marzipan from the lakeside cafe

A footnote to the lostcities series:

Among the random pieces of wood I keep for pirate luthier purposes and other DIY work, I rediscovered the lid of a wooden box of marzipan. No idea where the box is (it may be serving to store some photos somewhere) but looking at the lid again after a long while:

Own photo.

I recognised the very lovely lakeside promenade where my great-grandparents Helene and Julius lived during their years at Königsberg and where my father (at toddler age) and his mother also moved in while his father was away conscripted to war duty. Basically, my father learned to walk in the scenery shown above, which I only realised when I looked into Königsberg as part of the lostcities series. The family lived at Münzstraße 10, and the Cafe Schwermer, which famously made its own Königsberg style marzipan and saved the recipe for a new start in Western Germany after the war, was at Münzstraße 27, according to the text under this flickr picture (so far I haven't found their house number anywhere else, will keep looking for confirmation).

In any case, both addresses were on the lakeside and quite close to the castle shown on the wooden lid above, as well as on multiple postcards. There is also a similar but different lid shown here.

The USP of Königsberg marzipan is that the shapes made from the marzipan are flamed on the outside so they are sealed in a crunchy crust, keeping the inside moist. I remember receiving these sweets on special occasions as a child, although I'm not sure I liked them better than other kinds of marzipan products sealed eg in chocolate. I think most of the time they will have come in cardboard packaging with a transparent foil top so you could see the shapes and sizes of the pieces. The wooden box may have been a more expensive selection which I may only have received once, not sure. It must have come from the ephemeral East Prussians ins the family, but I'm quite sure the significane of the image was never explained to me.

After the war, the company Schwermer moved to Bad Wörishofen (Bavaria) but in recent years both the cafe and the production there have been given up and I'm not sure who if anybody still produces Königsberg style marzipan under the Schwermer brand.

 

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My famlily history index pages: people -- surnames -- places -- migration events

lost cities in literature

I have read several historic novels set in Oxford recently (see list at the bottom), enjoying the discoveries to be made even in a familiar environment (having lived here for more than 30 years now). This set me thinking about my lost cities series (about towns and cities where my direct ancestors lived before 1972) - it would be doubly interesting to read fiction set in these places both from the perspective of knowing (most of) the cities and to gain insights into the kind of places they were when (or before) my ancestors lived there. It's all about getting a sense of place, so I expect that some of the books I find will be good at conveying that and others won't. I also appreciate some real historic people among the fictional characters.

Off the cuff I can think of only one historic novel I've read that is set in a city from my series, and that's the very impressive Riemenschneider by Tilman Röhrig (about the late Gothic / early Renaissance sculptor who lived in Würzburg and the rather gory Peasants War).

In an effort to find more novels, I'll paste in my list of cities here and try to fill it with lots of book titles too (and make them bold once I've read them). Books are all in German so far but I will consider other languages as well.

Cities listed in chronological order, sorted by the year in which the city was lost to my direct ancestors (where a second end year is given, it indicates the continued presence of other relatives):

• Idstein 1714-1804 - Die Hexe von Nassau: by Nicole Steyer
• Breslau 1830 - 1877 Schuhbrücke: Ein Breslau-Roman by Wolf Kampmann
• Strasbourg 1901 - 1908 - Die Patisserie am Münsterplatz a trilogy by Charlotte Jacobi; Wie der Weihnachtsbaum in die Welt kam by Astrid Fritz (Author), Andrea Offermann (Illustrator); Les nuits de Strasbourg, by Assia Djebar
• Bruchsal 1889 - 1909/2023
• Tangermünde 1888 - 1916 - Grete Minde, a famous novella by Theodor Fontane
• Krefeld 1764 - 1924/current - Der Seidenweber by Thorsten Weiler
• Gütersloh 1825 - 1928/1950s
• Bad Münster 1919 - 1930/1952;
• Bonn 1929 - 1934 - Beethoven by Felix Huch
• Rheydt 1923 - 1935
• Münster 1928-1929, 1934-1936 - Die Stadt der Auserwählten Michael Römling
• Lorsch 1890 - 1938/1973
• Aachen 1936 - 1940
• Königsberg 1935 - 1945 - Die Buchhändlerin von Königsberg by Christian Hardinghaus
• Bad Kreuznach 1945 - 1951
• Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
• Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961 - Und morgen eine neue Welt: Der große Friedrich-Engels-Roman Tilman Röhrig
• Freiburg 1928-1930, 1957-1961 - Der Totentanz zu Freiburg: Historischer Kriminalroman by Astrid Fritz (Author) - 7th of a whole series of crime novels set in medieval Freiburg
• Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
• Würzburg 1961 - 1968 - Riemenschneider, Tilman Röhrig
• Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983 - Einstein im Bade by Daniel Mellem
• Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015

Cities organised geographically, many are in Northrhine Westphalia (NRW), some further south, a few further east:

NRW: Aachen Bonn Elberfeld / Wuppertal Gütersloh Hamborn Krefeld Minden Münster Rheydt

Southwest: Bad Münster Bad Kreuznach Bad Nauheim Bruchsal Freiburg Idar-Oberstein Idstein Lorsch Strasbourg Würzburg

East Breslau Königsberg Tangermünde

Tilman Röhrig's big novel on the other Tilman, Riemenschneider, which vividly brings Renaissance Würzburg to life. The author was born in the next village up the hill from where my great-great-aunt, my grandparents and my father lived their retirement years, but I understand that his father, a vicar, was banished there for disobedience in Nazi times, so this doesn't make him a relative.

Historic novels set in Oxford

• Folly Bridge, by D. L. Murray
• The looking-glass house, by Vanessa Tait
• The dictionary of lost words, by Pip Williams
• The bookbinder of Jericho, by Pip Williams

Not counting fantasy versions of the city as in Philip Pullman's books or in R.F.Kuang's Babel.

Last update 14.8.2026

cities, towns and villages that got away

Lost cities season 2: epilogue

In the lost cities series I have been introducing 22 towns and cities where some of my ancestors (and one set of inlaws) used to live for extended periods of time. In 20 cases the relevant people were resident in the 20th century, only two of these places were already "lost" in the 19th. Twelve of the places were then or are now "big cities" in the sense that a "Großstadt" in Germany is defined as a city of more than 100,000 residents. The series was somewhat biased towards places I find interesting in the respective time and/or in the shape I can visit today.

There are of course many other places popping up in my family tree that may not meet these arbitrary selection criteria - they may be too small, too distant in time, too uninspiring or maybe I just haven't quite figured out yet what their attraction is. The lost cities I selected are often tinged with a tiny bit of nostalgia for a place & time combination that was right for at least some time.

