the women of the Reformation

We used to think it was a curious thing that the vicar of Eckweiler, Johannes Weiß, married the daughter of a colleague, but after looking around in the wider network of Lutheran clergymen in the Upper County of Sponheim (Hintere Grafschaft Sponheim, see the map here), I realised that it was definitely a pattern followed systematically. The County was a very small and fragmented Lutheran territory surrounded by Catholics and Calvinists, so it makes sense that the Lutheran priests formed a very tight network. In fact, one of Johannes's daughters married his successor in Eckweiler.

Katharina von Bora, who married reformator Martin Luther in 1525 and thus started the tradition of clergymen's families. Painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Source: Wikipedia.

So here I will look systematically at the matrilines, the mothers and daughters who lived in the Pfarrhaus (vicarage) over several generations. First, let's look at the lineage from the Weiß Chronicles again:

Dorothea Elisabetha Hammers married the Konrektor of the Lateinschule Trarbach, Philipp Nikolaus Ebner who in 1720 became the vicar of Alterkülz. Note that we knew nothing about her parents at the time I finished the first draft of this entry. Then I gave it another attempt to google a version of her name we don't normally use, Hammes, and actually found her parents in familysearch. More about them below.

Their daughter

Katharina Elisabeth Ebner married Johannes Weiß who later became the vicar of Eckweiler. Their daughter

Maria Elisabetha Weiß married Philipp Jakob Bauer, a parson at Enkirch, who later took over the parsonage of his father-in-law at Eckweiler. Unfortunately the lineage ends here. Two children died in infancy, no surviving children are known. Maria died in 1819.

But maybe we can extend the matriline upwards. We don't know the profession of her father but the mother of Dorothea Elisabeth Hammes turns out to be:

Anna Dorothea Arnoldi, born 1656 in Traben.

Now that is an exciting development because there's a whole load of priests and schoolteachers by the name of Arnoldi on the Upper Sponheim circuit around that time (There are ten listed with family connections in Monatshefte für Rheinische Kirchengeschichte 1933, p. 315). Strangely, familysearch doesn't give parents for Anna Dorothea Arnoldi, but Gedbas does name them as

Johann Conrad Arnoldi and Anna Maria Kimmnach, without revealing the father's profession.

The Wiki site with Hunsrueck parsons has this couple and reveals that Johann Conrad Arnoldi "was a parson in Bergen, Kirn, from 1651 to 1654. He then was a diacon and parson in Enkirch/Moselle from 1654 to 1670. From 1670 to 1711 he was a parson in Traben." The website references the Monatshefte 1933, where the wife is called Anna Maria Kemmenah (1632-1690). Her father was a merchant, so no luck carrying on in that direction.

Incidentally, Johann Justus Arnoldi, Rektor at the Trarbach Lateinschule in the 1650s, was his brother (and also a clergyman at times). His son, another Johann Conrad Arnoldi (1658-1735), was Rektor at the Lateinschule 1685-1708 and later became a professor of theology at the university of Gießen.

So we have a slight gap in the matriline (or a baton handed down from a vicar's daughter to a vicar's wife), but at least Dorothea Elisabeth Hammes's grandfather was a vicar (bringing the total to 15). She wouldn't have known her grandmother who died in 1690 after giving birth to ten children, but her grandfather's second wife, Anna Margaretha Liernur, also came from a family of protestant priests, and his third wife was the widow of a colleague. Oh, and one of the maternal uncles of Dorothea Elisabeth was also a priest. Even if her father wasn't one, we can accept that she knew what this whole Lutheran church thing was about before she married Philipp Nikolaus Ebner.

 

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A bit deeper down in the history of Trarbach, we also have

Anna Gräf (Croef) from the Trarbach area. Her brother Just was vicar of Sensweiler in 1578 (according to geneanet). This village was (just) outside Upper Sponheim, in the Wild- und Rheingrafschaft. It had introduced the Reformation in 1550, so there would be time for Anna and Just's father to be a clergyman as well, if only I can find him.

Around 1573 Anna married Johann Conon. Their children include:

Ursula Conon, who in 1602 married Georg Christmann Nesselius, who from 1600 to 1602 was the schoolmaster and Diakon at Birkenfeld serving under Conon, see his CV here. Their daughter

Elisabeth Nesselius married Johann Conrad von der Rosen, the son of the Strasbourg goldsmith. After Elisabeth died, he married her sister Ursula .

Elisabeth's daughter Maria Ottilia von der Rosen went on to marry Franz Nickel Andreae in Winterburg in 1654. He was not a clergyman himself but the son of the vicar of Gebroth, Nikolaus Andreae. Nikolaus may or may not descend from the line of three Lutheran priests I've described here. Franz Nickel's mother also had clergymen in her family, including both her grandfathers.

So I'm afraid we have a slight hiccup in the matriline here, but Ursula's son

Hans Conrad was the vicar of Gebroth from 1693 until his death in 1711. His nephew

Johann Friedrich Roos, born 1675, who became the vicar of Gebroth (perhaps as the direct successor of his uncle?) and stayed in the post until his death in 1737.

 

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Finally, some orphaned ancestors who may still turn out to be the daughters or granddaughters of clergymen.

