• My cousin Marliese in the 1940s sent wonderful letters and photos of the ancestral Kirsch home in Fussgoenheim to her Kirsch relatives in Aurora, Indiana, descendants of my ancestors who immigrated in the 1850s. Marliese’s daughter corresponded with me years later. I’ve written several articles about my Kirsch ancestors and finding their paths, here. Those paths were quite the forked road in many cases.
• Another 2 cousins, Irene and Joyce, long deceased, wrote letters in the 1970s and 1980s mentioning a German man, Walter Schnebel, who had provided some Kirsch information that has turned out to be quite accurate. That was long before the days of the internet, email, or sourcing genealogy, and as they aged, their letters stopped, leaving unanswered questions hanging. Not to mention, I had no idea how to find Walter.
• My blog follower, and now friend, Noél, took a detour on her vacation and actually found the original Kirsch home in Fussgoenheim, based on location work I did from the photos Marliese sent and Google maps. You can read that article here. The day I received those photos is one I’ll never forget. This was AMAZING!!! I am so grateful!
• Walter Schnebel researched and compiled information for decades about Fussgoenheim families and planned to publish a book, but unfortunately, he died in October 2018. Walter grew up next door to the Kirsch home in Fussgoenheim, and of course, was related as well.
• Blog follower William lives nearby in Germany and reached out to Walter’s family, obtaining a spreadsheet of Walter’s Kirsch family research and very kindly shared with me.

Walter’s research notes were invaluable, but his sources were not always listed. I’m sure those would have been in his book.

Walter had assigned my Elias Nicolaus Kirsch to one of the three Johann Michael Kirsch’s but never provided information as to why. As it turned out, Walter was right, and one simple note as to why he assigned Elias to that specific Johann Michael would have saved me (and Tom and Christoph) years of frustration trying to retrace Walter’s steps. By the way, those steps ultimately led to a different village altogether to locate that elusive proof. I’m not even sure that Walter found those same records. Having said that, trying to retrace Walter’s steps has provided me with the opportunity to get to know Fussgoenheim and her families much better.

During this process, I composed theories about the various relationships, and what information suggested which Johann Michael Kirsch was the father of my Elias Nicolaus. Tom and Christoph would review my theories and poke holes in them – often finding new records to add to our pile of evidence. We make an amazing team!!!

Proof, however, was maddeningly elusive – that is – until just recently.

The Earliest Records

Unfortunately, Fussgoenheim church records are limited and incomplete. I think Tom said they are the worst record set he has ever dealt with, and that’s saying something coming from a retired German genealogist.

• Baptisms: 1726-1798 and 1816-1839
• Marriages: 1727-1768 and 1816-1839
• Deaths: 1733-1775 and 1816-1839

While death records reportedly began in 1733, truth be told, they are nonexistent for many of those years entirely, especially early years, and spotty during other times. In other words, the absence of a record doesn’t imply the absence of the person.

I’ve wondered why some of these records are so sparse, and I did find a hint or two. In one record I discovered, it was mentioned that the residents were, or weren’t, paying for building a Lutheran church in the early 1730s. Given that they already had a church, why would they need to build another one? There were never two.

The answer may lay on this map titled “The Conquest of the Left Rhine Territories by France” that shows a military field camp near, at or in Fussgoenheim in August 1734, during the War of Polish Succession. Battle lines were drawn directly through the neighboring village of Mutterstadt.

There some script in the front of the 1733 church book that might explain this situation. I have vague memories of Elke, my translator back in the 1980s, discovering some text about the residents escaping over the Rhine for some time, and eventually, returning, but I can’t recall if it was the Mutterstadt or Fussgoenheim church books. This warfare might well explain both a lack of complete records during that timeframe, the absence of earlier records, and the need to rebuild a church.

The church itself dates from before 1728. Fussgoenheim’s history indicates that the village had been entirely Protestant since 1728. Christoph found information that states there are three remaining stones in the churchyard.

Christoph found information about two of the three old gravestones: There is one from 1605 for a son of Elias Roschel and one from 1606 for the wife of Elias Roschel. Elias Roschel is thought to have been the first Lutheran pastor in Fussgoenheim. Of course, this dates the existance of the Lutheran church to at least this time, albeit in an earlier building.

I would love to have interior photos of this quaint little church where my ancestors were baptized.

Early Generations of Kirschs

The earliest record of the Kirsch family in Fussgoenheim is that of Jerg Kirsch who married in Dürkheim in 1650 and is noted in other records as the co-lessee of the Josten estate in Fussgoenheim.

Jerg Kirsch, a nickname for Johann Georg, is the progenitor of the Kirsch family in Fussgoenheim.

Since church records don’t begin until long after Jerg’s children were born, the records of his children had to be assembled from later and scarce sources, such as births, marriages, deaths, and baptisms that identified people by their parents.

Jerg’s children were, in brief:

• Johann Jacob Kirsch born about 1655 and died before 1723, married Maria Catharina, surname unknown
• Daniel Kirsch born about 1660, died before 1723
• Johannes Kirsch born about 1665 and died in 1738, in Ellerstadt, never married
• Andreas born in 1666 and died in 1734, lived in Ellerstadt and Oggersheim, married Anna Barbara, surname unknown
• Johann Michael Kirsch, the Judge, and referred to as “the eldest” when he died, born in 1668 and died in 1743, married Anna Margaretha Spanier – he had a son Johann Michael
  • Johann Michael Kirsch, the Baker, born about 1705 and died after 1753, married first to Anna Margaretha, surname unknown, married second to Anna Margaretha Wohlfahrt in 1739
• Johann Wilhelm Kirsch born about 1760, died before 1723, lived in Oggersheim
• Johann Adam Kirsch born in 1677 and died before 1740, first married the daughter of Adam Greulich and married second to Anna Maria Koob – he also had a son Johann Michael
  • Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor, born about 1700, died between 1757 and October 1759, married first to Anna Margaretha, between surname unknown, who died in 1738, second to Maria Magdalena Michet in 1739

Here we see the three candidate Johann Michael Kirschs living in Fussgoenheim in 1733 when Elias Nicolaus was born.

I feel compelled to point out that we didn’t know any of this when we embarked on this journey, and none of it, not one iota, was easy to reassemble.

1743 and 1744

1743 and 1744 were watershed years in Fussgoenheim for our Kirsch family, as well as for the rest of the residents.

Fussgoenheim was a small village comprised of the upper village and lower village. Upper and lower refer to elevation, not north and south, and they are reversed from what you would expect, with under being the north side. The church was the dividing line, and the village was controlled historically by two different lords.

