Looking for Enshime Germany?

Question

Hello, I'm brand new to researching German roots. For one of my ancestors, Jacob Sander Felsinger, I figure the first thing I need to do is figure out where to look for records concerning him. I have two hints: 1) a death record that says his place of birth was Würms, Germany, and 2) a handwritten note from his family bible that says he was born in "Enshime, Germanie" in 1841.

Complicating matters is an 1870 US Census record for Jacob's sister Katherine (b. 1849) and mother Charlotte (b. 1814) that lists the birthplace of both as Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Starkenburg, Hessen, Germany. This seems to be a completely different place.

By doing a Google search, I have found Ensheim, Alzey-Würms, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany which seems to somewhat match what clues I have, but how do I know if this location was around in 1841? Is this the correct WT/Germany Project location nomenclature for 1841? Where is the place mentioned for his sister and mother and how do I reconcile that with Jacob's POB? What is the best way for me to tackle this question of place of birth?

My head is spinning! Any advice from you German research experts would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Just confirming what was already said.

Ensheim is located in Rheinhessen and was under French rule at the end of the 18th and beginning of 19th century. Thanks to that, there is a good chance that civil registers and church registers were kept in parallel, i. e. that both exist. Civil registers aren't available online (unless Ancestry or Familysearch have them), you need to get in touch with the Ensheim/Wörrstadt register office to obtain them. Another source would be the Rhineland-Palatinate state archive, and more specifically their "Apertus" online portal. They are in the middle of the digitizing process, however as you can see on this map, not much progress in the Alzey-Worms district yet. Protestant church registers can be accessed on Archion (amongst the LOCATION = Ensheim entries, the one you want is "Dekanat Alzey - Ensheim") or at the church archive. Archion is a paysite, 20 EUR will buy you a one-month ticket. You will be required to browse the books page by page, though. Take up my fellow researcher's offer to look up Jacob's birth entry for you!

As for Darmstadt, I am a bit doubtful Katherine Felsinger and Charlotte Knobel were actually born in the city of Darmstadt, anyhow church book duplicates are online here. Select the desired entry 1...7 in the sidebar, then click on "Navigator" or directly on a thumbnail. In the next window, click on any page to open the book, then on "In DFG-Viewer öffnen". Unluckily, the pages that would cover February 1849 births are missing.

You might also be interested in this database of emigrants from Hesse, in a contact to Rheinhessen genealogists (nr. 7), and in Ensheim cemetary headstone photos (no Felsigner or Knobel), and perhaps in the fact that the names of Felsinger and Knobel can both be found in Biebesheim, located about half way between Ensheim and Darmstadt.

You're in for a challenge.

J

PS: The church registers of Lonsheim, Bermersheim, and Albig, all located just a few km south of Ensheim, have been transcribed and, generously, made available by local genealogist Gerd Braun: "Download der Kirchenbücher". It won't help you I'm afraid, but maybe it will help others.

Comments

Thank you for your reply and for all the links to resources! I was excited about the Biebesheim Felsinger/Knobel finds until I saw they were 100 years more recent than my timeframe. One thing puzzles me and maybe you can offer some insight. I am puzzled by the fact that one of my source clues claims Jacob was born in Ensheim and the other says Worms, two places that are several km distant from each other. Certainly one or the other (or both) could just be wrong, but is there something about German administrative entities and their borders in 1841 such that both might be correct?

Answer 2

I think the proper German name at this time would be "Ensheim, Oppenheim, Rheinhessen, Hessen, Deutscher Bund".

And it would be "Worms" instead of "Würms".

Darmstadt is not too far away from Ensheim, about 40 miles, so the mother could be born there and [fantasy on] maybe she visited her parents while she was pregnant with his sister?[fantasy off]

I would try to find their baptims records at Archion but unfortunately my subscription expired and I will not renew it until June due to vacations. But the offer stands.

Comments

I think you can leave out Rheinhessen, as that's only a province, and put it as "Ensheim, Oppenheim, Hessen, Deutscher Bund".

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Steffen, thank you for your reply! And I will certainly take you up on your offer for the Archion lookups!! I am content to wait until after your vacations. And if I may impose upon you further, when you do the lookups, I wonder if you could tell me how you performed them? I just looked at Archion and was pretty lost as to what I would enter into the different fields. My hope is that I can maybe learn from you HOW to use Archion effectively and if I can, then I can get my own subscription for other lines.