Maria Magdalena Metzler, born 1711 (calculated), married Franz Nikolaus Andrae at Gebroth between 1733 and 1738. Seeing that he may well have ten or more clergymen among his direct ancestors, I think it would be plausible to think she may have some too, so I am looking for a connection to the Lutheran priest:

Johann Peter Metzler
born in Trarbach
student at Gießen 1663
Kaplan in Winningen 1670-1701 (Monatsberichte 1909 page 240, 263)
1702 until his death vicar of Alterkuelz
Died before 12.11.1709, when his son Georg Ludwig Metzler, merchant in Ems, married Maria Charlotta Josepha Dörbeck at Ems (the spa town on the river Lahn now known as Bad Ems).

A bit further back, the mother of our original clergyman Johannes Weiß at Eckweiler. His mother was Maria Elisabeth Straus * 14. 5.1681 Königsberg (Hessen) Incidentally there was a Lutheran theologian called Johann Michael Strauss at the time of the Reformation. Just saying.

Looking around for possible images to illustrate the Pfarrhaus families, I found out that there is a lot of literature on this sujet, actually. The Protestant clergy families are described and analysed as the seed of the Bildungsbürgertum (educated middle class), which arose in the 18th century to take up the growing number of opportunities in administration, education etc. Back in the century of the Reformation, there wasn't this diversity of education opportunities, so the families that found their way into the Pfarrhaus circuit tended to stay there.

 

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Confused about who is who? - see my new name index for all things family history.

all about oysters

I didn't know much about oysters until three weeks ago, but a member of the editorial team at Current Biology suggested to do a feature on the restoration of oyster reefs, so I educated myself and found out a lot of interesting things about the ecosystems we lost, but could in some cases restore quite easily, for instance by dumping discarded oyster shells in the sea.

The resulting feature is out now:

Returning shells to the sea

Current Biology Volume 36, Issue 9, 4 May 2026, Pages R363--R365

Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(Unfortunately, this year's features will no longer become open access one year after publication - do contact me if you would like a PDF.)

Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)

See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

My mastodon posts are also mirrored on Bluesky.

Last year's thread is here .

Oyster reefs declined severely in the 19th and 20th centuries but are now being restored in many places. (Photo: The Tampa Bay Estuary Program/Unsplash.)

a plucky little Lutheran town

Some things I learned from

Trarbach in alter Zeit
by Ernst Schütz
Traben-Trarbach 1909

In my recent investigations about the Ebner ancestors, and separately, the church inspector Johann Conon, I found valuable information in this history of the town of Trarbach, which is available online. As it doesn't have an index and I only discovered the search function belatedly, I read most of it to make sure I didn't miss any further clues to the lives of the people I was after. Although I moaned about the author's harsh treatment of Conon, the rest of the book turned out to be the fascinating story of a plucky little town full of Lutheran people surviving in extremely hard times, including the Thirty-Years' War as well as additional periods of occupation by hostile troups. The time frame is wisely chosen from the arrival of the Reformation in 1557 (which fuelled some of the subsequent wars) to the destruction of the Grevenburg in 1734, whose strategic importance had brought the town more grief than anything else in the previous centuries.

Trarbach - engraving by Bodenehr from 1704.
Source: Wikipedia

Funnily enough, the German Wikipedia entry of the town (now merged with Traben to form Traben-Trarbach) practically skips this part of its history, so I'll outline a chronology here with a special attention to the school where the Ebners taught for 45 years:

 

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Trarbach 1557 - 1734

1557 the Reformation started in the Upper County of Sponheim (German: Hintere Grafschaft Sponheim; see map below) by virtue of a letter from the Duke of Simmern-Palatinate-Sponheim to his Oberamtmann (chief of the administration) at Trarbach, demanding the introduction of protestant practices in the parishes of the county. This happened in accordance with the Augsburg Settlement of 1555 which decreed that the the rulers determine the religion of their subjects (Cuius regio eius religio). However, the Upper County of Sponheim happened to have two rulers of different faiths. Friedrich der Fromme had just inherited the dukedom on the 18th of May 1557. Not wasting any time, on the 16th of July he signed that letter to his administrator in Trarbach. It seems that the other (the Markgraf von Baden) wasn't given much time to protest before the letter went off, but didn't block the introduction of Lutheran practice when it happened.

The five green patches constitute the Upper County of Sponheim - how this splatter survived as a political unit jointly ruled by two different overlords for three centuries is completely beyond me.
Source: Wikipedia / By Lencer - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

The very Catholic holiday of Fronleichnam was celebrated at Trarbach for the last time in 1557, and Christmas of the same year saw the first Lutheran Abendmahl. In 1560, an official delegation visited all the parishes of the district to see whether the priests in place were able and willing to follow the new rules, and to replace them if they failed the test. The visitation protocols are extremely useful resources giving insights into the lives of people at the time of the Reformation.

In 1571, Heinrich Henning, the first Lutheran vicar of the town, suggested setting up a high school for the district. As it happens, the regional asylum for the paupers had just been moved to nearby Enkirch because unruly residents there might disturb services at the church next door. The building was adapted for use as the school (see photos here and here).

In 1574 The Lateinschule was founded with two classes then expanded to three with a total of 78 pupils: The Infima was an elementary school for boys and girls, the Secunda a highschool for boys only teaching Latin and a bit of Greek, and the Prima prepared pupils for university with more Latin and Greek along with philosophy. The school was financed in part from the income of nearby Wolf monastery and was free of charge for the pupils, although donations were encouraged. Three quarters of the pupils came from the town itself, which then had between 1,000 and 1,200 residents, the others from Traben, Enkirch, or further afield.