Here are some other places that didn't make the cut. First some that I have introduced before in a different context, and perhaps they weren't quite interesting enough to motivate a repeat appearance. Come to think of it, this list may well evolve into a third series of past places, perhaps dropping the "cities" label (most recent stays first, end years bold):

• Peter and Frieda lived at Gronau from 1926-1932. I've shared a photo of Peter at the relevant border crossing here. Their second daughter was born on the Dutch side of that border.
• Julius and Helene lived in many places - I've shown their shop in Luisenthal (Saar) here. The family stayed there from 1911 to 1918. After which they made the fundamental error of moving to the countryside. It didn't last long.
• Adamsweiler, where our old station master Christoph Kauer worked until his death in 1909, was a cute little station but it is sadly in the middle of nowhere. I visited the station once in the 1980s and have no memory of the village, I think it is essentially a through road with a dozen houses. Among the previous stations where he worked, Mülhausen/Mulhouse is the biggest and most interesting city (just over 100,000 now), and the village of Fontoy/Fentsch may also be worth looking at, as it's the birthplace of Helene.
• Simmern must have been a great place before 1689, but never recovered from the attention of Louis XIV, as I have written previously. 3/16 of my DNA comes from the town and the surrounding villages since the dawn of time (ie at least since the 15th century), see the map below. In the 1870s, the Kauer and the Imig Clan left Simmern behind in the name of progress, and I am sure that was a good move. (As mentioned in the Imig Clan entry, some Imigs were among the families who tried to emigrate to the New World in the 18th century and only got as far as the lower Rhine area, I just love that story, need to do a dedicated blog entry for that some time.) Shoemaker Matthias Kauer was the last ancestor to die in Simmern, in 1885. He's also the second oldest one of whom we have a photo.
  

  Map of the villages around Simmern where just under a quarter of my ancestry has been living for centuries. The numbers on the red dots indicate how many ancestors are known to have been born in a given location. Not sure where the original map came from, I only have a colour photocopy or printout of what must have been a much larger map probably dating from the late 20th century.

• Steel workers from Wallonia moved to Fachbach on the river Lahn in 1672 - they stayed there for several generations and form a significant part of the ancestry of the de la Strada family that settled in Krefeld after 1776. I wrote about their migration history here.
• I wrote about the miners migrating to Sainte Marie aux Mines (Markirch) before 1732 here. The notoriously un-googlable Paul Simon moved on to get married in Böchingen in 1768.
• I mentioned the high school at Trarbach (Mosel) here, where two generations of Ebner ancestors were teachers in the late 17th / early 18th century. The older teacher was born at Trarbach in 1646 in a family of refugees from Hungary - not clear from when they were resident in Trarbach. The younger of the pair moved in 1720 to become the vicar of Alterkülz. His daughter married a pastor who ended his career as the vicar of the small village of Eckweiler (157 residents then, wiped out in 1979), leading to a descent of our lineage into a more rural environment in the following generations. So very roughly, we're looking at 1646 to 1720, just because these are the data points we have. In 1904 Trarbach on the right bank of the Mosel was merged with Traben on the left bank to form Traben-Trarbach which today has just under 6,000 residents. OK, having said all this, Trarbach may be a candidate for a third series with smaller towns hidden deeper in the past. UPDATE 16.4. 2026: biographies of both Ebner teachers are now here and a blog entry on the history of Trarbach is due to follow in two weeks time.

Some make too transient an appearance to leave a permanent impression

• Richard studied at Vienna and Göttingen before arriving at Bonn. I don't recall any Viennese memories but he did talk about famous Göttingen profs such as David Hilbert (1862-1943).
• Peter and Frieda also lived at Hamm for a year around 1933. I know nothing about Hamm, but it is very well connected on the railway network. It also has a direct Regional Express connection to Düsseldorf-Bilk (the RE6 to Minden). That brings the total to seven. Good enough reason to visit the place?
• Zella St. Blasii, today part of Zella Mehlis, population 12,400, was the birth place of Heinrich the cellist, but it was only a stepping stone in the itinerary of his father Richard the railway man. Although Heinrich spent the rest of his life being labeled a Thuringian because of his birthplace, to the best of my knowledge nobody ever shed a tear for the memories of Zella St. Blasii.
• Maria Luise Mentzel, Heinrich's mother, died at Magdeburg in 1916, three years after her husband died at Tangermünde where they had lived since 1888. I'm guessing she may have moved to Magdeburg to live with her daughter Gertrud, but I'm not sure as I have no evidence either way.

Many of the places (especially in the earlier family history) were simply too small for my tastes

• Dieuze is Richard's birthplace but we have to remember that his father's regiment was sent there as a punishment for unspecified misbehaviour while they were stationed in Strasbourg. It was a tiny village with absolutely no claim to fame.
• Schwaney has an amazing musical tradition but has never been more than a village (current population 2000). Frieda's grandfather from Schwaney died before she was born, so there wasn't any chance of a transfer of that musical culture. Unless they have it in their DNA ...
• Münzesheim isn't much bigger and became part of the new town of Kraichtal. Similarly, many other relevant places around that area are just villages, such as Elsenz, which is now part of Eppingen. The most interesting thing about them is that the area was comprehensively depopulated in the Thirty Years War and resettled in the second half of the 17th century by immigrants from Switzerland (my immigrant ancestors are listed here), which due to its long lasting peace and prosperity had a relative population overload.
• Similarly, the ancestry of the Lorsch family is scattered around Odenwald villages which are all too small to be featured here. Some have a long history, such as Zotzenbach, which was first mentioned in 877, so is due to celebrate its 1250th birthday soon. It is now part of Rimbach. Maybe I should pick one representative out of the crowd of small places. The area also had a population bottleneck after the 30 Years War, meaning that everybody with ancestry in that region is probably related to my mother and to Grace Kelly.