Incidentally, notice the reply below from J. Rau, specifically, " the names of Felsinger and Knobel can both be found in Biebesheim, located about half way between Ensheim and Darmstadt". I have no idea how reliable the "Enshiem, Germanie" clue is, so it may in fact be the case it is wrong and the families are over in Biebesheim, which is closer to both Darmstadt and to Worms (thanks for correcting my Worms error).

I'll send you my email address by private message so when you return in June, we don't have to continue this on the G2G thread. Again, thank you!

Answer 3

Here is some more info on Ensheim (in German): https://wiki.genealogy.net/Ensheim

At the bottom, there is a flow chart that shows what the village belonged to in different times of history.

According to this document, there are protestant church books for the village going back to 1651; apparently, the originals are stored at the Standesamt Verbundsgemeinde Wörrstadt, but there are also microfilms stored at the central archive of the protestant church of Hesse and Nassau in Darmstadt. They are also available online at Archion.

Comments

Thank you for your replies! I took a look at the chart you referenced, but unfortunately I can't read it and I'm not sure I would have really understood it even if I could as I haven't yet learned the German administrative hierarchy. May I ask you some questions about the parts of "Ensheim, Oppenheim, Hessen, Deutscher Bund"? 

I understand Deutscher Bund to be the German Confederation that was in existence at that time. 

Hessen (Eng: Hesse) is one of the 16 current states of Germany. But looking at a map, I see that Ensheim is not currently within the borders of Hessen. Was it in 1841? How did you know? Is there an online resource that shows the boundaries of the various administrative entities over time? 

What is Oppenheim in this context? Today it appears to be a town in Rheinland-Palatinate, but I don't understand what it has to do with Ensheim which is several km away.

And Ensheim is a village/town, I presume, the smallest administrative entity?

Thank you again for your help!

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It's a good thing you asked, because I did a little more research and found out, that the information I provided you before was actually wrong! The correct name for the location field for 1841 should be:

Ensheim, Alzey, Hessen, Deutscher Bund

Now, let me explain this a little. Ensheim was a village and also a municipality (Gemeinde). The next higher administrative level in Germany (and the German Confederation at the time) is called a 'Kreis' (the official English translation is 'district', but I'm not sure if something like this even exists in the US). In 1841, Ensheim belonged to the Kreis Alzey, which was created from the former (French, then Hessian) cantons Oppenheim and Wörrstadt in 1835. In 1852, it became part of the Kreis Oppenheim (sorry, these articles are only available in German, but you get the idea).

The next administrative level above that changed a lot over time, but back in 1841 it was the Großherzogtum Hessen (Grand Duchy of Hesse). This was one of the member states of the Deutscher Bund (German Confederation) and not identical in area to the modern Land Hessen (State of Hesse). Take a look at this map to see how all the states looked like. The Grand Duchy is the light brown state labeled 'Grhzm Hessen' - not to be confused with the Kurfsm. Hessen north of it, which was the Kurfürstentum Hessen (Electorate of Hesse) . Rheinhessen (Rhenish Hesse), where Ensheim was, is basically everything west of the Rhine in the southern part of it. When Germany was administratively rearranged after the war, Rheinhessen became a part of Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate) in 1946.

I often begin with the information from the genealogy wiki (the flow chart from before) as a start, but as you can see, this information can be inprecise or even wrong, so it's always good to dig a bit deeper and look into Wikipedia and other sources. I know it may seem daunting, especially because much of the relevant information is only available in German, but that's what this forum is for, so never hesitate to ask.

I hope I didn't confuse you and provided some insight into the complicated mess that is German administration. Take a look at this neat picture I found though, it illustrates at least the modern hierarchy of administrative levels. Also, I think this resource - the location field guidelines from the Germany Project - is very helpful.

If you have any more questions about this, feel free to ask. As you've probably noticed, I'm kind of weirdly nerdily interested in this kind of stuff and like researching it .

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This is FASCINATING! I'm afraid I will pester you with questions until you're sick of me. If I get to be too much, please tell me to cool it.

So that flow chart is incorrect, because I don't see Kreis Alzey in it anywhere, right? How did you know that Oppenheim was wrong and how did you know to look at Alzey? No, "district" doesn't exist in the US, but I would compare it to "county". Incidentally, those Wikipedia articles were automatically translated into English for me, so no problem.