Christoph purchased a book about the history of Fussgoenhiem, written in German, and summarizes the following:

One of the strange stories about Fussgoenheim is that the town has been divided into two parts for centuries – ruled and owned by different lords. It has two parts, >Oberdorf< (upper village) and >Unterdorf< (lower village). The Lutheran church in the town center represented the border between the two parts. In 1728, the family von Hallberg acquired the upper village, later on around 1730, also the lower village.

The upper village, above, was actually to the south of the lower village, below. The Lutheran church is the dividing line, and just below the church is the residence of William Kirsch, the only Kirsch to live on this side of town. It looks like there are a total of 10 households. On the right side of the road, the Hallberg castle was built about 1740, but wasn’t shown on this map.

The lower village is north of the upper village. You can see the Lutheran church parsonage on this map, just north of the church. On the same side of the road, we see 8 properties, and across the road, in the bend, we see 14 properties.

Those 14 properties include 6 that can be attributed to Kirsch men, as follows:

• Michael Kirsch, Schultheiss, which means mayor – three properties on the right-hand side
• Martin Kirsch, red arrow upper left
• Peter Kirsch, red arrow center left
• Michael Kirsch’s widow, who we know is Anna Margaretha Spanier. Her son is Peter Kirsch.

The green arrows are:

• Center left – may be another Kirsch male, beside Martin, but I can’t read clearly – could be Andreas
• Upper right on bend – clearly a Kirsch surname, but can’t read the first name

Johann Michael Kirsch, the eldest, not the elder, died in 1743, suggesting that there were, in fact, more than 2 Johann Michael Kirschs living in Fussgoenheim at that time.

We know from other records that in 1743, there was a Johann Michael Kirsch the Mayor and Johann Michael Kirsch the Baker, who were cousins, but we don’t know where the Baker lives. He could live in one of the properties of his clearly better-off cousin, the Mayor.

I numbered the residences, hoping to be able to read the names and correlate with other records.

The surnames on the 1743 maps are difficult to read, but looking at Ancestry for the indexed Fussgoenheim church records for 1740-1743, I find the following 63 surnames which I attempted to match with names/locations on the map. Bolded names are found on a partial list of individuals who refused to sign the land register – a story of bravery we’ll get to in a minute.

Surnames	1743 Map Location	1743 Map Location	1743 Map Location	1743 Map Location	1743 Map Location	1743 Map Location
Ach
Andre
Bechmann/Beckman
Beer	19 – Abraham Beet
Benick
Bern
Borstler
Braun	16 – Math Braun
Brinck
Busch
Ebert
Eichecker
Eigel	18 – Georg Eichel
Freymanns
Gifft/Gitt/Giff/Geff
Haas	21 – Michael Haas
Hahn/Hohn
Hartmann
Hauck	2- Hauk?	31 – Wilh Hauck	33 – And? Hauck
Henick
Herberich/Hernerich
Hunds
Hundsrucker
Kirsch	1 – Martin Kirsch	7 – Peter Kirsch	8 – widow of Michael Kirsch	12 – ? Kirsch	14, 15, 22 – Michael Kirsch Mayor	24 – William Kirsch
Klingler
Kob/Koob	6 – George Koob	16, 23 – Theob Koob
Krauss
Krausshaar
Lang
Lanzer
Loien
Low
Marti
Metthert
Meyer
Molstert
Nenonistin
Ritthaler
Rob
Rudolphi
Ruger
Rusch
Sahler	13 – Sahler?
Schaffer
Schimbeno/Schimbeneau
Schimbers
Schlaag
Schmuter
Schrnun
Schuler
Schulzer
Schumacher
Schweitzer/Schweizer
Sonntag/Stuntag	3 – Seantag
Spanger
Sterh
Stroh
Strop
Stros
Tab
Uger
Uller/Uler
Wiedemann
Wier
	Map Names/Locations Not in Church Records
	4 – Bastian See
	5 – Bastian Umslatter?
	9 – Lutheran church & parsonage
	10 – Seebach
	11 – Herrschmat?
	20 – ? Schmitt
	25 – Saalee?
	26 – ?
	27 – ?
	28 – Seel
	29 – ?
	30 – Bingemann
	32 – Elspermann

A few surnames are found only once or twice in the records, some may be misspelled duplicates, but many surnames are found repeatedly. This makes me wonder where all of these people lived since their homes are not on the map.

I think I have the answer, but I’m not positive. Based on the history I can glean, I think the 1743 map has to do with private land ownership and the Hallberg family acquiring the two halves of the village in 1728 and 1730. If this is the case, then serfs, or people without land that was privately owned would not be shown on the map.

However, a brochure from Fussgoenheim written in the 1980s tells us that Hallberg’s resurvey redivided the area and built new roads. In doing so, some fields were now disconnected from their previous owners and were considered abandoned. As you can see from maps, farmer’s fields extended behind their homes. Those resurveyed disconnected fields were considered abandoned and Hallberg confiscated them for his own.

Conversely, there seem to be several surnames on the maps, but not in the Lutheran church records, at least not for those years. This is somewhat confusing, unless those people were older and there were no births are deaths during this timeframe. There’s also another possibility.

There is a mention of a Jewish community in Fussgoenheim as early as 1684, associated with the Jewish community in Ruchheim, or, maybe some of those surnames were associated with the Hallberg castle and dynasty, which was Catholic. Either would explain why we don’t find those surnames in the Lutheran Church records.

Looking at the existing church records and residences, both, it’s quite evident that the Kirsch family was the most prevalent in the village. Ironic since they had only lived in the village since about 1650, so about 90 years by that time. Still, that’s roughly 3 generations, but with large families, the progenitor could and did have a lot of descendants.

Even today, the village has grown, but the original property lines haven’t changed a lot from that 1743 map.

It’s interesting that you can see the same layout of the properties and lands that correlate to earlier maps.

You can see the Protestant church at the green arrow, the Kirsch home at the red arrow, and the Koob home with the gold arrow, exactly as Marliese described in the 1940s with the information provided by her grandmother Marie Kirsch who was born in 1871. These locations also match the 1743 map with the Kirsch and Koob families living in the exact same locations.

The house to the left of the “X,” above, is the Kirsch property, and the house directly under the “O” is the Koob home.

The following map shows the entire historical village of Fussgoenheim, with arrows pointing to the Kirsch home, the church, and the Hallberg castle, at lower right.