Meanwhile, there was trouble brewing at the church next door. In 1572 Johann Conon came to the town as the Diakon (assistant priest). By 1574, he has written a lengthy letter of complaint to the authorities about the Calvinist tendencies of vicar Henning, in joint enterprise with the Diakon of Enkirch who had similar concerns about the vicar there. Both vicars were summoned to court and found lacking in Lutheran purity, and thus dismissed. During the next Visitation, the people of Trarbach, who were fond of Henning, took their revenge on Conon and made multiple accusations against him. He was moved to become the vicar of the more remote town of Dill, but soon after moved on to the court at Birkenfeld where he became court priest and Inspector of the entire Oberamt, officially charged with sniffing out Calvinists everywhere. The widening rift between Lutherans and Calvinists was a big issue at that point. As Lower Sponheim was Calvinist, clergymen of that inclination could find jobs there, while places like Trarbach offered refuge to those evicted for being Lutheran.

From September 1576 and well into 1577 the plague hit the town.

In 1583 the plague returned.

In 1584, the Palatinate share of the rule over Upper County of Sponheim fell to the Duke Charles of Birkenfeld, as he came of age. This is significant for our Lutheran little town, as much of the rest of the Palatinate drifted towards the Calvinist creed and the divisions between both camps were deepening. He still had to contend with the Catholic co-rulers in Baden.

1589 Funding disputes led to the school being scaled down to an ordinary one-class town school, and the Rektor (head of school and teacher of the final class) being dismissed.

By 1591 the authorities agreed to reinstate the school in its old form and reinstall the old Rektor.

In 1597/98 the plague hit the town for the third time.

1618-1648 During the Thirty Years' War, the town changed hands several times. The Swedes finally arriving were seen as liberators as they were protestants like the townspeople.

On 1.1.1649 the Lateinschule relaunched with Nikolaus Klingler as Rektor, Markus Lehmann as Konrektor and Daniel Rima as the schoolmaster for the Infima.

In 1654, Johann Hofmann arrived at the school as the new Rektor. His memoir Trorbachische Ehre-Säul published in 1669 (after retiring in 1667) describes the lives of the people in the town in great detail, including for instance, how the local wine was produced, and what other professions were present. Coming from another wine-growing region (Baden), Hofmann was intrigued by the cultural differences he discovered when he arrived in the Mosel valley. In 1968 a facsimile edition of the book was published ahead of its 300th anniversary. You can read it online here. The glorious title of the book in full: "Trorbachische Ehren-Säul: oder geschichtliche Beschreibung förderst der Fürstl. Spanheymischen Ober-Amts-Statt Trorbach an der Mosel, theils auch anderer Ohrt in derselben Gegend, sonderlich des dahin verbürgerten Haupt-fleckens Traben".

In 1675, Johann Jacob Ebner arrived at the Lateinschule where he taught the younger pupils at first in his dual role as Kantor and Präzeptor. He became Konrektor in 1686.

In 1682, only a century after the Catholic parts of the world, the Upper County of Sponheim switched to the Gregorian calendar.

1683-1697 French occupation under the Reunions policy of Louis XIV. He instructed Vauban to build a massive fortress, Montroyal, on the other side of the river, overlooking Traben. It wasn't completely finished yet when the peace treaty of Rijswijk of 1697 required its destruction.

1685-1703 The tenure of Johann Conrad Arnoldi as Rektor gave the school some much-needed stability in turbulent times. Born at Trarbach, Arnoldi was the son of a previous Rektor and an alumnus of the school himself. He went on to become quite famous as a professor at Giessen and has a detailed Wikipedia entry.

In the war of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), the French took the Grevenburg again, but were displaced in 1704 by Protestant troups from Hessen, who handed it over to a Dutch unit.

In 1708, Philipp Nikolaus Ebner took over the position of Konrektor at the Lateinschule as his father retired.

The peace treaty of 1714 had an unfortunate side effect for the people of Trarbach, as it gave the Archbishop Elector of Trier the right to station troops at Grevenburg. As the castle was damaged to the degree to make it practically uninhabitable, he forced the town to accommodate his soldiers. Again, the Lutheran town was under Catholic occupation and had to feed its enemies.

This state of affairs lasted beyond the departure of Philipp Nikolaus Ebner to the Hunsrück village of Alterkülz in 1720. I imagine that the situation did make the town a less attractive place to live, so the move to the vicarage of Alterkülz was likely welcome, and the retired Konrektor Johann Jakob Ebner came along too.

In 1734, during the war of the Polish Succession, the Grevenburg was besieged again and practically destroyed. It was never rebuilt and the town had a much happier and more peaceful life without any strategically important fortification in its vicinity.

 

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PS So my ancestors who left the town in 1720 would have had to wait just 14 years longer for the pain to end. Oh well. I am wondering whether to add Trarbach to the lostcities series. Maybe once I've visited it and identified a few more candidates for a third season.

staying alive

In the madness of the UK's Covid response, public health expert Devi Sridhar was a lone voice of reason. Remembering this, I was keen to read her book about the wider application of her thinking to population scale life and death from all causes and found it quite enlightening. Most importantly, she demonstrates how dramatically the political decisions affecting public health differ between countries and how that leads to very different results in avoidable deaths from causes ranging from guns to cars.

