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Uncovering
Our Leonhard Roots
This “Uncovering Our Roots” section for each
family explains how my father (Leonard H. Hellmers, Sr.) and I discovered
the home community of each immigrant ancestor in the Hellmers-Neff
family.
Norman D. Hellmers
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The roots of the Leonhard family were probably the easiest
to find, as the records associated with them frequently referred to
their home in Germany. Most specific were the death notices for Ludwig and Louisa
Leonhard in the Tägliche Deutsche Zeitung. The newspaper noted
that Ludwig was born in Reichenbach, Rheinbaiern, and that Louisa was
born in Jettenbach, Rheinkreis Bayern. (Rheinbaiern and Rheinkreis
Bayern are the same place.) The death notices also gave specific
information on how old they were when they died. With specific dates
and places of birth, Ludwig and Louisa could be easily located in
Germany.
The death notice to the right said that Ludwig Leonhard was 67 years, 4
months, and 26 days old when he died and that he was born in
Reichenbach, Rheinbaiern.
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An early help to us was Walter Leonhard (1911-1992), whom my father knew
well. Walter was able to provide additional names and dates that were
not available at St. Paul Lutheran Church, since some of these families
married into the Catholic faith. Dad and Walter started sharing information
already in July of 1968.
With basic information about the family, in 1977 we wrote to the Protestant
church in what we thought was the correct Reichenbach in Germany. What
we didn't know was how many Reichenbachs there are in Germany; lots as
it turned out. At that time the churches would
forward a letter like ours from one church to the next trying to find
the correct one. In January 1978 we heard from the Protestantische
Pfarramt in Reichenbach-Steegen. (Many places in Germany now have double
names resulting from two smaller places being combined for ease of
administration.) |
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This was the correct Reichenbach, but the pastor there, Manfred Roh, told us
that the churchbooks for Reichenbach were at the Protestantische
Landeskirche der Pfalz in the city of Speyer. (Today this institution
is the Zentralarchiv der Evangelischen Kirche der Pfalz.) On 11 March
1978, we sent a letter to them. Their return letter dated 2
August 1978 included baptism records for Ludwig, Louisa, and the
three children, and a request for 25 Deutschmarks.
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As Dad and I prepared for our trip to Germany in the fall of 1979, we contacted three places we thought we should visit:
(1) the Zentralarchiv der Evangelischen Kirche
der Pfalz in Speyer. They told us that they had the churchbooks for
Reichenbach for the years 1660 to 1928 and for Jettenbach for 1742 to
1870.
(2) the Kreisverwaltung Kusel Archiv. They had
civil birth, marriage, and death records for Jettenbach from 1799 to
the present day, as well as "Auswanderungsregister" [emigration
registers] from 1816 to 1900.
(3) the Protestantische Pfarramt
Reichenbach-Steegen (today the Protestantische Kirchengemeinde
Reichenbach-Steegen).
In each case we received information on their locations and hours and made arrangements for a visit.
On 27 September 1979, Dad and I visited the Zentralarchiv der
Evangelischen Kirche der Pfalz in Speyer. We examined
original churchbooks, made photocopies, and took many notes.
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On Saturday, 29 September, we were given a tour of the little church in Reichenbach by the daughter of the pastor.
On the next day, Dad and I attended the morning service. It was a
fascinating experience, giving us a bit of a feeling for what life was
like for our Leonhard ancestors.
The roads that we drove in the area of Reichenbach and Jettenbach are marked on this map.
The Protestant church in Reichenbach
Photo by Norman Hellmers, 1979
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As
it turned out, we
didn't visit the Kreisverwaltung Kusel Archiv, but after we returned I
wrote them to inquire about records they might have on the Leonhards.
They advised me that they had the emigration application
[Auswanderungseintrag] for the Leonhard
family, copies of which we eventually received. They also provided
civil birth records for the three Leonhard children born in Jettenbach.
They indicated that the civil registers for Reichenbach were in the
Kreisverwaltung Kaiserslautern.
The archives of the Kreisverwaltung Kusel suggested that I contact
a private researcher, Herr Bruno Nickchen, who lived in Speyer at
Christof Lehmannstrase 19. His fees were $8.50 per hour. Through
correspondence with him over two years (1980-1981), we received the
ancestry of Ludwig Leonhard and Louisa Göttel
back several generations. Some of his data turned out to be incorrect,
but it gave us a start on the earlier generations.
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On
14 July 1997, I wrote a letter to the Protestant church in
Jettenbach, seeking a picture of the church that
existed there prior to 1895, when the present church was constructed.
The church passed my letter on to Herr Klaus Leonhard of Jettenbach.
Klaus, one of the foremost historians and genealogists in the area. He and Michael Cappel collaborated on a history, Jettenbach, 1348-1998, Ortsgeschichte und Hausbesitzerchronik, published in 1998. A few references to both the Leonhard and Göttel families are included in the book.
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| Klaus
provided us with a multi-generation pedigree, taking the Leonhard line
back to Hanß Leonhard "der Alte," born about 1606 most likely in
the area of Okarben or Groß-Karben in Hessen. All of the
information we now have on the oldest generations of the Leonhard and
Göttel families came to us courtesy of our cousin, Klaus Leonhard.
Our common ancestor is Johann Peter Leonhard (born April 1656), who was
the keeper of an inn called "Zum Stern" in Okarben, Hessen. |
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