Your guide to the complete #lostcities series:

1. Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961
2. Strasbourg 1901 - 1908
3. Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
4. Tangermünde 1888 - 1916
5. Rheydt 1923 - 1935
6. Königsberg 1935 - 1945
7. Aachen 1936 - 1940
8. Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
9. Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983
10. Würzburg 1961 - 1968
11. Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015
12. Bonn 1929 - 1934
13. Lorsch 1890 - 1938/1973
14. Krefeld 1764 - 1924/current
15. Gütersloh 1825 - 1928/1950s
16. Breslau 1830 - 1877
17. Bad Münster 1919 - 1930/1952; Bad Kreuznach 1945 - 1951
18. Bruchsal 1889 - 1909/2023
19. Idstein 1714-1804
20. Freiburg 1928-1930, 1957-1961
21. Münster 1928-1929, 1934-1936

and once more in chronological order, sorted by the year in which the city was lost to my direct ancestors:

• Idstein 1714-1804
• Breslau 1830 - 1877
• Strasbourg 1901 - 1908
• Bruchsal 1889 - 1909/2023
• Tangermünde 1888 - 1916
• Krefeld 1764 - 1924/current
• Gütersloh 1825 - 1928/1950s
• Bad Münster 1919 - 1930/1952;
• Bonn 1929 - 1934
• Rheydt 1923 - 1935
• Münster 1928-1929, 1934-1936
• Lorsch 1890 - 1938/1973
• Aachen 1936 - 1940
• Königsberg 1935 - 1945
• Bad Kreuznach 1945 - 1951
• Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
• Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961
• Freiburg 1928-1930, 1957-1961
• Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
• Würzburg 1961 - 1968
• Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983
• Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015

a city of war and peace

Lost cities 2:10

About this series: Until 1960, all my direct ancestors from the great-great-grandparents through to my parents lived in towns and cities. After November 1972 nobody did, as my parents and grandparents had embraced the car-dependent life in the sticks and the previous city-dwelling generations had all died out by then. When I escaped the countryside and moved to various university cities I discovered that I had been missing out on the opportunities and structured environments of cities since we moved away from Würzburg when I was 5 years old. I started to strongly identify as a town mouse, even though I had to re-learn city life (which is why I didn't dare moving to really big cities like Berlin). In this series I am reclaiming my urban heritage in exploring/presenting some of the towns and cities that my DNA passed through within the last two centuries. As the four generations before me have mostly been quite mobile (often starting with employment in the nascent railways), there are many towns and cities popping up in my family tree, including quite a few where I wouldn't mind living myself.

Münster (Westfalen) was the university where most people from my school went to study, so not something I would have considered for my escape, and it has suffered from this image problem ever since. Only recently it hit me that three of my grandparents lived there at two separate times, and we may still have relatives there.

Münster, seen from a greater distance, is an attractive university city, with an interesting history. From 1534 to 1535 anabaptists ruled the town in a highly unusual rebel state (anabaptist dominion). After a coalition of protestant and catholic troups reconquered the city, the bodies of executed anabaptist leaders were left in cages suspended from the spires of St. Lamberti church to be eaten by birds. The cages are still there today, presumably as a reminder to citizens not to revolt against the official church. On a more positive note, the city also hosted the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War in 1648.

Under Prussian rule since 1815, it served as the capital of the Westphalia province. By 1915, it passed the threshold of 100,000 residents and became a major city. Today, with a population of over 300,000, the city hosts one of the biggest universities in Germany and it is famous for its cycling culture.

City Wine House and the town house, in a postcard from 1928.
Source.

What happened: In between her two stints at Freiburg, Ruth also studied in Münster for a semester (winter 1928/29, although I'm still in the dark regarding the reasons for the move back and forth.

A few years later, my other grandparents, Peter and Frieda lived at Münster for two years 1934-1936 with their two young daughters. Unfortunately they don't show up in the address book of the city dated 1934/35, they may just have missed the registration deadline for that one? On January 30, 1936, Peter was promoted to the position for which they moved to Aachen.

Frieda had a cousin, Ewald Brunschier (1912-1956), whose daughter lived in Münster after the war, but Ewald died in Neesen so seems to have stayed closer to home. Ewald's widow died in Münster in 2000.

Seasons 1 and 2 of the #lostcities series now complete (but there will be an epilogue or two):

1. Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961
2. Strasbourg 1901 - 1908
3. Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
4. Tangermünde 1888 - 1916
5. Rheydt 1923 - 1935
6. Königsberg 1935 - 1945
7. Aachen 1936 - 1940
8. Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
9. Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983
10. Würzburg 1961 - 1968
11. Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015
12. Bonn 1929 - 1934
13. Lorsch 1890 - 1938/1973
14. Krefeld 1764 - 1924/current
15. Gütersloh 1825 - 1928/1950s
16. Breslau 1830 - 1877
17. Bad Münster 1919 - 1930/1952; Bad Kreuznach 1945 - 1951
18. Bruchsal 1889 - 1909/2023
19. Idstein 1714-1804
20. Freiburg 1928-1930, 1957-1961
21. Münster 1928-1929, 1934-1936

NB I have now added a second end date to the cities where other family members stayed on after the direct ancestors died. So far, that is the case for Minden, Bad Nauheim, Hamborn, Krefeld, Gütersloh and Bruchsal.

The Mastodon thread for season 2 is here.

I have now started a pin board "vintage postcards" on pinterest with postcards from the cities in this series.

an ancient university

Lost cities 2:9

About this series: Until 1960, all my direct ancestors from the great-great-grandparents through to my parents lived in towns and cities. After November 1972 nobody did, as my parents and grandparents had embraced the car-dependent life in the sticks and the previous city-dwelling generations had all died out by then. When I escaped the countryside and moved to various university cities I discovered that I had been missing out on the opportunities and structured environments of cities since we moved away from Würzburg when I was 5 years old. I started to strongly identify as a town mouse, even though I had to re-learn city life (which is why I didn't dare moving to really big cities like Berlin). In this series I am reclaiming my urban heritage in exploring/presenting some of the towns and cities that my DNA passed through within the last two centuries. As the four generations before me have mostly been quite mobile (often starting with employment in the nascent railways), there are many towns and cities popping up in my family tree, including quite a few where I wouldn't mind living myself.

Approaching the tail end of season two, I remembered two university cities which I had previously dismissed as too transitory, but on reflection I realised more things happened there, so they're in. First up, my parents' station before Würzburg, and a lovely city too.

Freiburg's University was founded in 1457 and is thus among the five oldest in Germany. The town today situated in the corner where Switzerland, France and Germany meet has variously belonged to Austria, France, and the dukes of Baden. The arrival of the railway line from Karlsruhe to Basel brought tourism to the town and the Black Forest region. Freiburg grew to become a city of 100,000 residents just before WW2. After the war, it was briefly the capital of the Baden region, which in 1952 merged into the new southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg.

The university has always maintained a stellar reputation especially in the sciences. It boasts five Nobel laureates in chemistry alone, including the founding father of macromolecular chemistry, Hermann Staudinger.

The university on a postcard from 1930, the year Ruth moved from Freiburg to Bonn. I reckon it will have looked similar still when her son arrived in 1957.
Source.

