This fundamental rock on which much of our family history is built has been on my website since time immemorial, but as I am now giving up on my hosting arrangement, I'll need to save it here (and update it a bit as well, with links to recent developments):
Back in 1891, a four-times great uncle of mine took the trouble of writing down the history of his family in some detail, in a document entitled “Familien Chronik der Familie Weiß” (cited as “the Weiß chronicles” below). My great great aunt Johanna Kauer borrowed this document from a cousin in the 1930s, copied it and added details of her own family.
It’s a story of refugees from the troubled Eastern parts of Europe whose descendants ended up in the Hunsrück mountain range beween Rhine and Moselle, and settled there for many generations. In the 19th and 20th century, there were moves to the West and East respectively, each time followed by a rather hasty return to the Hunsrück.
What is also remarkable about this lineage is that there are nine different professions in 10 generations (myself included). Therefore, I used the professions in the chapter titles, as they will facilitate navigation. For the same reason, the chapter numbering goes backwards, counting down to my generation as the number 1.
Table of contents:
I. The Weiß chronicles (1680-1891)
10. The merchant
9. The parson
8. The village mayor
7. The teacher
II. The Kauer family (1844-1972)
6. The shoemaker
5. The railway man
4. The businessman
I. The Weiß chronicles (1680-1891)
10. The merchant
Christian Weiß is regarded as the founding father of this lineage, only because we know very little about him and nothing at all about his parents. He must have been born around 1680 -- the only clues being the birth years of his son Johannes, 1704, and of Johannes’s future father-in-law, 1681. The Weiß chronicles state that Christian Weiß was a merchant who was born in Silesia, which then belonged to the kingdom of Bohemia, was evicted from there because of his protestant faith. The conflict between a largely protestant population and a catholic ruler in Bohemia was the ignition for the Thirty Years War. As the protestants lost and the catholic rule was re-established, many protestants fled. (By the way, all people in this story are Lutheran protestants, unless specified otherwise.)
However, Christian Weiß himself was probably too young to to be a Bohemian refugee involved in the immediate aftermath of the war, so maybe his parents were evicted. In any case, the chronicles say that Christian Weiß found refuge in Königsberg, without any further specification. We had always assumed that this was the city belonging to the Brandenburg-Preußen dukedom (which in 1701 proclaimed itself the Kingdom of Prussia under Frederic I, in a ceremony held at Königsberg). Another descendant of the Weiss lineage, however, found evidence suggesting that Christian Weiss (whose name may have been different, too) lived in a village called Königsberg in Hessen, close to the town of Wetzlar.
Christian Weiß settled there and had two sons with his wife Maria Elisabeth. We don't know her maiden name, but she may have family ties to the village of Seibersbach, because their son Johannes received his confirmation there.
A bit of number-crunching to fill the space: If, as 20th century research suggests, each person has a 90% probability of being the child of the man whom they believe to be their father, Christian Weiß still is more likely to be my ancestor than not, at 53 %. Just as well that we don’t know anything about his father, because that guy would only have just under 48 % chance of being the true founding father of the lineage.
9. The parson
Of Christian Weiß’s two sons, one stayed in Königsberg and took up his father’s trade, while the other, Johannes Weiß (1704-1772) studied theology at Gießen (which makes the village of Königsberg appear a much more plausible starting point than the city in East Prussia would have been) and came as a parson-in-training (Pfarrkandidat) to Dörrebach in the Hunsrück mountain range, just a few kilometers west of Bingen on the river Rhine. There he was appointed a parson in 1729. In May 1740 (according to the Eckweiler book, the Weiß chronicles claim it was 1742), he moved to a parsonage in Eckweiler (some 20 km deeper into the Hunsrück), where he remained a parson until his death in 1772. In fact the Weiß chronicles were written in that very same village nearly 120 years later.
The village of Eckweiler dates back to the 9th century, its church to around 990. Sadly, its history spanning more than a thousand years came to an abrupt end.
In 1979, the village was officially dissolved. Following the introduction of Phantom fighter jets on the nearby airfield of the Bundeswehr, the noise had become unbearable. The last 250 villagers were relocated to a brand new suburb of the nearby town of Sobernheim, and all buildings except for the church -- not the original building, but the same location where Johannes had held his service some 250 years earlier -- were demolished. Too hastily, as it turned out, as the end of the cold war also saw the Bundeswehr selling off the airfield to a car manufacturer who planned to use it as a test course, but never did. So Eckweiler, known locally as “the church without a village” is very nice and quiet nowadays.