Of course, I’m left wondering if the 1743 map is the redrawn Hallberg map that caused such an uproar? I suspect so, meaning that the original map would have shown more private ownership. Is that why Michael Kirsch, the Baker, is absent, perchance? The citizens disagreed with the Hallberg map vehemently.

I’m very grateful for the 1743 map, regardless, because, in 1744, things changed dramatically.

1744

All Hell broke loose in 1744.

One Johann Michael Kirsch was dead. The remaining two Johann Michael Kirschs both, BOTH, were expelled from Fussgoenheim in 1744.

As Tom said to me a few years back, “Your guy got kicked out. I wonder what he did.”

Yea, me too!

Christoph provides some history:

After the von Hallberg family acquired the balance of the village in 1730, they seem to have been quite reckless in pressing out money and goods from the town people. Ruthless to the extent that the people opposed them. It should also be noted that all town people were Lutheran, while the ruling family von Halberg was Catholic – a great divide in those days.

Shortly after Baron von Halberg took over the rule, he decided in 1729 to have a new town plan recorded and to divide up the lots differently than before. Doing so, he seems to have cheated here and there and taken land for himself. At least this is what the town people accused him of, and the town`s court members refused to sign the new plan. Von Hallberg`s reaction was to expel these court members along with their families (in total: 15 families with 70 persons) from Fussgoenheim. The expelled settled in nearby Ellerstadt and appealed to the Imperial Chamber Court (>Reichskammergericht<) who ruled in 1750 that von Hallberg had to take back the expelled families and return them their land. The judgment was repeated by the Imperial Chamber Court in 1753. Hence seemingly von Hallberg just ignored the court ruling at first.

Note that the 1743 map only shows a total of 32 properties, so roughly half of those families were expelled. The under-village, to the north that includes the Kirsch and Koob interrelated families includes only 22 parcels of land owned by 19 different people. Mayor Kirsch owns (at least) three and Theop. Koob owns two.

Christoph continues:

In 1752 even the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire accused the town people of not paying their taxes to von Hallberg. The emperor urged von Hallberg to bring to justice the Mayor Kirsch and other town people. In this case, a high court decided against the town people and threatened them with the military, in case they would continue to not pay their taxes.

In the following years, the town people seemingly paid their taxes and just tried, again and again, to appeal to the court.

In September 1744, Jakob Hallberg died, which may have given the Fussgoenheimers some sliver of hope, soon to be dashed. His son inherited Fussgoenheim and the Hallberg dynasty lasted until the conquest of the Palatinate by the French in the 1890s.

An automatically translated portion of the Fussgoenheim town history (with minor edits for clarify) goes on to say:

One of the accusations leveled against Hallberg was that he had confiscated inherited property and community property. At that time, in the course of a property renovation, ownerless properties fell to the onlord – this was the so-called right to the “bona vacamia”.

In 1729 Hallberg had a property renovation carried out in Fußgönheim which is understandable insofar as he, as the new lord of the village, needed to get an overview of the ownership and legal relationships in the village and the resulting obligations for charges and services.

According to the land survey, the district of Fußgönheim comprised at that time 2,869 3/4 acres of land, 95 % of which were in the possession of clergymen or of certain masters or were communal property. Only 146 3/4 acres were owned by private persons. According to the renovation protocol, Hallberg has 386 acres of land in its own property. This could be the so-called “abandoned property” confiscated by him.

Wow, it looks like he confiscated 2.64 times the amount he left in private ownership. No wonder the residents were angry – especially those residents who had owned those 386 acres. This averages 4.59 acres per privately owned parcel as judged by Hallberg, and suggests that the original parcels averaged 16.65 acres. That’s quite a difference, especially if you’re trying to earn a living from the land.

Furthermore, if you look at the Under village, and the Upper village, you’ll notice quickly that the Under village is where the majority of the Lutheran church records match village surnames, and those parcels appear visually much smaller than the parcels allocated to the upper village across from the Hallberg castle, where many of the surnames are not found in the church records and are likely Catholic. It would appear that Hallberg also favored his friends and fellow Catholics.

Hallberg is also said to have confiscated hereditary property if the families have no inheritance or had not used their annual ground rent. Hallberg obviously interpreted the right of the “bona vacanria” very strictly, for his own benefit and to the detriment of the villagers. A 1750 expert opinion of the KurpHilz council of Schnerr confirmed Hallberg in principle that he had the right to confiscate ownerless property, “but whether in such a large excess as he had…a legal investigation would have to clarify.”

Hallberg was widely disliked by the Fussgoenheimers, with good reason. The translation continues:

During the field survey, Hallberg had redirected field paths and redivided the winnings. He had land given to him for the abandoned goods he had confiscated in the best profits.

By reducing the size of the rods, he had achieved that when surveying the individual acres of “leftovers” which were left over, which he is also said to have illegally taken.

No wonder the citizens were furious.

The village’s court officers therefore refused to sign the land book which had been created by Hallberg. Hallberg reacted to this by expelling the court officers and their families – a total of 15 families with 70 persons – from the village.

It’s interesting to note that the average family size was 4.67 persons, two of whom would have been the parents. Evidence of high childhood mortality is recorded within the church books.

Another tidbit about Fussgoenheim tells us that Schimbeneau, Herberich, Schuster, Theobald Koob, and Schultheiß (Mayor) Kirsch are the individuals who refused to sign the 1729 land register, resulting in their 1744 expulsion.

The persons concerned, who had in the meantime settled in Ellerstadt and accepted serfdom there, filed a complaint against this action. In 1750 the Reich Chamber Court in Wetzlar sentenced Hallberg to take back the expelled persons and return their property to them. The order was repeated in 1753, which suggests that Hallberg had defied the judgment. He stated that he tolerated in his village no stranger to serfdom.

Serfdom was a form of semi-slavery in which a person was tied to the land is a form of indentured servitude from which peasants could not escape. Serfs traditionally could not even marry without the approval of their Lord (not church Lord, feudal Lord) and had minimal control of their own lives. It would appear that Hallberg’s goal was to reduce everyone in his village to that status whom he could then entirely control.

Note that this 1753 order is probably the reason for the “1753 accounting” notes that we see in Walter Schnebel’s information. Unfortunately, I don’t have that actual document.

Another dispute arose over the community’s sheep pasture, the lease of which had brought the community an annual income of 100 gulden. Hallberg claimed the pasture for himself in a letter of feudal title dated 30 July 1728. The residents, on the other hand, referred to their “old rights.” The dispute ended in 1733 with a compromise: Hallberg got the sheep pasture under the condition that not too many sheep graze on it.

Another accusation against Hallberg was that he had transferred the tithe income of middle-class farms. In Fußgönheim there were three bourgeois courts which had a share of the tithe income.