What happened

My grandmother Ruth finished school at Rheydt in 1928 and started studying chemistry, physics and biology at Freiburg in the summer semester of the same year. Not sure why, but she moved to Münster for the winter semester and returned to Freiburg for the summer semester of 1929.

In the summer semester of 1930, she moved to Bonn and stayed there until her final exams.

My father started studying chemistry at Freiburg in the summer semester of 1957, but initially didn't get lab space for the important practicals, so took until late 1961 to finish his intermediate exams. He also found a lot of time for cultural interests. In the first year there were three visits to Strasbourg, and he claims he saw every production of the Wallgrabentheater, a small, alternative theatre. My mother followed in the summer of 1958, at which point they bought a matching pair of his and hers bicycles which survived into the 1980s. In the winter semester of 1961/62 they both moved to Würzburg.

My aunt also studied at Freiburg, however, and stayed on to work in the physics department of the university after graduating, while her husband completed his PhD. Her family stayed at Freiburg until well into the 1970s.

When I was growing up in the sticks, we used to go skiing in the Black Forest in the Christmas holidays, and sometimes stopped over in Freiburg, staying with my aunt's family, so I do have some vague childhood memories of the city.

Locations

• Vierlinden 5
• Kreuzstraße

Previously in the #lostcities series:

1. Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961
2. Strasbourg 1901 - 1908
3. Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
4. Tangermünde 1888 - 1916
5. Rheydt 1923 - 1935
6. Königsberg 1935 - 1945
7. Aachen 1936 - 1940
8. Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
9. Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983
10. Würzburg 1961 - 1968
11. Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015
12. Bonn 1929 - 1934
13. Lorsch 1890 - 1938/1973
14. Krefeld 1764 - 1924/current
15. Gütersloh 1825 - 1928/1950s
16. Breslau 1830 - 1877
17. Bad Münster 1919 - 1930/1952; Bad Kreuznach 1945 - 1951
18. Bruchsal 1889 - 1909/2023
19. Idstein 1714-1804

NB I have now added a second end date to the cities where other family members stayed on after the direct ancestors died. So far, that is the case for Minden, Bad Nauheim, Hamborn and Krefeld.

The Mastodon thread for season 2 is here.

UPDATE 19.1.2025 I have now started a pin board "vintage postcards" on pinterest with postcards from the cities in this series.

not quite a shtetl

Lost cities 2:8

About this series: Until 1960, all my direct ancestors from the great-great-grandparents through to my parents lived in towns and cities. After November 1972 nobody did, as my parents and grandparents had embraced the car-dependent life in the sticks and the previous city-dwelling generations had all died out by then. When I escaped the countryside and moved to various university cities I discovered that I had been missing out on the opportunities and structured environments of cities since we moved away from Würzburg when I was 5 years old. I started to strongly identify as a town mouse, even though I had to re-learn city life (which is why I didn't dare moving to really big cities like Berlin). In this series I am reclaiming my urban heritage in exploring/presenting some of the towns and cities that my DNA passed through within the last two centuries. As the four generations before me have mostly been quite mobile (often starting with employment in the nascent railways), there are many towns and cities popping up in my family tree, including quite a few where I wouldn't mind living myself.

The lovely market town of Idstein is pushing the boundaries a bit as its residents are more remote in time and the data availability is more of a challenge, but I'll include it regardless, as a reminder that I have yet to visit it, and because it was home to the only Jewish ancestors I know of.

Idstein today has a historic centre with some very pretty half-timbered houses dating from around 1600, so this area would have looked similar in the 18th century as today. Located on the edge of the Taunus range just north of Wiesbaden, it was ruled by various branches of the house of Nassau, until it fell to Prussia in 1866. In the 17th century the Nassau count had dozens of women executed based on witchcraft allegations there. The town also had a rather wobbly balance of welcoming / harrassing Jewish residents as will become obvious below.

Idstein as shown in a steel engraving dated 1835
Wikipedia photo by Frank Winkelmann - Eigenes Werk, CC BY 3.0,

What happened - I've written about the Jewish ancestors at Idstein before, but not about the Schmidt family - the ancestry of the Protestant girl the last Jewish ancestor married. The Schmidts are actually better documented so they also have the earliest dates:

On 13. 6.1714 Conrad Georg Schmidt was baptised in Idstein, so I am assuming that his parents Heinrich Schmidt, cooper, and Anna Apollonia Thiel, were resident in the town before that time, but we don't have any dates for them.

In 1731 Isaak Lazarus from the nearby village of Usingen obtained the Schutzbrief, a protective document allowing him and his wife Bele to settle in Idsteinn where he worked as a cattle trader.

In 1744 their son Jakob Isaak obtained the Schutzbrief and married Libbet.

In 1745, the boy who was later to be called Karl Henrich Weyland was born - presumably Jakob Isaak's and Libbet's son. They lived in their own house in Borngasse 8 and ran a shop there. There were only seven Jewish families in Idstein registered with a Schutzbrief around this time, and Jakob and Libbet are the only couple that could plausibly be Karl Henrich's parents.

So small was the Jewisch community in Idstein that it didn't have its own cemetery. Until 1874, residents were buried in nearby Esch instead, but that cemetery was completely destroyed in the Nazi era.

From 1750 Jews were banned from operating "open shops". As our shopkeeper carried on regardless, he was ordered to pay a penalty of 10 guilders in 1756.

In 1746, Conrad Georg Schmidt, farm worker and cooper, married Anna Christine Fischer from Ober-Seelbach in Seelbach - but settled in Idstein. There are a dozen places called Seelbach, but this one seems to be quite close to Idstein

In 1749 Katharine Margarete Schmidt was born.

On 1.5.1768, Karl Henrich Weyland, a butcher, was baptised at the age of 23. He married Katharine Margarete Schmidt in September of the same year. Her father had died the year before. He appears to have borrowed the family name of Weyland from records of an earlier Weyland family that lived at Idstein in the 17th century.

1770 Gedbas has a Christian Weyland born in Idstein around this time - could be the first child of this marriage.

On 7. 7.1778 Anna Christine Weyland was born in Idstein.

Her mother died 1792, her father in 1796. The death of her grandmother Libbet in 1804 is the last timepoint associated with Idstein.

In 1810, Anna Christine married the shoemaker Johann Christoph Kauer in Simmern. Although none of her direct ancestors survived after 1804, she may have stayed with other relatives at Idstein until she got married. The house in Borngasse 8 remained the property of Libbet's son in law until he sold it in 1826,

The conservative time range estimate, however is 1714-1804

Locations

• Borngasse 8 - see my photo on flickr.
• The improvised synagogue and Jewish school were in a residential house in the next block, the address was then Hintere Borngasse. It is now Felix-Lahnstein-Str. named after the last head of the Jewish community (who safely escaped to America).