The church of Eckweiler, the only building left standing of the historic village.
Source: Wikipedia / Von Devlaminck - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 4.0,
There is a book about the history of Eckweiler, its church, and its parsons. According to this source, Johannes Weiß was a very assertive type of person, who would always make sure that everybody got their due. In first years of his 32-year tenure, he had the church renovated inside and out. His lasting legacy, however, was to be the village school, built in 1770.
According to the same book, Eckweiler had 157 inhabitants in 1769, all of whom were protestants. Johannes’s parsonage also extended to the neighbouring village of Daubach, with 80 inhabitants including 36 protestants.
In 1732, Johannes married Katharina Elisabeth Ebener or Ebner (1712-1750), the daughter of the parson of Alterkülz (still Hunsrück, but 40 km NNE of Eckweiler), Philipp Ebener (~1681-1734). The Weiß chronicles state that Ebener’s family was originally from Hungary and was deplaced by the Thirty Years War, but that must have affected Philipp's grandparents, as his father, Johann Jacob Ebner, was born in 1646 at Trarbach on the river Moselle, where he was a conrector, i.e. a teacher entitled to teach the final year pupils at grammar schools (Lateinschule). The school still exists today and has confirmed that Johann Jacob Ebner taught there from 1686 till 1708, and his son Philipp Nikolaus from 1708 till 1720, i.e. before becoming the parson of Alterkülz.
Note that the Ebener and Weiss folks of this generation must have been moving in the same circles as the writer W.O. von Horn (real name Friedrich Wilhelm Philipp Oertel, born in Horn), who comes from a family that includes five generations of protestant priests in that area. In fact at least four marriages of my direct ancestors happened at Horn, so some of these may have been officiated by a member of the Oertel family.
Johannes and Elisabeth had seven children,
1. Johannetha Weiß married a forester named Federkeil, at Gebroth (Hunsrück).
2. Johann Gottlieb Weiß, the future mayor of Pferdsfeld, a neighbouring village.
3. Regina Weiß married a Mr Weimar from Dörrebach.
4. Maria Elisabetha Weiß married Philipp Jakob Bauer, a parson at Enkirch, who later took over the parsonage of his father-in-law at Eckweiler. Maria died childless in 1819.
5. Marianne Weiß married Philipp Orth from Weiler near Martinstein, on the river Nahe.
6. Philipp Theodor Weiß became a private tutor for the counts of Solms, he drowned while hunting wild ducks in the back waters of the river Rhine.
7. Christian Weiß died while a student at university.
... of whom the second will be of interest for our lineage:
8. The village mayor
Johann Gottlieb Weiß was born in 1736 and went on to become the mayor of the village of Pferdsfeld (which, like Eckweiler, was evacuated in 1978-82 because of the military airfield). He married Anna Katharina André from Gebroth (a tiny village, just a few km E of Eckweiler). We know nothing about her family (except that the family name has survived at Gebroth to this day). Note, however, that Gottlieb’s older sister Johannetha had also married someone from the same village (see above), so there may be some sort of pattern.
Following the example set by his parents, they had seven children,
1. Johann Philipp Weiß, a teacher at Weiler on the river Nahe, married Anna Margaretha Kaiser, from Merxheim (Nahe).
2. Johannetha Weiß married Leopold Wagner from Winterburg.
3. Magdalena Weiß married Johann Fleischer from Pferdsfeld.
4. Philipp Weiß, a teacher at Gödenroth, and later at Winningen (Mosel), married Katharina Petermann from Allenbach.
5. Regina Katharina Weiß married Johann Fuchs from Eckweiler.
6. Christian Gottlieb Weiß, became a teacher at Hellenthal, Raversbeuren and Simmern u. Dhaun.
7. Maria Katharina Weiß, born in 1786, married a parson called Ried from Schauern (Hochwald) and went off to Rio de Janeiro, allegedly (here's what really happened).