Hallberg withdrew this income on the grounds that the owners refused to contribute to the costs of building the Lutheran Church.

The lucrative “Weinschank,” i.e. the right to run a wine tavern, was auctioned by Hallberg for 120 gulden annually; before that it was free.

“Wine tavern,” I love it! I know that my family was involved. I surely would like to know who ran the wine tavern. Too bad that’s not noted on the map.

We know from other sources that the present-day Lutheran church was either built or renovated about the time the new church books began in 1726. I can’t help but wonder if the original church burned, along with the records.

Hallberg also introduced a new levy of 15 Malcer oats to be paid annually to his magistrate.

In the face of massive resistance from the community, Hallberg had the village sized(?) for two months by a corporal and six men. When the inhabitants refused to pay 71 guldens every 114 days for their accommodation, he had 7 cattle, 1 cow, clothes, guns, and household goods taken away without further ado and auctioned them off in Worms.

The community then turned to the Oberlehengericht in 1745. The court ordered Hallberg to return the confiscated objects under threat of a 500 gulden fine. In addition, he had to give an account before the fiefdom court about his actions.

Equally bitter resistance was met by von Hallberg’s increase of the treasury with an annual levy on real property. According to this, each landowner had to pay a guilder for 10 acres of land.

Hallberg countered the resistance of the inhabitants by leaving the village for 10 days with 57 grenadiers.

Grenadiers were a type of large, strong elite soldier. Think “Navy Seal” or “Green Beret” today. Hallberg was clearly trying to intimidate the villagers. This was an extremely high soldier to villager ratio.

During that time, 28 horses and cows were confiscated in the village, which Hallberg then sold at an auction. The Fußgönheim court was put under arrest for 14 days and then expelled from the village.

Woo boy.

Another lucrative source of income was created by Hallberg with the introduction of a tababvaage system, where all tobacco sold in the village had to be weighed against a weighing fee. This provided him with benefits in addition to the usual tobacco tithes of 70-80 gulden per man per year.

In 1752, the emperor even reprimanded the villagers because they refused to pay the levies imposed on them. He called on Mayor Kirsch and other local leaders because of fanned resistance and riots to be held accountable. In 1757, the highest court of the Reich, the Reichshofrar, ruled against the Fußgönheimers: It obliged them to pay frontage money, unpaid money and the fees for the tobacco scales and threatened military intervention by the troops of the Upper Rhine District in the event of any violation.

Hallberg wrote that he was quite happy that proceedings had been instituted against Mayor Kirsch, and that no leniency should be shown towards him.

There is clearly a life-long animosity between these two families. Michael Kirsch must have hated everything Hallberg, but he would not cave.

A similar statement by the Hallberg official of Bissing: “The farmers have so far been whitewashed unruly heads and stiff flails, so it does not do them any harm now if you make them feel the effect of a permitted revenge. The previous executions will have dazed their overconfidence in something, but now they have to crawl to Creutz.”

The old language and translation didn’t work perfectly, but I think the word revenge portrays the sentiment. Hallberg wanted to punish Johann Michael Kirsch as an example meant to keep other unruly villagers in line who dared to think they should retain their own land or expect justice.

In time, however, the people of Fußgönheim came to terms with the Hallberg dominion.

In other words, Hallberg wore them down. Their resistance, along with hope, seemed to wane, especially after the death of Mayor Kirsch. Who wanted to sign up to be the target of the Hallberg empire? Everyone saw what happened to him and his family.

A list from the year 1785 shows that all once-disputed duties and taxes had been paid. The people of Fußgönheim no longer offered open resistance, but tried to enforce their rights through the courts: in 1770 they asked the imperial chancellery whether their files had been mislaid, since nothing had happened in respect of their claims for 24 years now (since 1746), – a trial of such a length was not possible in the complicated proceedings before the Reichshofrar. But that was nothing out of the ordinary.

Obviously, the court was never going to address the grievances of the villagers after 24 years of intentional silence. That’s in essence a generation, and many of the originally “wronged” people had since died. I’m sure that’s what Hallberg was counting on – and eventually – everyone just accepted and forgot and he achieved exactly what he wanted – their lands, in perpetuity.

He had subdued the Fussgoenheim village families, but they must have hated him.

The original landowners were all-in though, willing to risk it all, to sacrifice for justice by participating in civil disobedience and “riots,” whatever that means in this context. These families were irreversibly committed – even being kicked out of Fussgoenheim, in exile, as peasants, serfs in Ellerstadt, which seems to have lasted for about a decade. Still, they didn’t capitulate.

Even in 1753, after returning to Fussgoenheim, which was a victory in and of itself, it appears that they were never able to fully regain what was rightfully theirs – meaning the land before the 1729 Hallberg reorganization of the village.

It may be difficult to fight city hall, but it appears impossible to win against the House of Hallberg, a hereditary Lordship. The Hallbergs simply had too much power.

Return to Fussgoenheim

We know that the two Johann Michael Kirschs, plus Johann Jacob Kirsch, adult married son of the Mayor are three of the families who were evicted to Ellerstadt. We don’t know who all of the other families were, but I’m wagering they were some of, or a majority of, the families who were listed as owning land on that 1743 map. There were only 17 landowners who also appeared in the church records, in total. This might suggest that some of the other landowners were not Protestant – implying Catholic which means that Hallberg would likely have treated them differently. There were a total of 32 parcels of owned land, and 29 landowners, with many of the families in the upper village having no church records. The upper village was the portion on the south side of the village, south of the Lutheran church, directly across from the Hallberg castle that included a small Catholic church.

Both Johann Michael Kirschs returned to Fussgoenheim about 1753 when an accounting took place that involved several grandchildren of the original Jerg Kirsch. Johann Jacob Kirsch, the Mayor’s son who had been evicted, had children baptized in Ellerstadt as late as 1759. It appears that some of the Kirsch family members settled into Ellerstadt and never returned.

However, Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor, was forcibly removed from his position after returning to Fussgoenheim. Hallberg dismissed Johann Michael Kirsch as mayor in 1757 by decree of cassation from the highest court of appeals.

Clearly, Johann Michael Kirsch hadn’t gone and didn’t go willingly, probably kicking and screaming every inch of the way – beginning about 1729/1730 when Hallberg acquired the entire village and began his resurvey. Johann Michael would have been about 29 or 30 then, about 43 or 44 when he was evicted, about 53 when he returned, and about 57 when he was stripped of his title and responsibilities as Mayor – serving as a thorn in Hallberg’s side the entire time.

Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor was dead by October 1759. This final chapter of his life must have been incredibly stressful. I wonder if it hastened his demise. In fact, I can’t help but wonder how he died.

This never-ending battle defined Johann Michael Kirsch’s life.

Johann Michael spent literally half of his life, most of his entire adult life, in a life-and-death struggle with the Hallberg dynasty, first father, then son, trying to thwart their attempts to take the Kirsch family lands, and in his capacity as Mayor, that of other Fussgoenheim residents as well.

The classic good versus evil battle. Except this time, good didn’t entirely win. But then again, neither did evil.

The Goal

My goal is to figure out which Johann Michael Kirsch is the father of Elias Nicolaus Kirsch born in 1733.

All three Johann Michael Kirschs have wives named Anna Margaretha in 1733. How frustrating is this!

• Three men with exactly the same name.
• All 3 related to each other.
• All three with wives named Anna Margaretha with no known surname.
• In the same small village.

That should be illegal!

Elias Nicolaus’s baptism record doesn’t provide a surname for his mother, nor an occupation for his father, but we do have some scattered threads of evidence.

We have a family grouped spreadsheet from Walter Schnebel, with some sources, and a translation spreadsheet of Fussgoenheim church records assembled by Tom. We have historical records provided by Christoph.

Let’s take a look at how we sorted through this mess.

Sifting Through the Evidence

One Johann Michael Kirsch, designated as “the eldest,” died in 1743 at the age of 83, so born in 1661. It’s possible that he had a child in 1733, at the age of 73, but not as likely as the two other younger Michaels.

Tom’s translation:

“On 12 January 1743 in the morning between 3 and 4 o’clock died in the Lord, Johann Michael Kirsch, the Eldest [!], after 15 weeks of sickbed, and was buried on the 13th of the same month. First Sunday after Epiphany. Age: 82 [years].”

As Tom mentioned, the Eldest suggests at least two younger men by the same name, the Elder and the Younger.

Name	Birth	Death	Job	Parents	Spouse
(Johann) Michael d. Ä.	1668	12.01.1743	Ackerer † Gerichtsmann – judge	Jerg u. Margaretha Koch	Anna Margaretha Spanier (als Witwe in Rechnungslegung 1753 erwähnt) – Anna Margaretha Spanier (mentioned as a widow in accounting 1753)

Walter Schnebel’s spreadsheet states that Anna Margaretha Spanier was mentioned in 1753 as the widow in the accounting. Given that the other two Johann Michael Kirschs are living, she has to be the widow of Johann Michael Kirsch, the Judge, who died in 1743.

Michael Kirsch Sr.

There are two births recorded with the designation of Michael “Sr.”, one in February of 1738 to Michael Sr. and Anna Margaretha, daughter, Anna Margaretha, godparents Johann Georg Eigel, the court member and wife Margaretha nee Ritthaler.

	Father	Wife	Child	Godparents
1738-02-10	Kirsch Johann Michael Sr	Anna Margaretha	Anna Margaretha	Eigel Johann Georg the court member and wife Margaretha nee Ritthaler

The second birth attributed to Michael Sr. occurred March 23, 1741, daughter Maria Catharina, godparents Johann Jacob Kirsch, citizen here and wife Maria Catharina NN (no name). Note that Johann Jacob Kirsch appears to be Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor’s sibling. This also fits given that several of these births had important government people as godparents.

	Father	Wife	Child	Godparents
1741-03-23	Kirsch Johann Michael Sr	Anna Margaretha	Maria Catharina	Kirsch, Johann Jacob citizen here and wife Maria Catharina NN

 This second birth attributed to Michael Sr. occurred after the 1743 death, so this birth is clearly NOT the Judge.

Elias Nicolaus Kirsch – Known Ancestor

Johann Michael Kirsch with no wife’s surname had son Elias Nicolaus Kirsch in May of 1733. This is my ancestor. Godparents were Elias Nicolaus Specht from Dürkheim, and wife. I can find nothing on Ancestry or FamilySearch about the identity of Elias Nicolaus Specht, or his wife.

	Father	Wife	Child	Godparents
1733-05-06	Kirsch, Johann Michael	Anna Margaretha	Elias Nicolaus	Specht Elias Nicolaus from Durckheim and wife

Given this birth date, the next child would have been born to this couple about 18-24 months later, and the previous child, if it lived, about 18-24 months prior.

Two Michael’s

Births to the two Johann Michael Kirschs who would have been having children during this timeframe are shown in the following table. Michael who died in 1743 is excluded because I am, perhaps wrongly, assuming that he was no longer having children at 65 years of age (in 1726 when baptism records begin) and then older. His known children were born between 1700 and 1717.

I created a chart compiling information about each birth, assigning relationships where possible.

Legend:

• White rows – I don’t have any idea which Michael, the Mayor or the Baker, to assign this birth to. There may be conflicting snippets of information.
• Peach rows – either known to be the Baker, or probably the Baker due to the witnesses. Some are from Walter’s spreadsheet whom he attributed to Michael the Baker, but I don’t know why.
• Green – definitely not my Michael
• Grey – the Mayor or probably the Mayor. One thing that makes sense is that the Baker would have stayed closer to home, baking daily, while the Mayor was cultivating influential friendships in other villages. This shows in the godparent selections.
• Yellow – mine or important evidence about mine

Note 1: The Mayor’s second wife. They married in 1739, after Elias was born, so unfortunately this has nothing to do with Elias’s mother.

Note 2: Walter Schnebel shows the following for Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor:

Name	Birth	Death	Job	Parents	Spouse	Notes
Johann Michael sen.	um 1700	vor 1759	1750 Schultheiß, Erbbeständer (heiress) in Fgh. u. Ellerstadt	Johann Adam u. Anna Maria Koob	1. Anna Margaretha N.N. (†17.12.38); 2. Maria Magdalena Michet (*26.10.00 Als †6.1.84 Als, verw. Saar, T.v. Johann Michael u. Eva Ramsauer) ~ 23.6.39	in Rechnungslegung 1753 erfasst; v. Halberg 1757 durch Kassasionsdekret als Schultheiß abgesetzt; um 1744 mit seinem Vetter Michael (Bäcker) ausgewiesen, hatte 1753, 2 Söhne u. 4 Töchter in Ellerstadt, Deepl Translation: recorded in 1753; v. Halberg dismissed as mayor in 1757 by decree of cassation; around 1744 shown with his cousin Michael (baker), had 2 sons and 4 daughters in Ellerstadt in 1753

I can’t decipher all of Walter’s German notes under spouse, except to understand that Anna Margaretha died in December of 1738 and Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor, remarried. Additionally, his cousin was Michael (born circa 1705), the Baker, which suggests common grandparents, or further back depending on how the word cousin was used, was also expelled to Ellerstadt in 1744.