  The protestant church (Unionskirche) where Karl Heinrich must have received his adult baptism is also nearby. It has a mindboggling display of paintings on the ceilings and upper walls.

Previously in the #lostcities series:

1. Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961
2. Strasbourg 1901 - 1908
3. Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
4. Tangermünde 1888 - 1916
5. Rheydt 1923 - 1935
6. Königsberg 1935 - 1945
7. Aachen 1936 - 1940
8. Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
9. Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983
10. Würzburg 1961 - 1968
11. Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015
12. Bonn 1929 - 1934
13. Lorsch 1890 - 1938/1973
14. Krefeld 1764 - 1924/current
15. Gütersloh 1825 - 1928/1950s
16. Breslau 1830 - 1877
17. Bad Münster 1919 - 1930/1952; Bad Kreuznach 1945 - 1951
18. Bruchsal 1889 - 1909/2023

NB I have now added a second end date to the cities where other family members stayed on after the direct ancestors died. So far, that is the case for Minden, Bad Nauheim, Hamborn and Krefeld.

The Mastodon thread for season 2 starts here.

UPDATE 19.1.2025 I have now started a pin board "vintage postcards" on pinterest with postcards from the cities in this series.

UPDATE 5.6.2025 I visited Idstein on May 1-2, and it was quite amazing - an extremely well preserved and dense ensemble of historic buildings. Lots of photos now in this flickr album - at some point I'll also select a few for a new blog entry of sights that Karl Heinrich Weyland must have known - and which haven't changed much in the more than 230 years since he died.

a small town with a big palace

Lost cities 2:7

About this series: Until 1960, all my direct ancestors from the great-great-grandparents through to my parents lived in towns and cities. After November 1972 nobody did, as my parents and grandparents had embraced the car-dependent life in the sticks and the previous city-dwelling generations had all died out by then. When I escaped the countryside and moved to various university cities I discovered that I had been missing out on the opportunities and structured environments of cities since we moved away from Würzburg when I was 5 years old. I started to strongly identify as a town mouse, even though I had to re-learn city life (which is why I didn't dare moving to really big cities like Berlin.) In this series I am reclaiming my urban heritage in exploring/presenting some of the towns and cities that my DNA passed through within the last two centuries. As the four generations before me have mostly been quite mobile (often starting with employment in the nascent railways), there are many towns and cities popping up in my family tree, including quite a few where I wouldn't mind living myself.

When I started getting obsessed with the musical biography of Heinrich our family cello and the eponymous cellist, I also got in touch with the descendants of Maria's nieces, I had never met them before but had heard as a child that they are an amazingly musical family and have produced several professional musicians. Maria grew up in Bruchsal, and some of her relatives have lived there for more than a century, so that's a good enough excuse to include the town here.

Bruchsal hosted the residence of the bishops of Speyer since 1716. Which explains the rather sumptuous baroque palace built from 1722 based on plans by Balthasar Neumann (famous for the Würzburg Residenz among other things). Today, the Palace is home to a rather lovely museum of musical automata.

Next door is a less appealing vast prison complex, which was built in the 1840s and has been the site of some infamous history including Nazi era executions. Both the palace and the prison look rather oversized on the map of what remains a small town. At the beginning of the 20th century it had fewer than 15,000 residents. It only passed the 20,000 mark around 1955.

In 1841, Bruchsal became an important railway stop half-way between Heidelberg and Karlsruhe.

In 1945, when Allied troops were only 20 km away on the other side of the river Rhine, it was bombed to the ground.

What happened:

I'm not sure when the family of Maria Pfersching (future wife of Heinrich the cellist) settled in Bruchsal. Maria was born in Münzesheim, where her paternal family was long established (now part of Kraichtal and with 2,800 residents too small to qualify as a lost city). Her mother, Barbara Klundt, from the eponymous winegrowing dynasty in the Palatinate, died in this place in 1886 (aged only 39), so I'm assuming the family lived there until that point. In 1889, Heinrich Pfersching remarried in Bruchsal and lived there until his death in 1905. His mother, Elisabeth Hörle, survived him and died in Bruchsal in 1909.

Maria grew up there and in 1903, aged 22, moved across the river Rhine to Strasbourg to train as a secretary there. It's just over 100 km away, so I am guessing she must have gone back to visit quite frequently (which would explain Heinrich's heartfelt poems about good byes). She stayed there until she married Heinrich in 1908 and followed him to Dieuze.

Descendants from Heinrich Pferschings second marriage lived at Bruchsal until 2023, so for more than a century. After the end of World War I, Maria and her son Richard were evicted from Dieuze, Lorraine, and found refuge with the Bruchsal family. Richard attended school there for half a year until Heinrich got a job at Elberfeld and the family moved there. I guess I'll ignore this half year, it would make the numbers game complicated, and they didn't have their own place and were kind of visiting family. I'll just go for 1889 - 1909/2023.

Source

Locations

Bruchsal was a mythical place for much of my life as my grandparents talked about it but never took me to visit. I only got round to visiting Richard's last surviving cousin there in 2018. It was an extremely hot day, so we spent much of the time indoors, and I also visited the museum of musical automata in the palace and learned how robots using 19th century wind-up technology can play violins, but I will have to revisit some time to get a better impression of the town as a whole.

Previously in the #lostcities series:

1. Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961
2. Strasbourg 1901 - 1908
3. Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
4. Tangermünde 1888 - 1916
5. Rheydt 1923 - 1935
6. Königsberg 1935 - 1945
7. Aachen 1936 - 1940
8. Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
9. Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983
10. Würzburg 1961 - 1968
11. Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015
12. Bonn 1929 - 1934
13. Lorsch 1890 - 1938/1973
14. Krefeld 1764 - 1924/current
15. Gütersloh 1825 - 1928/1950s
16. Breslau 1830 - 1877
17. Bad Münster 1919 - 1930/1952; Bad Kreuznach 1945 - 1951

NB I have now added a second end date to the cities where other family members stayed on after the direct ancestors died. So far, that is the case for Minden, Bad Nauheim, Hamborn and Krefeld.

The Mastodon thread for season 2 starts here.

UPDATE 19.1.2025 I have now started a pin board "vintage postcards" on pinterest with postcards from the cities in this series.

two spa towns united

Lost cities 2:6

It was a bit of a shock to learn that the small but charismatic spa town of Bad Münster am Stein (the stone in the name refers to a massive red rock towering over the town, the Rheingrafenstein) lost its independence in 2014. It was merged into neighbouring Bad Kreuznach, which is ten times bigger and less picturesque, although it has an iconic bridge with historic houses perching on top - one of them has a Swedish cannon ball of the Thirty Years War stuck in its wall. On separate occasions and for unrelated reasons, both towns have been home to some of my ancestors, but as the stay at Bad Kreuznach was brief and uneventful I'll combine them into one entry.