... of whom the sixth will be of interest for the continuation of our lineage:
7. The teacher
Christian Gottlieb Weiß (1782-1867) is the earliest born ancestor of whom we have a photo. He worked as a teacher, at first in Hellenthal (Eifel, i.e. north of the Moselle). This is where he seems to have found his wife. In 1806, he married Anna Gertraud Käuer, (1777-1858; alternative spelling: Keuert) from Gemünd. Her parents, Tilmanus Keuert and Regina Catherina Freischmid were from Hellenthal (Eifel).
He then taught at Raversbeuren, and from 1819 until his retirement in 1853 at Simmern unter Dhaun, a village today known as Simmertal, not to confused with the main town of the region which is also called Simmern. They are both on the same little river, the Simmerbach, but Simmern unter Dhaun is close to where it joins the Nahe river (near Kirn), while the town of Simmern is upstream, on the highlands of the Hunsrück. Relative to Christian Gottlieb’s home village of Pferdsfeld, Simmern unter Dhaun is just 5 km SSE, so he may have jumped at this opportunity to work closer to his family home, after the previous jobs were much farther away.
The school at Simmern unter Dhaun can be traced back to 1563, for which year the village chronicles record that a teacher’s salary was paid. In 1824, five years into Christian Gottlieb’s tenure, the “protestant elementary school” had 126 pupils. The following year, 14 Jewish children joined them as well. In 1838, the position of a second teacher was approved, and in 1841 a Mr Schneider was hired.
In 1846, the school house, dating back to 1747, was extended with a second storey. Since then, it had two classrooms and two flats for teachers, plus a barn and stables. However, as these buildings were too small to get a proper farm going, the schools land was leased to local farmers. We don’t know whether either of the flats was occupied by the Weiß family (whose children were all grown up by then).
Christian Gottlieb’s earnings at that point were:
* 47 Thalers from the Fabry foundation
* free residence, firewood, small amounts of natural produce;
* as a sacristan, bell-ringer, and organist for the local church he also got 1 Thaler in cash and
* 22 Thalers worth of natural produce.
In 1851, Christian Gottlieb built a house with barn and stables where he then lived with his wife and the growing family of his daughter Henriette, who had six children with her husband Friedrich Kaiser. One of them, Johann Kaiser, moved into the house of his parents in 1913, after retiring from his job as a teacher in Cologne. The house stayed “in the family” for more than a century, until 1961.
In 1852, the government of the Kingdom of Prussia, of which the Hunsrück area was now a part, politely enquired whether Christian Gottlieb didn’t want to retire from his teaching job, as he was already 70 years old, and there had been complaints about him. He retired the following year, after 34 years as a teacher at this school. Mr Schneider took over as first teacher for a year, but in 1854 new teachers were appointed to both positions. He received a decent pension and was able to celebrate his golden wedding anniversary in 1856.
Anna Gertraud died in 1858, aged 81. Christian Gottlieb died in 1867, aged 85. The school house survives to this day, but is in residential use today.
Portrait of Christian Gottlieb Weiß taken in 1866, at which point he was retired, widowed, and a little bit forgetful, but otherwise fine, I guess.
Christian Gottlieb and Anna Gertraud had 8 children and at least 20 grandchildren. The fifth, and to some extent also the second child will be of interest for further developments, while the 7th is the author of the Weiß chronicles.
1. Karoline (Kornelia) Weiß, 1807-1877, married farm labourer and coachman (Georg) Philipp Fuchs, at Simmern unter Dhaun. Reportedly, there have been troubles related to alcoholism and tuberculosis in that family, but they still managed to have 11 children, born 1829-1851.
2. Maria Magdalena Weiß, 1809-1885, married Peter Schmidt from Hahnenbach. They had one daughter, (Caroline) Wilhelmine Schmidt, * 1848, who married Ferdinand Weirich, and from whom the Weirichs and Giloys at Hahnenbach are descended, who who kept the village inn until the late 20th century.
3. Johannetha Weiß, 1809-1879, married Friedrich Dick from Monzingen, reported to have set sail for America with “a stable full of children.” (Possibly because of the famine of 1845/46 triggered by potato blight.)
4. Karl Weiß, a railways man at Hamm (Westfalen), married Wilhelmine Schmidt from Hamm, had one daughter.
5. Sophie Weiß, 1815-1862, see below.
6. (Regina) Wilhelmine Weiß, 1817-1865, did not marry.