How Not to Die (too soon): The Lies We’ve Been Sold and the Policies That Can Save Us
Devi Sridhar
Penguin Viking 2025

My review of the book is now out in the March issue of Chemistry & Industry:

Health accountability

Chemistry & Industry Volume 90, Issue 4, April 2026, Page 34

access via:

Wiley Online Library (paywalled PDF of the whole review section)

SCI (premium content, ie members only)

In the same issue I also have a feature about plant microbiomes. I've covered the field a couple of times in Current Biology (most recently in 2022), but this one is slightly different in emphasis as C&I wanted more about the application side of it than I have previously covered.

Plant probiotics

Chemistry & Industry Volume 90, Issue 4, April 2026, Pages 22-25

access via:

Wiley Online Library (preview of the first page and link to paywalled PDF)

SCI (premium content, ie members only)

the clan of the Roses

When I raved about the goldsmith at Strasbourg, Franz Bolion von der Rosen, I only briefly stopped for his son who moved to Winterburg in the Hunsrück for reasons unknown and left lots of descendants there. I won't go as far as listing them, but as I'm obsessing about Lutheran clergymen in my family tree at the moment, I will be exploring those lineages where I discovered some of them.

So starting from our immigrant from Strasbourg:

Johann Konrad von der Rosen, born Strasbourg 1599, came to Winterburg before 1627. Note that this was the time of the Thirty Years' War, so this may have been a life-saving rather than a career move. Winterburg was then the administrative centre (Amt) ruling over nearby villages such as Eckweiler and Gebroth, one of five or so districts in the tiny and fragmented microstate Hintere Grafschaft Sponheim (Upper County of Sponheim). It is situated by the Ellerbach creek, which also flows through Gebroth and joins the river Nahe at Kreuznach. He kept an inn at Winterburg and seems to have been successful in his business (as well as successfully surviving in dangerous times). He married four times (the most complete list of wives and children I found online is here).

Winterburg: The former town hall built on top of the ruins of the former castle. Now a hostel for school groups (Schullandheim Winterburg). Source: Wikipedia.

First time in 1627, the wife's name is unknown, and she appears to have died in giving birth to their son Hans Samson von der Rosen in December 1627. Conceivably, she could have been the daughter of the previous inn keepers?

Second time in August 1628, with Elisabeth Nesselius, importantly the daughter of the local vicar Georg Christian Nesselius (vicar of Winterburg until at least 1622 but not sure if he was still alive in 1628), and granddaughter of vicar and inspector Johann Conon (see their CVs here). Note also the amusing botanical combination of Nessel (nettle) and Rose in this marriage (and the next one). They had four children together, including my ancestor Maria Ottilia von der Rosen, who went on to marry Franz Nickel Andreae in Winterburg in 1654. He was not a clergyman himself but the son of the vicar of Gebroth Nikolaus Andreae. I'm assuming that all Andrae people in Gebroth descend from this couple, including the lineage leading to my ancestor Catharina Elisabeth Andrae, as listed here. So far I don't know what became of the other three children of this marriage, two girls and a boy.

Elisabeth Nesselius died in 1635.

By December of the same year, Johann Conrad had married Elisabeth's sister Ursula Nesselius, so we're looking at another wife from a Lutheran clergy family, and funnily enough, lots of priests pop up among their descendants - mostly under the name of Roos rather than von der Rosen. And two of them presided over the parish of Gebroth for decades, looking after the family events of their Andrae cousins. Sadly the church books documenting these proceedings are lost. I'm also not sure where their previous placements were.

It is already an achievement that Johann Conrad survived, found wives and raised all these kids with the Thirty Years' War raging and death and devastation all around them. The Amt (district) Winterburg was particularly hard hit, with several villages (Rehbach, Allenfeld, Daubach) remaining uninhabited for more than a decade after they were destroyed.

Hans Conrad Roos, the first one of the four sons we know from this third marriage, was born at Winterburg in 1641. He married Anna Christina Maul in 1664. Their daughter Philippine Roos married Johann Caspar Hargart in Winterburgh in 1700 and had at least six children.

Hans Conrad was the vicar of Gebroth from 1693 until his death in 1711.

The second son of the innkeeper's third marriage was Johann Paul Roos born 1644. He was a Gerichtsschöffe (juryman). He married Gertrud Schmidt in 1666 and they had 11 children including

Johann Friedrich Roos, born 1675, who became the vicar of Gebroth (perhaps as the direct successor of his uncle?) and stayed in the post until his death in 1737. I believe that previously he had held a position of Diakon in Winterburg since 1698, but that is from a mention of the surname only, so it may have been a different member of the Roos clan whose church career I haven't discovered yet.

Noteworthy is also Friedrich's younger brother Johann Burghard Roos, born 1686, who was a tax collector and the father of the court official Philipp Caspar Roos (1717-1805), who has a lengthy Wikipedia entry and an equally prominent son.

Friedrich's older brother, Johann Conrad Roos, born 1667, is the maternal grandfather of the poet Johann Nikolaus Götz (1721-1781) who, again, has lots of lutheran priests in his published family tree.

Friedrich married Maria Elisabeth Hargart (note there was another Roos-Hargart marriage above!) at Winterburg in 1700. They had eight children.

Their son Johann Adolph Roos, born in 1712 wanted to succeed his father in the position in Gebroth, but was rejected and had to take a position as Diakon in Traben instead. He married Justina Maria Kröber at Traben in 1740. She was the daughter of Johann Georg Kröber, the vicar of Bell from 1712 to 1743.