Bad Münster am Stein is an icon of the romance of the Nahe valley with its salt extractors squeezed between vineyards and steep cliffs. The village Münster goes back to 1200 and has had spa visitors since the 15th century. It became a more widely known spa destination when the railway line along the river Nahe was completed in 1859. It gained the official name Bad Münster in 1905. It merged with Ebernburg in 1969 - until 1945 both communities had separate histories as Bad Münster was under Prussian rule and Ebernburg part of the Palatinate, thus ruled by faraway Bavaria.

Bad Kreuznach is the district capital of a fairly large region and thus a bit more of a city, but still very modest in size. It has a very turbulent history, being conquered back and forth by various armies in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and also in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), so it is quite amazing that those 15th century houses perching on top of the bridge are still there. It also has an impressive Roman mosaic floor.

Honestly, how these houses survived five centuries is a bit of a mystery to me.
Source.

I hear Bad Münster am Stein has the highest concentration of salt extractors (Salinen) anywhere.
Source.

What happened:

Until June 1919, Margaretha Imig, the widow of our station master at Adamsweiler (Alsace), had been living with her daughter Auguste Kauer at Saargemünd, Lorraine (today Sarreguemine, dept. Moselle). After the Versailles treaty, they found themselves on the French side of the new border and were evicted. They moved to Bad Münster am Stein, where Auguste's husband continued working for the Post Office. Auguste's sister Johanna also moved with them and stayed until 1929, when she took early retirement to build herself a house in the countryside.

Thus, Bad Münster am Stein became a focal point for the Kauer Clan. On big occasions such as Margarete's 80th birthday, everybody gathered there. Auguste's family lived in a flat within the main post office in the centre of town, the church towering in the background when they took family photos on their balcony.

I think it must have been this building Pfarrer-Dr.-Nagel-Weg 1 = Berliner Straße 23 - the balcony with the view of the church tower would have been at the back:

Von Karsten Ratzke - Eigenes Werk, CC0, Link

Confusingly, Margaretha's first identity document issued by French authorities upon arrival at Bad Münster gives her address as "Villa Günther" - as I've just discovered while looking for the address. As I've never heard of that place, I am inclined to think it must have served a kind of refugee accommodation for new arrivals. Her arrival date is given as 12.6.1919.

Margaretha died in September 1930 aged 83, and was buried in the local cemetery in what became a family burial site for the next 75 years. The presence of living ancestors ended at that point, but dead ancestors stayed a lot longer (and Auguste's family too). My great-grandmother Helene Kauer, Margarete's youngest daughter, had her husband Julius Düsselmann buried there when he died in 1950, with an additional inscription for their son who had died in the war. Auguste was buried there in 1952 and Johanna in 1953. (Auguste's husband, Wilhelm Fuchs, died 1963 and must have joined them as well, but I don't know that for certain.) Helene, the last survivor, joined her sisters in 1972. In 1973, her youngest daughter Esther had the tombstone of the old station master transferred from Adamsweiler to Bad Münster, and Esther's ashes were also buried there in 1983. The site was dissolved in 2005. It's a slightly weird thought in this day and age, to have such a huge family gathering underground. My grandparents opted out, however, otherwise the site could still be there.

Anyhow, that's the last the family saw of Bad Münster, so the dates (for living blood relatives) would be 1919 - 1930/1952

Next door in Bad Kreuznach, young Richard got his first teaching job after the war at the end of 1945, and the family moved to Philipstr. 12 at the beginning of 1946, and then to Carmerstr. 14 in July that year. They stayed there until the summer of 1951, when they moved to Idar-Oberstein, so let's call it 1945 - 1951

Locations

• Hauptpost Bad Münster, Pfarrer-Dr.-Nagel-Weg 1 = Berliner Straße 23
• Philipstr. 12, Bad Kreuznach
• Carmerstr. 14, Bad Kreuznach

As a child I must have visited Bad Münster am Stein a few times with my grandparents. Memories were kept alive by multiple times passing through on the train, marvelling at those rocks again. In 2015 I spent an hour there, just stepping off a train, having a walk around and taking the next train. No childhood memories of Bad Kreuznach, but I visited in 2018 to see the houses on the bridge and the Roman mosaic.

Previously in the #lostcities series:

1. Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961
2. Strasbourg 1901 - 1908
3. Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
4. Tangermünde 1888 - 1916
5. Rheydt 1923 - 1935
6. Königsberg 1935 - 1945
7. Aachen 1936 - 1940
8. Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
9. Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983
10. Würzburg 1961 - 1968
11. Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015
12. Bonn 1929 - 1934
13. Lorsch 1890 - 1938/1973
14. Krefeld 1764 - 1924/current
15. Gütersloh 1825 - 1928/1950s
16. Breslau 1830 - 1877

NB I'm adding a second end date to the cities where other family members stayed on after the direct ancestors died. So far, that is the case for Minden, Bad Nauheim, Hamborn, Krefeld and Gütersloh.

The Mastodon thread for season 2 starts here.

UPDATE 19.1.2025 I have now started a pin board "vintage postcards" on pinterest with postcards from the cities in this series.

another twin city

Lost cities 2:5

It amuses me that my ancestral Y chromosomes passed through two cities that are now twinned with Oxford. My granddad studied at Bonn and met my grandmother there, and his grandfather Richard the railways clerk was born and bred in Breslau (now Wroclaw), as was his father. The minimal dates are 1830-1877, but the data peters out on the far side, so the actual stay may have been longer.

Breslau had a turbulent early history which included total destruction by the Mongols in 1241. It became part of Prussia in 1741. When various educational institutions merged to form a university in 1811, it was the first university that had faculties for both catholic and protestant theology. In 1815, Breslau became the capital of the Province Silesia.

It grew rapidly in the Industrial Revolution and in 1842 it became only the 5th major city (with more than 100,000 residents) in the Deutscher Bund, after Vienna, Berlin, Prague and Hamburg. In 1875 it was the third biggest city in the German Empire (after Berlin and Hamburg).

Couldn't quite find a postcard to match the time range when my ancestors lived in Breslau, but this one is at least from the correct century.
Source: Postcards from the past.

