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.)

lives of the Caesars

Among all the Renaissance humanists and Reformation clerics who followed the fashion of translating their family names into Latin or Greek, some were luckier than others. I think the too blatantly obvious cases like Mercator or Piscator fell out of fashion pretty swiftly. Then there are the too difficult Greek names like Arthopoeus. I guess Caesar is a good middle way as it is memorable and not too trivial. There's also a justification in that the German word and name Kaiser is derived from Caesar, so rather than translating to a posh language, you could say they just reverted their name to its original version.

Anyhow, among the multiple clergymen that have popped up in the ancestry of Anna Katharina Andrae, there are also a few called Caesar, and I just can't resist the temptation to write their biographies under the title you see above.

 

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Valentin Konstantin Caesar (No. 70 in Anna Katharina Andrae's family tree)

Born in Suhl, County Henneberg (today Thuringia)

1585 vicar of Sien (Kr. Birkenfeld)

1593-98 vicar of Enkirch (Monatshefte 1914, 321-355)

In 1597 he was reported to be not strong enough for this tiring position, so he moved to become:

1598-1600 vicar of Dill

Married Sara, no further details of her are known. Their only known child was Catharina Caesar, who married Heinrich Orth (* ca. 1561 at Kirn, + … 1612/15, Braunsberg, see V-30 in the Orth genealogy). He was Amtmann in Merxheim and the son of the second Lutheran vicar of Kirn, Johann Balthasar Orth (IV-43).

Martin Caesar the vicar of Traben (1585-98), may have been Konstantin's brother or a close relative, as both were born in Suhl, according to the Enkirch article.

From 1586-1595, he was the vicar of Traben (the third since the Reformation). In his account of the parish of Traben 1560-1620 (Monatshefte 1917, 3-32), Friedrich Back doesn't say much about his tenure, but has several pages about how his successor Wenzeslaus Fend, vicar from 1595-1598, quarrelled both with him and with schoolmaster Musculus. Part of the problem was that Fend alleged that Martin Caesar was intimate with his maid. It is not clear at all why Caesar was still present at Traben during that period (in a different text, Back claimed he was moved to a place called Franken in the Eifel in 1595). The quarrels became so bad that the intervention of a single church inspector wasn't sufficient to call the vicar to order. In addition to Inspector Jacoby from Trarbach, the Duke also sent Inspector Johann Conon (his CV is coming up next week as it happens) to Traben to sort things out. Eventually, Fend was moved to Allenbach (Hunsrück).

In 1599 Martin Caesar was vicar of Irmenach.

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Sixtus Caesar (140.)
According to Penningroth, Sixtus Caesar, vicar of Demmingen and Salzungen, is "probably" father to Konstantin Caesar and possibly also to Martin who were both born in Thuringia. I found a Caesar family history where this Sixtus appears as many times great grand uncle, so I'll just adopt him as No. 140. and translate their biography:

He was born ca. 1522
In 1537 he enrolled as student at Wittenberg.
In 1542 he graduated as a magister, then became parson at Wersternach. After the death of his father in 1543 he looks after his mother and younger siblings.

Further positions:
1543 parson at Finningen
1545/46 Planverweser (sounds like a planning admin role) in Löpsingen
Diakon in Nördlingen (that is the town that was famously built into the crater a meteorite left 15 million years ago, which kind of provided a degree of natural fortification)
1548 After the Augsburg Interim he moves to Thuringia
1549-1552 vicar at Salzungen
Also enrolles at the University of Jena since 1549.
1553/54 Lauffen (Neckar)
1554/55 Kürnbach then Finningen
1558 good report from a visitation at Finningen.
1561 Demmingen
1566 appointed to a positin at the palace of Count Wolfgang of Zweibrücken/Pfalz, possibly in parallel to the position at Demmingen.
1578 celebrates 18 years as vicar of Demmingen, aged 56
1584 presumed to have died as the position is filled anew.

Merian view of Nördlingen.
Source: Wikipedia Von Martin Zeiller - Scan eines Original Buchs, Gemeinfrei,

Johannes Keyser (280.)
(listed as father of Sixtus and earliest ancestor in this Caesar family tree). Also listed on Gedbas.

born around 1480 in Nördlingen.
He served first as a Catholic then as a Protestant priest in Harburg / Ries. Married Barbara NN. They have at least ten children.
1518-25 Frühmesser in Harburg (this is a very Catholic thing, with a foundation set up to fund a priest reading the mass before everybody else goes to work)
9.8.1524 Son David Caesar born at Harburg. For the other 9 children there are only estimated birth years (interestingly, one site claims that eight of them were born in 1524).
1525-43 vicar in Harburg and Großsorheim, court preacher for the count Carl Wolfgang of Oettingen at Harburg.
1535 also listed as an assistant preacher in the town of in Nördlingen.
From 1538 Kapellan in the Frühmesshaus Großsorsheim.
Died 1543.

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Long story short: A whole dynasty of Caesarean clergymen.

 

Unfortunately, not very much is known about the wives of those Caesars! However, in other parts of this network of clergymen I am currentlly unravelling the connections are very much matrilinear, will blog about those separately.

What I find absolutely mindboggling is the fact that this is the third lineage that leads us to a protestant priest of the first hour, taking office with the Reformation. Johannes Keyser joins Peter Siegel, the first vicar of Kirn, and Johannes Andreae of Schönbach (the elder). (Oh, and coming up, one Diakon who made himself very unpopular by triggering the removal of a first-hour Lutheran vicar for Calvinist tendencies.)

Overall, including the Andreae lineage and the Caesars as possible/plausible ancestors, I now have 14 clergymen in the family tree. Of those, 13 are (possible) ancestors of the five Kauer sisters. One (Peter Siegel) is from their mother's side, the remaining dozen connects via the people mentioned in the Weiß Chronicles, so they are all ancestors of the teacher Christoph Gottlieb Weiß, the father of their paternal grandmother. There may be a couple more hiding in the bushes. Plus quite a few more among the many-times-great uncles (such as David and Martin Caesar, above).

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