I tried using that wiki for another of my ancestral German locations, Obergimpern, but it didn't seem to recognize that. Wikipedia indicates that Obergimpern is a village that is part of the city municipality of Bad Rappenau (about 2 miles apart on a map), district Heilbronn, administrative region Stuttgart, and state Baden-Württemburg, at this time. However, my ancestor was born there in 1697, so my next task is to start going backwards in time. The wiki flow chart of Bad Rappenau doesn't seem to me to be useful.

Looking at Heilbronn, I see that it derives from Oberamt Heilbronn, formed in 1803, to which some lands were added in 1926, and even more in 1938 when it was recognized as a district. I have to stop for now. I'll look up the Oberamt, but I anticipate difficulty trying to find out if Obergimpern was part of the Oberamt or part of the lands that were added prior to the formation of the district of Heilbronn.

My hope is to walk through this process with you step by step so I can eventually learn how to figure out these place structures on my own. So more later.

Additional: It would seem that with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the lands including Obergimpern (WNW of Wimpfen) were added to the Margraviate of Baden in 1806 at which time the Grand Duchy of Baden was formed as the . Don't yet know where those lands came from. Hopefully more later.

Additional: Jumping back to the HRE, this map of the HRE in 1648, only 50 years ahead of my time of interest, (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/HRR_1648.png) depicts the Obergimpern area as an unrepresentable small territory.

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Don't worry, I will never be sick of anyone on a quest for knowledge. 

Yes, there's some stuff missing from that flow chart and also some mistakes. I found out, when I followed up on your question about what Oppenheim was back then, because wasn't quite sure, if it was a Kreis or something else. And so I looked at the wikipedia article about the Kreis Oppenheim, which mentions, that it consisted of the former cantons Oppenheim and Wörrstadt. So I looked at those and noticed that Ensheim is not mentioned in the list of municipalities of Oppenheim, but it is in the list of Wörrstadt. That article says that when the eleven cantons of Rheinhessen were reorganized into four districts in 1835, the cantons Alzey and Wörrstadt made up the Kreis Alzey. And so my journey continued to that article, where it's mentioned that in 1852, after the revolution of 1848 had failed, the districts were reorganized again and according to this article, Ensheim became part of Oppenheim.

So, as you can see, the way I research this involves a lot of hopping around and digging through the tunnels of the rabbit hole of wikipedia.

Now, I'll try to do the same for Obergimpern. Going back to the Holy Roman Empire is often very complicated, as all those tiny kingdoms and principalities and grand duchies and whatnot shifted around a lot over time. Looking at the wikipedia article of Obergimpern, I see that for 1697, the year you need, it belonged to three quarters to the barons of Yrsch and to one quarter to the barons of Wiser (and it stayed that way until 1803). This is what's called a condominium, a region that has multiple different sovereigns holding ownership over it. To be honest, I have no idea how to deal with this in the location field, as it's not mentioned in the guidelines. I was actually already thinking of asking a question on G2G about this because I have the same problem with a village some of my ancestors came from, that had three different sovereigns.

From 1803-1806, it was part of the short-lived Fürstentum Leiningen (Principality of Leiningen), and then from 1806 on it was part of the Großherzogtum Baden (Grand Duchy of Baden).

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I was about to exclaim "WHAT Wikipedia article on Obergimpern? I looked for one but it didn't exist. The only mention of it I could find was in the Bad Rappenau article." Then it dawned on me to search for Obergimpern on the GERMAN Wikipedia! It hadn't occurred to me that the different language sites wouldn't mirror each other exactly. Having found the article you did, I see all that you mention. About the only thing that is clear about the location field is village and "country": Obergimpern Heiliges Römisches Reich. 

It wasn't clear to me from the article that in 1697 Obergimpern was a condominium in the formal sense of one land with multiple rulers. Another interpretation of the article is that Obergimpern was split with one part ruled by the Yrsch alone and the other part by the Wiser alone.

I agree this needs to be bounced to the community. Should it go on G2G or as a comment on the Guideline or maybe Structure Through History. Which one of use should do it?

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Yes, for small German villages, the German Wikipedia generally has more information. 

Yeah, I agree, the partition interpretation is possible. But it also says that in 1793, the two ruling families got into an argument over the jurisdiction in Ober- and Untergimpern, which sounds to me like they ruled it together and each collected a portion of the taxes and stuff like that. This was quite common in the Holy Roman Empire.

I already posted the question about condominia yesterday: Condominium question on G2G. I haven't really gotten a reply yet, though. Someone posted an answer directly onto my profile about explaining the political geography in the biography section of the profile, but then deleted it again...

Thank you for the badge, I really appreciate it.