What happened:

1830 Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Groß was born in Breslau. There are no dates and documents before that and conflicting information on the name and profession of his father, so it's quite possible that some of his ancestry was present at Breslau well before that date, but we don't know. There is an address though: At the time of his baptism (4.4.1830), the family lived at Büttnerstrasse 23 in Breslau.

1852 Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Groß married Anna Rosina Faudner from Chursangwitz (Kr. Ohlau) in Breslau on June 1. The marriage must have been a little bit overdue, as only three months and a week later, their son Johann Friedrich Richard Groß was born in Breslau.

1866 Richard's confirmation in Breslau.

1874 Richard was spared military service due to crossed legs and height - not sure if he was too tall or too short but looking at his descendants as well as the literal meaning of our name being tall, I don't think he can have been too short.

Between 1877 - 1879 he married twice-widowed Maria Louise Mentzel, presumably between the birth of her son from her second marriage, in 1877, and the birth of their daughter. Although she wasn't born in the city, her previous marriage to shepherd Johann Gottlieb Reim was also in Breslau, and her son from that marriage was born there.

1880 By the time their first daughter arrived, the family had left the city and moved to Königswalde (Neurode). Their further moves are written out in this entry.

Independently of all of this, here's my great-aunt-in-law at Breslau in the 1930s, scroll down to see one photo of her with a recognisable cityscape and then the matching postcard.

Locations:

• Büttnerstrasse 23

Previously in the #lostcities series:

1. Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961
2. Strasbourg 1901 - 1908
3. Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
4. Tangermünde 1888 - 1916
5. Rheydt 1923 - 1935
6. Königsberg 1935 - 1945
7. Aachen 1936 - 1940
8. Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
9. Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983
10. Würzburg 1961 - 1968
11. Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015
12. Bonn 1929-1934
13. Lorsch 1890-1938/1973
14. Krefeld 1764 - 1924/current
15. Gütersloh 1825-1928/1950s

NB I have now added a second end date to the cities where other family members stayed on after the direct ancestors died. So far, that is the case for Minden, Bad Nauheim, Hamborn and Krefeld.

The Mastodon thread for season 2 starts here.

UPDATE 19.1.2025 I have now started a pin board "vintage postcards" on pinterest with postcards from the cities in this series.

a village becomes a city

Lost cities 2:4

I have covered Gütersloh as the home of one of my four railway families, but looking at it again for the lost cities series, I realised that beyond that railway family, some lineages are actually indigenous to the villages that now form the inner city of Gütersloh as far back as records last (ca 1620), ie long before before the village became a town in 1825.

Gütersloh grew rapidly in the 19th century, mainly thanks to its key position on the Cologne to Minden railway line now served by the RE6 (it is thus one of the six lost cities to which I can take a direct regional express train from Düsseldorf-Bilk where I'm based when I'm in Germany). The station opened in 1847. Businesses including Bertelsmann (publishing) and Miele (domestic appliances) chose the quiet but well-connected town for their operations. Nevertheless, in the absence of heavy industries, it didn't grow as big as the cities in the western parts of today's NRW. It only reached the 100,000 threshold in 2018, officially becoming a Großstadt, making it the third major city in the Ostwestfalen region (after Bielefeld and Paderborn).

Not many postcards of the town around, but you can see the village heritage on this one (and I already shared one with the railway station here).
Source.

What happened: Direct ancestors with family names like Cosfeld (Kosfeld, Coesfeld), Güthenke or Goldbecker were resident in the village of Gütersloh in the 17th century. I am particularly excited about the name Güthenke as it looks like it might be linked to the origins of the village name, so that is like an ultimate root for a name line. The earliest in that line, Hinrich Güthenke was born before 1620 at Blankenhagen 33, Gütersloh (Blankenhagen being a village that merged into the town in 1910).

Around the time when the village became a town, Christoph Heinrich Cosfeld (* ca. 1801 Gütersloh) married Clara Dorothea Güthenke (* ca. 1803 Gütersloh).

On 12.11.1851 their son Friedrich Wilhelm Cosfeld, who worked as a cooper in Gütersloh married Catherine Elisabeth Obelode from Steinhagen. Her family name is a one-off linked to farm called Ubbelohde near Bielefeld, and her ancestry is very well documented. There is a wild story suggesting she may have a French refugee in her family tree.

Their daughter Johanna Catherina Charlotte Cosfeld married the railway worker Johann Anton Lütkemeyer from Schwaney, who died in 1887 aged only 44, of tuberculosis. Charlotte married again, but she was still resident at Gütersloh at the marriage of her daughter Luise Lütkemeyer in 1902, so I'm assuming she stayed there until her death in 1928. One of Luise's sisters also stayed in Gütersloh, so we still had relatives there as late as the 1950s, but I don't know what became of them. My mother recalled a cousin of her mother called Clara Gold who ran a small shop there in the 50s, that is all I know.

So our official dates are now: 1825-1928/1950s.

Locations

• Gütersloh Nr. 450
• Blankenhagen 33

Previously in the #lostcities series:

1. Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961
2. Strasbourg 1901 - 1908
3. Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
4. Tangermünde 1888 - 1916
5. Rheydt 1923 - 1935
6. Königsberg 1935 - 1945
7. Aachen 1936 - 1940
8. Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
9. Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983
10. Würzburg 1961 - 1968
11. Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015
12. Bonn 1929-1934
13. Lorsch 1890-1938/1973
14. Krefeld 1764 - 1924/present

NB I have now added a second end date to the cities where other family members stayed on after the direct ancestors died. So far, that is the case for Minden, Bad Nauheim and Hamborn.

The Mastodon thread for season 2 starts here.

UPDATE 19.1.2025 I have now started a pin board "vintage postcards" on pinterest with postcards from the cities in this series.

UPDATE 5.6.2025 In May I made a day trip to Gütersloh from Düsseldorf (on the historic Cologne Minden railway line as mentioned above), and the city had made itself pretty in celebration of its 200th anniversary. Photos are in this flickr album. Much of the town centre is exchangeable with other towns in NRW, but the semicircle of historic half-timbered houses around the Alter Kirchhof (old church yard) is really an impressive ensemble - it also features in the postcard shown above. Unfortunately, we don't have a street address for the ancestors who lived there, only a house number from the times when all the houses in a village were just numbered consecutively, so I still have to figure out how that number translates to modern addresses. For all I know it could be one of the houses still standing, although I guess the nice houses around the old church must have had much smaller numbers than 450. .

silk town through the centuries

I have written about the Krefeld clan on various occasions, but somehow didn't have a piece on Krefeld in the first series of #lostcities. The direct ancestors of my great-grandfather Julius Düsselmann are recorded there from 1764 to 1924. Descendants of Julius's cousins still live there to this day, so it's about time for an entry, which will lead us deeper into the past than anything in the first season.