Walter shows Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor’s siblings as:

• Johann Wilhelm Kirsch, born 1706, married Maria Catharina Spanier in November 1727. Note that in 1730, Johann Michael Kirsch and his wife Anna Margaretha were witnesses for his child named Johann Michael.
• Johann Jacob Kirsch, born about 1710, married Maria Catharina. Note: Maria Catharina N.N., Wtw.v.Joh.Nicolaus Schumacher,Schneidermstr.aus Fgh.) ~ 9.2.40 Also note: Tz. 1730
• Maria Catharina Kirsch, born about 1715, died Sept 1778 Als, married Johannes Neumann (aus Gronau) ~ 5.5.1739 Fgh
• Johann Peter Kirsch, born 1716, died before 1760, married 1. Maria Barbara Spanier (†6.7.37) ~ 8.5.1736; 2.Maria Magd.Gutermann ~ 18.2.38 Gönn; Anna Elisabetha Löw ~ 19.1.1740. There is a note that he is in Rechnungslegunt (accounting) in 1753. In 1737, Johann Jacob Kirsch, living in Dürkheim, witnessed the baptism of a child for Johann Peter.

Here are Walter’s notes for Johann Michael Kirsch, the Baker:

Name	Birth	Death	Job	Parents	Spouse	Notes
Johann Michael	um 1705		Bäcker	Johann Michael u. Anna Margaretha Spanier	1. Anna Margaretha N.N.; 2. Anna Margaretha Wohlfahrt ~ 1.12.1739	mit seinem Vetter, Schultheiß Joh. Michael 1744 nach Ell ausgewiesen, hatte dort 1753 1 Sohn u.      1 Tochter; in Rechnungslegung 1753 – with his cousin, Schultheiß Joh. Michael was expelled to Ell in 1744, and had 1 son there in 1753. 1 daughter; in Accounting 1753 – Deepl translation: with his cousin, Sheriff Joh. Michael expelled to Ell in 1744, had 1 son and 1 daughter there in 1753; in accounting 1753 – with his cousin, Sheriff Joh. Michael was expelled to Ell in 1744, and had 1 son there in 1753. 1 daughter; in accounting 1753

Walter shows the siblings of Johann Michael Kirsch, the Baker, as:

• Johann Daniel Kirsch, born circa 1700, died 1737, married Anna Margaretha Storck (2. Ehe Valentin Schweitzer ~22.12.39).
• Johann Jacob Kirsch, born December 1693 in Fussgoenheim, died 1762 Dürkheim, married Susanna Magdalena Müller (*1710 DÜW, T.v. Johann Georg) ~ 2.5.30 Dürkheim.
• Johann George Kirsch, born circa 1704, Schmiedemstr., Gerichtsmann (court man translation), married Anna Maria Margaretha Hartmann ~ 27.01.1728. Also in (accounting) in 1753, Note that in 1732, Johann Michael and his wife, Anna Margaretha were witnesses for this man’s child named Johann Michael.
• Johann Nichlaus “Nickel” Kirsch, born circa 1710, married Anna Maria Scheuer (aus Großniedesheim) ~ before 1731 ?, Note: in accounting in 1753; Tz. 1766 bei Enkelin See: Note that in February 1742 Michael Kirsch and Anna Maria were godparents for a child born. This suggests that this is the Baker, not the Mayor.
• Anna Catharine Kirsch, born 1717, confirmed 1730, but nothing more found.

Who’s Connected to Dürkheim?

We find connections in the godparents’ records to Dürkheim, in particular, the godparents of Elias Nicolaus. Is the connection to Dürkheim through the wives of one or the other Johann Michael Kirschs?

Who is the wife of Elias Nicolaus Specht? Would that provide a clue? Or his mother, perhaps?

Who were the wives of the Johann Michael Kirschs? Don’t I wish I knew.

Michael, the Baker, was the son of Johann Michael Kirsch who died in 1743 and Anna Margaretha Spanier.

Michael, the Mayor, was the son of Johann Adam Kirsch and Anna Maria Koob.

What are the Dürkheim connections?

• Both Johann Michael Kirsch (died 1743) and Johann Adam Kirsch were the son of Jerg Kirsch and Margaretha Koch, apparently from Dürkheim. Here is Walter’s note about her: Margaretha Koch (*um 1630, T.v. Stephan u. N.N.) married 09.09.1650 in Dürkheim

• Johann Michael, the Baker’s brother, Johann Jacob died in Dürkheim by 1762.
• Johann Jacob Kirsch, the brother of Johann Michael, the Mayor, lived in Dürkheim in 1737.
• Child of Johann Wilhelm Kirsch and Anna Maria in 1739 – godparents of child Johann Adam Hoffmann, butcher and wife Anna Maria of Dürkheim. Johann Wilhelm is the of Johann Adam Kirsch and Anna Maria Koob, brother of the Mayor.

The Dürkheim connection appears to stem from Margaretha Koch originally. Furthermore, this is where Jerg Kirsch and Margaretha was married, so the Kirsch line could also be from Dürkheim.  So, the Dürkheim connection is not through one of the wives of one of the Johann Michael Kirschs, providing us with no further clues. This was a red herring.

Kirsch Children and Siblings

My next tactic.

I am hopeful that by making a chart looking at naming patterns that we can discern a useful pattern and maybe a few hints. Elias Nicolaus is not as common as other names, like Johannes.

I’ve assigned people with question marks to columns based on what I think, or Walter thinks.

Keep in mind that the same child’s name could be a result of the name of the godparents, not because of an intentional naming after someone. Wouldn’t it be nice if Elias Nicolaus’s children all lined up with the children of one of the Johann Michael Kirschs? Let’s see.

• ? means uncertainly assigned

Unfortunately, we don’t have all the records for the children of Elias Nicolaus, and the ones we do have are inconclusive in terms of naming patterns.

The naming patterns don’t provide us with any additional hints either. Rats!

Who Were Elias Nicolaus Kirsch’s Parents?

Based on the above data, here’s what we know.