In the 19th century, Christian Roos, a descendant of the Winterburg Roos clan became the mayor of Krefeld, but I don't know where he should be attached.

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Confused about who is who? - see my new name index for all things family history.

life on the edge

Some thoughts on

The Far Edges of the Known World
A New History of the Ancient Past
By Owen Rees
Bloomsbury 2025

Somebody left several copies of the US edition of this new book in an Oxford street library, so I took one home and found it quite interesting. The author looks at the lives of people on the edges of the known empires of antiquity. People lived ordinary lives far away from Rome, Athens, or Thebes, they exchanged goods and services with the neighbouring populations who in the central metropolis would be considered Barbarians, and experienced an interesting mixing of cultures.

We get glimpses of the Scythians on the Pontic Steppe, the Numidians on the Southern borders of Ancient Egypt, Roman soldiers guarding Hadrian's Wall, and the origins of Viet Nam. Far from being the unimportant margins, these edges turn out to be the connecting tissues between different cultures. Unexpected connections occur, eg when considering Southeast Asians simultaneously aware of the Roman and the Chinese empires. Artifacts characteristic of one culture show up in another many thousands of kilometres away. Like other recent books dealing with areas outside the Roman empire including Peter Frankopan's The silk roads and Neal Ascherson's Black Sea, this is also about globalisation happening in Antiquity.

Given the exciting nature of the findings discussed, the author's tone and style is rather subdued. I can't help feeling that somebody like eg Jared Diamond might have written a more engaging book about all of this. However, the surprising connections and discoveries related here are sufficient to make it an interesting read throughout.

Bloomsbury

survival secrets of the koalas

After the rather depressing outlook on AI safety (or lack thereof) I needed a bit of comfort and joy, so I jumped at the opportunity presented by a paper on the genomes of more than 400 cuddly koalas. They serve as the mascot for the feature on the subject of conservation genomics which also takes in other life forms such as sea snails, snow leopards, and lemurs.

The resulting feature is out now:

Survival in their genomes

Current Biology Volume 36, Issue 7, 20 April 2026, Pages R299-R301

Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(Unfortunately, this year's features will no longer become open access one year after publication - do contact me if you would like a PDF.)

Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)

See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

My mastodon posts are also mirrored on Bluesky.

Last year's thread is here .

Although it is now widely adored as an icon of Australia, the koala has experienced severe population declines and is still in need of conservation attention, as a new study analysing hundreds of genomes confirms. (Photo: Mathias Appel/Flickr.)

books growing old with me

One of the perks of getting older is that I suddenly own lots of antiquarian books, although I am almost sure they were new just a few years ago. For instance, I still have a few books from my preschool childhood which are now antiquarian treasures. I think the oldest one may be the Wolkenschaf (cloud sheep):

or possibly the green parrot:

(which takes on an entirely new meaning now that there are feral green parrots in many cities in Germany and in the UK).

and then the three more mechanical ones, on the tram, the plane and the crane:

and finally the more overtly educational ones:

That pseudochronological ordering is purely subjective by how deeply buried I feel my associated memories are. Don't want to spoil it by checking actual publication dates. But may reread the book some time. I took the photos ten years ago probably to share them on my bookish blog on tumblr and just rediscovered them by accident looking for something else.

PS We put on the green stars to mark the books as German language books for our preschool children growing up bilingually.

sicut pater sic filius

(like father, like son)

Philipp Nicolaus Ebner (1682-1734), vicar of Alterkülz is one of the two clergymen in the family tree we knew about from the Weiß Chronicles. He was the father in law of the other one, namely Johannes Weiß, the vicar of Eckweiler. Earlier in his life, he was a teacher at the Lateinschule Trarbach (a secondary school teaching mostly Latin, preparing pupils for university), following in the footsteps of his father, Johann Jacob Ebner. The school had confirmed this, but we didn't know much more about the Trarbach times.

Recently, when I was looking for details concerning the difficulties that Johann Conon had in Trarbach (from the other side of the Weiß family tree, so not linked to the Ebners in his lifetime), I found the book Trarbach in alter Zeit by Ernst Schütz online, which dates from 1909. It contains a lot of information about the Lateinschule and provides enough material for biographies of Ebner father and son:

A German version is available on request - deutsche Fassung auf Anfrage.

 

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Johann Jacob Ebner

Johann Jacob Ebner came from Hungary - as the book states in agreement with the Weiß Chronicles. We don't know any specifics. Intriguingly, there is another Ebner family from the Black Forest, whose members emigrated to Hungary and came back a few generations later, but the timings don't match. (See eg this Joseph Ebner from Zechenwihl who emigrated to Hungary in 1767, long after our Ebners arrived from there.)

He arrived at the Lateinschule in 1675, where he taught the younger pupils (Infima, admitting boys and girls) at first in his dual role as Kantor and Präzeptor. At that time, Johann Thomas Hase was the Konrektor, which meant that he taught the middle section (Secunda) students, boys only from here onwards, who learned Latin and the basics of Greek, and Johann Tobias Germann was the Rektor teaching the Prima, preparing them for university. The whole school was under the supervision of the vicar of Trarbach in his role as the inspector of the Oberamt. From 1671-78 that role was held by Johann Heinrich Horb. He was replaced with Johann Peter Rodaug who served until his death in 1699.