7. Christian Gottlieb Weiß, born ca. 1821, in 1844 married a widow, Maria Katharina Kessel, had two sons and two daughters. He is the author of the Weiß chronicles.
His daughter Sophie Weiß married a Mr Kehrein. Their son Karl Kehrein married his cousin Lina Martin, also a great-grandchild of the teacher C. G. Weiß (via his 5th child, Sophie, the next stop in our lineage). Through Karl Kehrein, who was a baker at Kirn and knew my great-great aunt Johanna Kauer, the Weiß chronicles came to our knowledge. Sadly, however, Karl Kehrein’s descendants don’t know what happened to the original.
8. Henriette Weiß, 1822-1895, married Friedrich Kaiser, had 6 children: Karl, Fritz (2 children), August (3 children), Johann, Hermann ...
II. The Kauer family (1844-1972)
From this point onwards, we leave the original contents of the Weiß chronicles. My great-great aunt, Johanna Kauer, who had saved the chronicles for our family by copying them from an original held by her second cousin Karl Kehrein, seamlessly turned them into the Kauer chronicles by adding details of her own family. Increasingly, the following events are also backed up by original documents which we still hold.
6. The shoemaker
Sophie Weiß (1815-1862) was born at Raversbeuren, during the second placement of her father’s teaching career, but mainly grew up at Simmern unter Dhaun, where the family settled in 1819. In 1844, she married Mathias Kauer (1813-1885), a shoemaker from the town of Simmern, the administrative centre of the Hunsrück area, some 15 km N (and upstream) of Simmern unter Dhaun.
Simmern had officially been a town since 1330. More intriguingly, it was the capital of an independent country, the dukedom of Palatinate-Simmern, for a quarter of a millenium, from 1410 to 1673. Look at it now, and the idea seems absurd. Tragedy struck when the last duke died without a successor and the French king Louis XIV laid claim to the territory for his family, but didn’t get the approval of the German nobility assembled in the Reichstag.
In 1689, French troups burned the town, blew up the castle, and demolished the fortifications. The town’s archives were lost and Simmern’s time of glory went up in smoke along with the rest of it. Very slowly, the town recovered from its darkest hour. By 1800, it had some 2000 inhabitants and was the centre of the canton Simmern with some 12,000 inhabitants.
In October 1794, French troups conquered the Hunsrück area, and General Bernadotte took over Simmern. The town remained French throughout the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, who introduced his characteristic brand of administration to the Hunsrück. After Napoleon’s demise, Simmern fell to Prussia, where it remained until Germany was united in the empire of 1871. Today it is a perfectly average small German town. Practically nothing reminds the visitor that it once was the capital of a country.
When Sophie Weiß came to Simmern to marry Mathias Kauer, the Kauers had been at Simmern for two generations. Mathias’s father Christoph Kauer, also a shoemaker, had been born there in 1785, but Mathias’s grandfather Christian Kauer, a linen-weaver, settled there in the 18th century, coming from nearby Kirchberg. Christian Kauer’s wife, Maria Magdalena Hebel (1747-1790), on the other hand, came from an old Simmern family and had a minor claim to (reflected) fame, as a first cousin of the author Johann Peter Hebel (Das Schatzkästlein des rheinischen Hausfreunds). Hans Jakob Hebel, who may or may not be an 11th generation ancestor of mine, was a tanner and Bürger at Simmern. He got married in 1639 and died in 1651.
This is the founding couple of the Kauer clan. They had eight children, six of whom lived to adult age, and 18 grandchildren, listed here.
Much of the
info on the old website that followed after this point (generations 5 and 4) has been superseded by things I published on the blog in recent years, so I may not need it here any more. I'll link to the relevant entries and maybe create a couple of new entries specifically for each generation:
5. The railway man: Christoph Gottlieb Kauer 1845-1909 from Simmern is Number 2 in this blog post, the longer biography which I originally wrote for the website with the Weiss chronicles is now here.
4. The businessman Julius Düsselmann has appeared in my series Every picture tells a story several times, eg here.
Update 25.1.2026: I created a new portal to navigate family history blog entries in the shape of a permanent Who Is Who page. This is because the old webpage at michaelgross.info will go offline on February 2nd.