• The first name of all 3 wives of the Michael Kirschs in 1733 was Anna Margaretha.
• The widow, Anna Margaretha, of Michael Kirsch who died in 1743 (born 1661), was mentioned in the 1753 accounting. He is unlikely to be the father of Elias Nicholas born in 1733. If she is his only wife, she would have been about age 45 in 1717, so certainly not having another child in 1733.
• Both younger Michael Kirsch’s, who were cousins, remarried, both after 1733 when Elias Nicholas was born. Their second wives are irrelevant to this equation, although both are widely assigned as his mother by some genealogists, especially in public trees.
• The surname of Anna Margaretha, the first wife of Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor, remains unknown, but he remarried to Maria Magdalena Michet on June 23, 1739. At least she had a different first name.

Tom’s translation:

Marriage: the 23^rd of June 1739, the Ehrengracht? Herr Johann Michael Kirsch from here mayor of the area governed by von Hallberg with the widow of the late Jean Saaren, former Palatinate tax collector from Grunau?, Maria Magdalena, in the local parish church.

• The surname name of Anna Margaretha married to Michael Kirsch, the Baker, remains unknown. She died in 1738, and he remarried to Anna Margaretha Wohlfahrt in 1739 (see below).

• Elias’s mother cannot be Anna Margaretha Wohlfahrt who married Johann Michael, the Baker, in 1739, after his first wife, Anna Margaretha surname unknown, died in 1738. Elias’s mother also cannot be Maria Margaretha Michet who married Johann Michael, the Mayor, in 1739 after his wife died in 1738 as well. Those two Michael’s must have felt like they were living parallel lives in many cases.
• There is no conclusive naming pattern.
• The godparents suggest that Elias Nicolaus might be the child of the Mayor, especially since the child born to the “other Johann Michael Kirsch” four months earlier has as a godparent the son of the brother of Michael, the Baker.

Nothing definitive yet.

Where else can I look?

Is there more to be learned in the 1753 accounting that Walter mentions? This one’s tough, because not only do I not have this document, I have absolutely no idea where to find it. I’ll use Walter’s notes since he states who is mentioned and clearly had access.

1753 Accounting

I suspect this accounting has to do with the Hallbergs and Fussgoenheim land inherited from Jerg, based on who is and is not mentioned.

Which Kirschs were in the 1753 accounting, and how are they related?

Name in Accounting	Kirsch Parents/Husband	Walter’s Comments	My Comments
Anna Margaretha Spanier – alive in 1753	Widow of Johann Michael who died in 1743	Anna Margaretha Spanier (als Witwe in Rechnungslegung 1753 erwähnt) – Anna Margaretha Spanier (mentioned as a widow in accounting 1753)	Johann Michael who died was the son of Jerg Kirsch and Margaretha Koch
Johann Michael Kirsch who died in 1743	Jerg Kirsch and Margaretha Koch	Wife Anna Margaretha Spanier in 1753 is mentioned as Johann Martin Kirsch’s widow in accounting
Johann Martin Kirsch (died before 1723)	Son of Johann Jacob Kirsch, son of Jerg Kirsch and Margaretha Koch	Wife Anna Elisabetha Börstler (als Witwe in Rechnungslegung 1753) ~ um 1727: translation: Anna Elisabetha Börstler (as widow in accounting 1753) ~ about 1727	Johann Jacob is the son of Jerg
Johann Michael Kirsch Sr. (died 1757-1759) (Mayor)	Johann Adam Kirsch died 1740 & Maria Koob. Johann Adam is the son of Jerg Kirsch and Margaretha Koch	in Rechnungslegung 1753 erfasst; v. Halberg 1757 durch Kassasionsdekret als Schultheiß abgesetzt; um 1744 mit seinem Vetter Michael (Bäcker) ausgewiesen, hatte 1753, 2 Söhne u. 4 Töchter in Ellerstadt, Deepl Translation: recorded in 1753; v. Halberg dismissed as mayor in 1757 by decree of cassation; around 1744 shown with his cousin Michael (baker), had 2 sons and 4 daughters in Ellerstadt in 1753	There are obviously some records in Ellerstadt in 1753
Johann Peter Kirsch who died in 1760	Johann Adam Kirsch and Anna Maria Koob, Johann Adam Kirsch is the son of Jerg Kirsch and Margaretha Koch	In 1753 accounting
Johann Georg Kirsch	Johann Michael Kirsch died 1743 & Anna Margaretha Spanier	In 1753 accounting
Johann Michael Kirsch, (the Baker)	Johann Michael Kirsch died 1743 and Anna Margaretha Spanier	In 1753 accounting
Johann Nicholas Kirsch	Johann Michael Kirsch died 1743 and Anna Margaetha Spanier	In 1753 accounting
Johann Adam Kirsch born 1731 died 1777	Either Johann Nicholas (son of Johann Daniel) or Johann Jacob (son of Johann Michael died 1743, or Johann Adam)	In 1753 accounting

I’d like to see where these people fit in a common pedigree chart, and I do a lot better with a visual.

I’ve color-coded people found on the 1743 map, in the 1753 accounting, individuals who are known to be dead, and those believed to be alive.

Elias Nicolaus Kirsch was not mentioned by name, so one would have to assume that is because his father is still alive. That pretty much puts the nail in the coffin, permanently, of Michael who died in 1743 being Elias’s father. But it does nothing to differentiate between the other two men, the Mayor and the Baker.

End of My Rope

I was officially at the end of my rope. I had learned a lot, but I still didn’t have a definitive answer. Furthermore, I didn’t know where to search.

I was not entirely convinced that Elias Nicolaus was the son of Michael Kirsch the Mayor, but Walter who had access to local, original records has him assigned as such. Furthermore, IF indeed the Johann Nicholas Kirsch baptized in January 1733 was the son of Michael Kirsch, the Baker, then my Elias Nicolaus, born four months later, HAS to be the son of Michael Kirsch, the Mayor, and Anna Margaretha.

I hate those “if” words, because so far, every piece of evidence has an associated “if.”

I organized and typed up the information we have and sent it off to Tom and Christoph for review. My head was spinning. So much data and so little hard and fast information.

Tom and Christoph both began looking at baptism records in Ellerstadt, and at records in Dürkheim which came up dry.

From Chris:

– I found a baptism of an Elias Hohl on 25 March 1751 in Ellerstadt, where the young Elias Kirsch, son of Michael Kirsch, was the godfather. Unfortunately, no further clue about which Michael his father was.

This is indeed my Elias, but no further identification.

– On 17 January 1753 in Ellerstadt, one of the Michael Kirschs was a godfather for a Michael Kirsch, son of Jacob Kirsch.

– On 4 Feb 1753 a baptism of Johann Jacob, son of Conrad Schumacher. Godfather was the stepfather Johann Jacob Kirsch from Fussgoenheim. (A Johann Jacob Kirsch, stepson of mayor Kirsch, is again godfather on 21 August 1754 in Ellerstadt. Is he the same Johann Jacob?)