Johann Jacob Ebner married a woman from Trarbach in December 1674 (the same year he started teaching at the Lateinschule), but we aren't told her name. In Gedbas she appears as Maria Brigitta, without a family name, calculated birth year 1646. Schütz notes, however, that among the ten godparents of his first child there are four members of the local nobility, adding that he appears to have been well connected. I might add that it could be a hint that she was from a well-connected local family?

Stop Press - familysearch names the wife as Brigitta Maria Christophor, baptised 21.12.1650, surprisingly in a Catholic church in Cologne (St. Paul which no longer exists). This entry reveals six children, three more than in Gedbas, namely:

Hetwig Magdalena Sophia Ebner 2.10. 1676– apparently the first child with the big baptism.
Christianus Ebner 1679–1679
Johann Andreas baptism 30. January 1680 Trarbach,
Philipp Nicolaus baptism 25. May 1682 Trarbach, see his CV below
Anna Elisabetha Ebner 1685–1749 She married Philipp Georg Hornmann in 1711.
Carl Ludwig baptism 18. January 1688 Trarbach, died 1692

Familysearch also provides names for her parents but not for his. The site suggests that Johann Jacob Ebner was born in Wurttemberg, which is rather vague and in conflict with the statements elsewhere that he was from Hungary. Maybe his parents were, and he was born en route to Trarbach. The site pins his birth to 30. July 1660 which can't be right as it would mean he started teaching and got married at age 14. A plausible interpretation would be a reading error with the real birth year being 1650, which would match the birth year of his wife too. However, the age noted with the record of his death would give us 1646 or late 1645.

Johann Jacob was promoted to Konrektor at the Lateinschule in 1686. Johann Conrad Arnoldi, the son of an earlier Rektor and himself an alumnus of the school had replaced Rektor Germann the year before and stayed on until 1708 (more about him below and in Wikipedia). Johann Friedrich Fritzsche became the new teacher for the Infima.

In 1693 his wife died. In 1695 he married the widow of the mayor Mülberger. Earlier in the book, the mayor is further identified as Johann Ruprecht Mülberger from Cronweißenburg (Wissembourg, Alsace), who came to the town after the war and became its first apothecary. In 1665, he married the daughter of the Kirchenzensor Meurer. From this incomplete info I could pin down Johann Jacob's second wife as:

Ursula Elisabeth Meurer, born 11.12.1646 Trarbach, died 9.10.1705 Trarbach. Her parents were both born in Trarbach, the origin of her grandparents aren't specified in the Gedbas entries. Note that her mother was born Haussmann. The Lateinschule had a schoolmaster by that name for many years until 1618. Her husband the apothecary Mülberger had been the mayor from 1673 until his death in 1692 at the age of 56.

After Ursula Elisabeth died in 1705, Johann Jacob felt his forces dwindle (although he was only 60) and relied on the help of his son Philipp Nicolaus (see below) who served as an adjunctus.

In 1708, Johann Jacob retired and Philipp Nicolaus took over his role, although some church records after that still call the father the Konrektor and the son the adjunctus.

When his son moved to Alterkülz, Johann Jacob may have gone along with him, as it was there that he died in October 1726 at the age of 80.

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Trarbach - The Lateinschule is the building to the left of the church. Source: Wikipedia. Von Rolf Kranz - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 4.0

 

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Philipp Nicolaus Ebner,

He was born in 1682 in Trarbach.

In 1708, he officially took over his father's role as Konrektor at the Lateinschule. The same year, he married Dorothea Elisabetha Hammers in Traben, just across the river. As I only found out in the process of preparing this blog entry, Dorothea was the daughter of Christoph Hammes and Anna Dorothea Arnoldi. Her maternal grandfather, Johann Conrad Arnoldi was the vicar of Traben until his death in 1711, so he may have well held her wedding service. Oh, and his brother Johann Justus Arnoldi was the Rektor at the Lateinschule back in the 1650s. Johann Conrad Arnoldi II, the Rektor of the Lateinschule from 1685 until 1708, was Johann Justus Arnoldi's son and thus Anna Dorothea's first cousin. He became quite famous later as a professor at Giessen, see his Wikipedia entry.

Philipp Nicolaus and Dorothea Elisabetha had at least ten children, as I conclude from combining incomplete lists from Gedbas and from a Pfalzdorf researcher.

Gedbas lists six children born in Trarbach:
11. June 1709 Johann Conrad - died in October that year
16. September 1710 Johann Christoph - died February 1712
6. November 1712 Catharina Elisabetha
30. April 1715 Maria Margaretha
27. August 1717 Anna Maria
17. March 1720 Susanna Margaretha

In 1720, he became the vicar of Alterkülz, where he remained for the rest of his life. Times were particularly hard for the people of Trarbach around this time, as the latest peace settlement had assigned the strategically important castle Grevenburg just next door to the Archbishop Elector of Trier, who refused to pay for the repair of its unusable living quarters and instead ordered his garrison to be housed in the town. Thus the fiercely protestant little town was, for the third time in a century, under a hostile occupation lasting many years. This situation may have made the move to remote village of Alterkülz look attractive.

In Alterkülz, four more children were born. Two died in infancy, and of the other two we have no further information.

In 1732, the firstborn, Catharina Elisabeth married Johannes Weiß, who became the vicar of Eckweiler.

Philipp Nicolaus died in August 1734 in Alterkülz aged 53. In 1741, his widow married Johann Hasselbach (Familienbuch Kastellaun, he also appears in Gedbas with his previous wife)

In 1742, Maria Margaretha married Johann Matthias Krämer in Traben. The couple had six children according to GedBas.

