brazilian relatives

Back in 1891, when my great-great-great-great-uncle Christian Gottlieb Weiß wrote up what he knew about his ancestors and relatives, he noted about his aunt:

„Maria Katharina Weiß, geb. 17.2.1786 verh. mit Pfarrer Ried aus Schauern (Hochwald) ist in Rio di jeneire (Südamerika)“

which for a long time was all we knew about that branch of the family. We have now found out, however, that this family emigrating to Brazil has left many dozens of descendants there. They didn’t in fact go to Rio but to São Leopoldo, like a lot of other emigrants from the Hunsrück area did, too. The spelling of the husband’s name is Rieth, and he wasn’t a vicar either.

Helpful fellow genealogists in Brazil sent us a big chunk of data of Rieth descendants, which I’ll summarise the important bits here:

Maria Katharina (or Maria Barbara according to other sources) and her husband Georg Philipp Rieth (1784-1843), together with their two sons Philipp Christian Gottlieb (*1811) and Johann Friedrich (*1814) emigrated in 1829, arriving in São Leopoldo on 25.5.1829.

Both sons married within the community of German migrants from the Hunsrück. Philipp Christian Gottlieb Rieth married Maria Elisabeth Schiehl (born 1820 in Hundsbach near Meisenheim) in São Leopoldo in 1838. Johann Friedrich Rieth, confusingly, married Maria Caroline Rieth (1824-1898), born in Schauren like he was, so more likely than not a cousin. This second Rieth family (the parents are Georg Heinrich Rieth and Johanna Dorothea Schlieper) arrived in São Leopoldo on 29.12.1825.

Each of the two had eleven children, many of whom went on to marry other people from the German community (we find the names Uebel and Purper from Oberstein, Hemb from Niederkumbd, Haag from Sensweiler near Trier), producing more than 40 great-grandchildren for Maria Weiß and Georg Philipp Rieth.

These descendants stayed mostly in the surroundings of São Leopoldo (i.e. in the state of Rio Grande do Sul), settling in places like Lomba Grande, Hamburgo Velho, Sapiranga. In this area, you’ll even find streets and a school named after people with the surname Rieth.

Image source and further info:
Wikipedia entry on German migration to Brazil (in German)