Stepson and stepfather may not mean the same thing it means in today. Regardless, no further information about Elias.

– 4 March 1753 in Ellerstadt: baptism of Johann Nicolaus Moeser. Godmother was Catharina, daughter of mayor Kirsch.

Great information, but no cigar.

BINGO!

After running out of Kirsch records, Tom checked more records in Ellerstadt, where we knew they had lived, and some family members remained. As Christoph did, Tom searched for children baptized with the first name Elias or Nicolaus, given that children were named after the name of their godparent.

And there it was, tucked away in the godparent notes – a field almost never indexed, but where the nugget of gold we desperately needed was waiting:

Baptism: No. 11

Parents: Christoph Gutteberger, citizen here & wife, Anna Margaretha

A son, born and baptized and named Elias

Godparents: the unmarried Elias Kirsch, the legitimate son of the former praiseworthy mayor, Michael Kirsch; and the unmarried Maria Catharina Koob(in).

Born the 16^th of October 1759

Baptized the 19^th of the same

Tom, always understated simply said:

Important as it designated the father of our Elias Kirsch, the praiseworthy mayor, Johann Michael Kirsch and is the only Elias born in the correct time period.

Not only that, but this record is a twofer because we know that “former” typically indicates that Johann Michael Kirsch, Elias’s father, is deceased. The word praiseworthy makes me feel good, because that one word, not found in any other baptisms that I’ve ever seen, speaks volumes about how Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor, was perceived by the townspeople. Clearly, he was revered, at least by the good reverend who penned this record, probably for his lifelong battle and personal sacrifice, stepping forward and absorbing the brunt of Hallberg’s wrath for almost three decades.

Praiseworthy.

That alone is an honoring and fitting legacy for our Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor, who spent his life on this earth fighting the righteous battle against a powerful, wealthy foe. Kind of a David versus Goliath situation.

Praiseworthy, indeed.

Life Summary of Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor

Now that we know that Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor, is the father of Elias Nicolaus, let’s do a quick summary to order the facts of his life:

• Born about 1700 to Johann Adam Kirsch and Anna Maria Koob in Fussgoenheim.
• Married probably in 1724 or 1725 to Anna Margaretha whose surname has remained stubbornly unknown.
• Son, Johann Jacob, born about 1725, confirmed in 1739, died in 1760, married Anna Catharina Elisabetha Klamm.
• Daughter, Anna Barbara, born in 1726, married Abraham Zeitler, died in 1805 in Dannstadt.
• 1726 – New Lutheran church records begin. This could be when the current church was built, or it could have been as late as 1733/34 when Hallberg complained that the residents weren’t paying for the church construction.
• Daughter, Maria Barbara, born in 1727, nothing more.
• 1728 – Hallberg inherited half of Fussgoenheim and claimed common sheep pasture.
• 1729 – Hallberg began a resurvey of Fussgoenheim to divide land differently, cheating townspeople by shortening survey rod and claiming lands were abandoned that were not.
• 1730 – Hallberg obtained the other half of Fussgoenheim.
• Daughter, Maria Veronica, born in 1731.
• 1733 – Sheep pasture suit ends in compromise, with Hallberg obtaining pasture, but residents allowed to use it so long as not many sheep grazed.
• Son, Elias Nicolaus, born in 1733, died in 1804, married Susanna Elisabetha Koob, my ancestor.
• In 1733 and 1734, the War of Polish Succession was fought from 1733-1735, with portions fought in the Palatinate. In 1734, a camp for soldiers existed not far from Fussgoenheim.
• 1734 – Johann Michael’s mother, Anna Maria Koob died.
• Daughter, Anna Catharina, born in 1735, witnessed baptism in Ellerstadt in 1753, single.
• Daughter, Anna Margaretha, born in February 1738, died in September 1739.
• Death of Anna Margaretha, his wife, on December 10, 1738.
• We don’t know when Michael first became Mayor, but his wife’s death in 1738 identifies her as the wife of Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor. It appears that he remained mayor until 1757, throughout his exile, and into his return. That must have gauled Hallberg immensely. At least, I hope so:)
• 1739 – Married Maria Magdalena Michet, widow of the Palatinate tax collector Jean Saar, from Grunau on June 23, 1739. It’s likely that Maria Magdalena had children from her first marriage, so Johann Michael probably became a step-father to a number of children. Based on the fact that their last child was born in 1742, Maria Magdalena was probably about the same age as Johann Michael Kirsch, so she had likely welcomed 7 or 8 babies into the world.
• 1740 – Johann Michael’s father, Johann Adam Kirsch died something before 1740.
• Daughter, Maria Catharina, born 1741, probably died shortly thereafter.
• Son, Johann Theobald, born 1742.
• 1743 – Johann Michael refused to sign the Hallberg survey. He is listed as mayor, owning three properties and possibly more if I could read the entire list of names.
• 1743/1744 – Grendardiers stationed in Fussgoenheim, residents property confiscated.
• 1744 – Jailed for 14 days, then expelled to Ellerstadt.
• 1745 – Residents filed suit to obtain the return of confiscated items, which they won, but Hallberg raised taxes in retribution.
• 1746 – Additional suits filed, but the court did absolutely nothing with them. Twenty-four years later, long after Johann Michael’s death, the residents were still inquiriting about the suite.
• 1750 – Court rules that Hallberg had to allow expelled families to return and return their land to them, but he ignored the edict.
• 1752 – Holy Roman Emperor accused townspeople of not paying taxes and encouraged Hallberg to bring justice to Mayor Kirsch and the other townspeople. Hallberg threatened them with the military.
• 1753 – Court repeated decision and Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor, returned from Ellerstadt.
• 1753 – Accounting in Fussgoenheim includes Johann Michael Kirsch, the Mayor.
• 1757 – Removed as Mayor by order of the highest court at the request of Hallberg. The order included forcing villagers to pay all unpaid taxes, frontage money fees for tobacco scales, and threatened military intervention if they violated any part of the order. Hallberg wrote that he was very pleased, and no leniency should be shown to Mayor Kirsch.
• In October 1759, Johann Michael’s son, Elias, served as a godparent in Ellerstadt, where the records refer to him as the son of the “former praiseworthy mayor, Johann Michael Kirsch,” indicating that Johann Michael Kirsch had gone on to receive his just rewards.

This – THIS – is what leadership looks like.

Rest in Peace, Johann Michael Kirsch, you certainly deserve at least that.

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