In 1749, Anna Maria married Carl Morlang from Weiler and had four children with him. The family settled at Pfalzdorf in the Lower Rhine area, together with a whole group of would-be migrants who had wanted to go to America via Rotterdam but only got that far as the Netherlands refused to let them pass.

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Long story short, between them, Ebner father and/or son taught at the Lateinschule for a continuous period of 45 years.

 

And I just found out that the building of the Lateinschule now serves as a hostel for pilgrims, I think I will have to make a pilgrimage too! They do mention cyclists too, so I'll bring a bike.

A brief history of Trarbach and its Lateinschule will follow in two weeks time.

PS A glimpse of my own experience of learning and teaching Latin is in the first paragraph of this book review.

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Confused about who is who? - see my new name index for all things family history.

a cello with a chip on its shoulder

Pirate Luthier update

A special delivery brought five instruments into the pirate luthier workshop at once, namely violins 35 and 36 and cellos 4-6. These instruments had been donated to a local youth orchestra but needed a bit of care to be made playable. I took on the cellos first, as there was a more immediate demand for those, so this post is only about the cellos.

Cello number 6) is a full-size cello made in Western Germany in the 1950s or 60s I would guess (see the label below). It had a bit of wood missing on the treble side of the shoulder, which I filled in. Not that I care about cosmetic repairs, but there was the risk of a player's sleeve getting caught in the sharp edge and ripping off more of the wood, so it was just an operation to make it smooth.

I also made a foot for it out of a cava cork (forgot to take a photo, but see cello 3). Otherwise it was fine, I happily played it for a week and got on well with it, so all good. The labels reveal that it was "Made in Western Germany" after Stradivarius 1713. Imported by Leslie Sheppard in the 1950s. It has now returned to the good people looking after that youth orchestra.

Cello 5) is a 3/4 cello that was brandnew and in my opinion has never been playable, because the pegs didn't fit quite into the pegholes all the way, so they didn't have enough wood surface to grip on. Which explains why at least one was absolutely unusable. In the end I widened the holes for 3 of the pegs to make sure they are functional. Similar story with the endpin hole - that was too narrow and left the endpin plug sticking out by half a centimeter. More of an aesthetic problem, but I adjusted that as well. And lowered the bridge by half a centimeter.

My overall impression was that the company that sold this instrument just plugged together the parts as they came in from different factories, without ever checking if the combination resulted in a playable instrument. That one is now also back with the owners.

Cello 4) is a half-size one which has a few bits of wood missing which I may or may not fill in and which more importantly has lost all the metal parts of its endpin, leaving only the wooden plug. So it does hold the strings alright but you would have to support it with your legs if you wanted to play it. That can be done but it's not everybody's idea of fun. Endpins come in various sizes that aren't necessarily standardised, and vendors online don't necessarily reveal the crucial measure I need to know, namely the maximal diameter of the wooden conical bit, so I am still looking for the right one to fit this instrument at a price that doesn't exceed the value of the cello itself.

endpin plug of half-sized cello 4) in comparison to the complete endpin of 3/4 cello 2), which has in fact a bigger plug than eg full-size cello 3). It's all very confusing.

NB I've now moved the list of instruments that pass through my pirate luthier workshop to a permanent page which I will update whenever necessary, independent of the blog entries.

meet Conon the contrarian

Among the inlaws of Conrad von der Rosen, who came from Strasbourg to settle in Winterburg in the Hunsrück area, we find the vicar and church inspector Johann Conon who gets a lot of praise in texts relating to the von der Rosen family history and also in the Monatshefte, but is vilified in a history of the town of Trarbach. So let's get to the bottom of that:

 

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Johann Conon

He was born around 1542 in Reichenbach (Vogtland). He studied theology in Rostock and Strasbourg, spent two years as an assistant priest in Mundolsheim, Alsace, then became the court priest of the Counts of Winneburg in Beilstein (Mosel).

From 1572 to 1575 he was the Diakon (assistant priest) of Trarbach, serving under the very popular priest Heinrich Henning who was the first protestant vicar of that town, which at the time had between 1000 and 1200 residents and was the adminstrative capital of the Hintere Grafschaft Sponheim (Upper County of Sponheim). The town was in principle Lutheran but it appears that some people including Henning had Calvinist inclinations. (Note that Calvinism wasn't recognised in the Augsburg settlement of 1555.) Diakon Conon together with an unnamed Diakon of neighbouring Enkirch wrote a letter of complaint about those Calvinist tendencies to the authorities in Zweibrücken, resulting in the removal of both Henning and the vicar of Enkirch, Heinrich Gallus in 1574.

Reporting the events in the book Trarbach in alter Zeit, dating from 1909, author Ernst Schütz creates the impression that Conon acted maliciously against a universally popular parish priest, which at the next "Visitation" from the authorities led to the good people of Trarbach denouncing Conon for all sorts of misdemeanors, such as playing cards and running up debts in the local inns. Apparently he was also fond of hunting and fishing, and a good businessman.

As a result of the "troubles in Trarbach" as other sources put it, Conon was moved to a smaller town, Dill, where he became vicar, so it isn't exactly a punishment as he moved to a higher rank in the clergy albeit in a smaller parish. He stayed there for a year, 1575-76.