Under William of Orange, Krefeld had a record of welcoming religious minorities that were persecuted elsewhere, including Mennonites and Quakers. One Mennonite family, the Von der Leyens, transformed the history of the town by running an extremely successful and lucrative silk weaving industry, for which they were awarded a monopoly by the king of Prussia in 1763. At that point, Krefeld had only 4756 residents. With the silk boom the town grew explosively and became relatively wealthy, even though it also had its share of social conflict including a weavers revolt in 1828. In 1888 it passed the 100,000 mark making it officially a city. Politically, the town had fallen to Prussia in 1702, became part of France from 1801 until 1814 (Arrondissement de Crévelt), and fell back to Prussia after Napoleon's defeat. On the 200th anniversary of Krefeld joining Prussia the first time, emperor Wilhelm II visited the city and promised to station a cavalry regiment there, which he delivered in person, four years later. More about this mildly amusing episode here. The K in today's spelling of the name only became official in 1925.

Rheinstrasse cuts across the rectangle defined by the four former city walls, so it's easy to find and I vaguely remember how it looks now. I'm assuming the view here is from the top of the St Dionysius church.
Source.

What happened - just to sketch the broad outlines (essentially everybody named here was born and died in Krefeld unless specified otherwise):

1764 Christophel Wilsberg from Hamm married Anna Sybille Wolff from Mülheim in Krefeld

1788 Johann Georg Wilhelm Düsselmann from Dortmund married their daughter Margarete Wilsberg in Krefeld (he had previously married Anna Christina Lohr in 1782, also in Krefeld)

1796 Jacob de la Strada from Fachbach married Margarete Giesen (born in Krefeld although her parents married in nearby St. Tönis, today Tönisvorst) in Krefeld

1804 At the birth of their son Wilhelm, Johann Georg Wilhelm Düsselmann and Margarete Wilsberg lived at Auf dem Alten Kirchhoff (see list of locations below). JGW Düsselmann did not sign the certificate as he was unable to write. The certificate is issued in French by the Mairie de Creveld, and dated according to the calendar of the French Revolution, 25. Thermidor XII = 13.8.1804.
At the birth of their daughter Elisabetha, Jacob de la Strada and Margarete Giesen lived "devant la porte de St. Antoine". 26. Frimaire XIII = 17.12.1804

1826 Protestant silk weaver Wilhelm Düsselmann married Catholic Elisabetha de la Strada in Krefeld. They had 13 children and brought up the boys as Protestants and the girls as Catholics. Their descendents are the Krefeld Clan listed here. The survival rates and long lifespans bear witness to the wealth that the booming silk business brought to the ordinary people of Krefeld. Compare and contrast with Wilhelm's grandfather Christophel Wilsberg, who had died from malnutrition in 1781, aged only 52.

1841 At the birth of their son Carl (later written as Karl) and his twin sister Maria (7th and 8th of the 13 children), Wilhelm Düsselmann and Catholic Elisabetha de la Strada lived in the Peters-Strasse, house number 1559 (I'm assuming this is the old numbering system, when one sequence of numbers covered the entire town, as opposed to one sequence for each street)

1883 Julius Düsselmann born as the fourth of six children of Karl and Elisabeth (Karl also had a son from a previous marriage) - sadly no address given on the birth certificate.

1890 The much bigger city gets a professional fire brigade. Its founding director is Karl's brother August Düsselmann, who previously led the volunteer force. As of 1882, at the birth of his adventurous son Walter, he was still a decorator (Anstreicher) in his day job, and lived at Elisabethstrasse 95.

1924 The residence of my direct ancestors in Krefeld presumably ended soon after the death of my great-great-grandmother Elisabeth Catharina Imig who died October 2nd. On her death certificate, her and her husband's address is given as Alte Linnerstrasse 2.

1927 Her husband, Karl Düsselmann survived her by two years and a half, but as he was well over 80 and then died in Neukirchen-Vluyn, where his daughter Alwine lived with her husband Willi Esser, I reckon Karl will have lived with her family for the last two years of his life. He died 11.4.1927 aged 86. The death certificate reports he was resident of Vluyn, without a street address.

Locations:

• Alte Linner Straße 2. The Alte Linner Straße begins at the Ostwall, the Eastern long side of the rectangle, but it is numbered the wrong way round, with the lowest numbers furthest away from the centre, so number 2 is a lot further out than I have ventured so far. On google streetview the house looks like a 1950s redevelopment.
• Auf dem Alten Kirchhof doesn't exist any more as a street name, but the protestant church in the old town is still the Alte Kirche, and the street describing a U-turn on the Western side of the church is called An der alten Kirche, so I guess that's where the address must have been.
• "devant la porte de St. Antoine" it took me a while to realise that this must be the gate to St. Tönis, which was the Western gate of the old town. I don't think the gate survives, but it must have been where today's St. Anton-Straße crosses what was then the Western boundary of the town, the Dionysius-Straße. Just Southeast of that place is the Dionysius church, from which the Rheinstraße projects Eastwards, as seen in the postcard above.
• Elisabethstraße 95 Not far from the Alte Linner Str., above. The house no. 95 appears to have been merged with 97, to create more garage space on the ground floor, with only one entrance for humans, and five for cars.
• Petersstraße. This street is actually a major axis inside the rectangle of the former city walls, the first parallel to the Ostwall. Will have to work out how the house number translates to modern numbering.

In August this year, I visited Krefeld for the second time, got to meet some of my relatives who live there, and had a bit of an architectural trail. See the photos of the places I saw in my flickr album. I need to revisit to look up the street addresses mentioned above.

Previously in the #lostcities series:

1. Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961
2. Strasbourg 1901 - 1908
3. Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
4. Tangermünde 1888 - 1916
5. Rheydt 1923 - 1935
6. Königsberg 1935 - 1945
7. Aachen 1936 - 1940
8. Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
9. Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983
10. Würzburg 1961 - 1968
11. Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015
12. Bonn 1929-1934
13. Lorsch 1890-1938/1973.

NB I have now added a second end date to the cities where other family members stayed on after the direct ancestors died. So far, that is the case for Minden, Bad Nauheim and Hamborn.

The Mastodon thread for season 2 starts here.

Update 8.12.2024 I've added the list of locations as a new feature which I am planning to introduce across the series (if and when any specific addresses are known at all). If only to make sure that the next time I visit the place I know exactly where to look for the footprints of my ancestors.

UPDATE 19.1.2025 I have now started a pin board "vintage postcards" on pinterest with postcards from the cities in this series.