As if to prove that the authorities were really on his side in the troubles he faced, he was then made the court preacher of Birkenfeld and inspector of the districts of Allenbach, Birkenfeld and Herrstein, a role which he fulfilled until 1602. Mentions of his name in the Monatshefte mostly refer to his official actions as an inspector, such as installing or removing clergymen in various positions around the area, or commenting on their merits, so he appears to have been carrying out his duties as he should. (Although I also recall seeing a statement from someone who was disappointed after following Conon's recruitment recommendation.)

Birkenfeld in an engraving after Merian. Source: Wikipedia

On 18.12.1600 he held the Leichenpredigt (funeral sermon, a tradition going back to Martin Luther) for Charles I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld in Meisenheim, which has also been published in print. (The count's main claim to fame, I just learned, is that he is the ancestor of the future kings of Bavaria.)

Around 1573 he married Anna Gräf (Croef). Their children include:
Ursula, who in 1602 married Georg Christmann Nesselius, who from 1600 to 1602 was the schoolmaster and Diakon at Birkenfeld serving under Conon, see his CV below. Their daughter Elisabeth married Johann Conrad von der Rosen, the son of the Strasbourg goldsmith. After Elisabeth died, he married her sister Ursula (blog entry on their descendants coming soon).
Hans Konrad 1577, died the same year
Margaretha 1578 died 1579
Petrus 1579
Sara 1581
Johannes 1583 died 10.9.1602
Christina 1585
Karl 1587 died 12.8.1602
Dorothea 1588
Friedrich 1590

Update 10.4.2026: According to familysearch he died 12.8.1602 at Birkenfeld. The same dataset says his daughter Ursula married Georg Chr. Nesselius on the 15.8.1602, just three days later. Sounds very implausible to me. Gedbas says 12.7. (and still 15.8. for the wedding), that's a bit better. Note that among Conon's children, found on Geneanet, two teenage sons also died in the summer of 1602, Karl on the 12.8. (and his father the same day) and Johannes on 10.9. Three funerals and a wedding then.

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And while we're here, I'll add a short bio of his son-in-law, the priest Christian Nesselius, about whom we don't know quite as much. In fact, I have come across an amazing number of such cases where the clergyman's daughter marries another clergyman, often carried on across several generations, like we have in the Weiß Chronicles as well. One could describe this as matrilinear, as the daughter of the Pfarrersfrau (vicar's wife) becomes a Pfarrersfrau again. So in the Weiss Chronicles we have Elisabeth Hammers - Catharina Elisabeth Ebner - Maria Elisabetha Weiß. Which makes sense as this role came with a whole host of social obligations as well and the daughters could be trained for it from an early age. Church historians like Friedrich Back and O. Penningroth are good at pointing out these connections. Watch out for a separate entry on this phenomenon coming soon.

Anyhow, here comes Conon's daughter and her husband:

 

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Georg Christmann Nesselius

Born in Speyer

From 1600 to 1602 was the schoolmaster and Diakon at Birkenfeld serving under Conon.

in 1602 married Ursula Conon, daughter of Johann Conon, his boss.

Their daughter Elisabeth Nesselius was born 1606 Winningen

1603-1616 he was Diakon (assistant priest) in Winningen. In these years he had to temporarily take on the tasks of the vicar on two occasions when the position was vacant, but each time he failed to get promoted to get the job permanently.

From 1606 to 1607 he had was the acting vicar after Johannes Porta was dismissed. Petrus Merkator, the vicar of Gödenroth was then moved into the position. Merkator died of the plague (which had also killed four of his children within a fortnight) on 28.10.1611. Although the members of the parish supported Nesselius as the permanent replacement, Konrad Greulach was installed in the post in 1613.

Protests only subsided when Nesselius became vicar of Winterburg in 1614. Greulach also died of the plague, in 1623.

In 1628 Elisabeth Nesselius married Johann Conrad von der Rosen, the son of the Strasbourg goldsmith.

On 10.6.1633 he is no longer alive as his daughter Ursula marries Andreas Quinckh from Kreuznach.

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Long story short: Conon the contrarian becomes a respectable inspector and his daughter marries his deputy.

PS More treasures from the Trarbach book to follow next week. Oh, and a potted history of the town is also in the pipeline.

 

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Confused about who is who? - see my new name index for all things family history.

the AIpocalypse starts here

I'm not particularly interested in AI, and just wish the bubble would burst and go away, but every once in a while the problems it creates get so urgent I can't avoid writing about them. Two years ago it was the environmental footprint of all the fancy new data centres. Now, I'm afraid, it's everybody's safety. I started from the recent safety report that was covered in the media and addresses issues like deep fake videos, fraud, job losses, false health advice etc.

What I found to be missing from the report, however, is a lot more worrying than that, namely the fact that AI is already choosing targets in the wars in Gaza and Iran. So we allow it to kill humans. What could possibly go wrong . Well, it only gets more depressing from there (eg there's the AI2027 scenario which came out last year), so the latest feature is not for the faint-hearted:

Handing over to AI

Current Biology Volume 36, Issue 7, 6 April 2026, Pages R265-R267

Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(Unfortunately, this year's features will no longer become open access one year after publication - do contact me if you would like a PDF. Last year's features will still move to the open archives as this year advances.)

Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)

See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.

My mastodon posts are also mirrored on Bluesky.

Last year's thread is here .

Drones guided by AI are already a common feature of current conflicts. (Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Victoria Granado/Wikimedia Commons.)