Kirstetters and Related in the Obergimpern Area

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Obergimpern, Kurfürstentum Pfalz, Heiliges Römisches Reich

A place to collect and collate records related to the the Kirstetter and related families in the Obergimpern, Kurfürstentum Pfalz, Heiliges Römisches Reich area in the 18th century and earlier. This purpose may expand as more data is discovered.

Contents 1 Overview of the villages and communities 1.1 Map 2 Parishes 3 Births 4 Marriages 5 Deaths 6 Research Questions and Material 7 Uncollated Raw Material 8 Sources

Overview of the villages and communities

• Obergimpern

http://gov.genealogy.net/item/show/OBEERNJN49MG

In 1697 - Obergimpern, Kurfürstentum Pfalz, Heiliges Römisches Reich

"Location and Settlement (until 1970): The first mention of »Guntebuer« dates back to 1299, in the differentiation »zuo dem upper Guentbuere« from 1355. The name of the Merovingian expansion site refers to the settlement of a bonded association named after its master (personal name, to the houses). In 1784, the site included the castle and a church, two rectory and two school houses and ninety bourgeois houses; together with the residential areas located in the district there were 117 in 1802. The farm, formerly the hamlet of Wagenbach, located in a spring basin north of the village, belonged in the late Middle Ages as a Palatinate fiefdom to the Helmstatt, who sometimes also named themselves after him, and then came together with the castle and village Obergimpern as well as the farm Eulenberg over the Krebsbach to the Yrsch. Individual estates in Wagenbach were part of the Guttenberg lordship of Worms. From the 13th century to 1802/03, the Wimpfen monastery earned tithes on the farm. After the Second World War, the settlements beyond the railway facilities followed on the northern plateau slope. The Schloßfeldsiedlung was built in 1950, followed by the »Kuhnberg« residential areas in 1960 and »Klause« in 1970.

History: In the early 14th century, the owners of Ober- and Untergimpern were owned by the noble lords of Strahlenberg an der Bergstraße, from whom the lords of Helmstatt enfeoffed both parts of the town. From the 1320s onwards, the latter developed a special Gimperner branch that branched off from the Helmstadt line, which died out again in the male line in 1463; around 1350/60 his relatives sometimes also bore the name von Fürfeld. In 1368, the Counts Palatine of the Rhine acquired feudal sovereignty over the town. As early as 1359, the Helmstatt had sold a sixth of Obergimpern to the Hirschhorn (loan letters erroneously mention a quarter); they continued to keep the other five parts themselves until the fief was escheated, after the Helmstatt line had also died out around 1684. This was followed in 1690, again as Palatinate vassals, by the von Yrsch. The Hirschhorn share had already fallen to the Palatinate in 1632 and in 1699 it was again made a fief to von Wiser. In both cases, however, Electoral Palatinate retained sovereignty for itself and the Kraichgau Imperial Knights tried in vain to assert their traditional claims to the manor. In 1802/03 Obergimpern fell under constitutional law to the new principality of Leiningen and, with its mediatization in 1806, to the Grand Duchy of Baden.

From the end of the Middle Ages until the Thirty Years' War, the noble local lords had all high and low authorities in the village and its district, commandments and prohibitions, court and bailiwick, corvee service and etching as well as other belongings according to their respective shares; in the 16th century, however, the Helmstatt wanted to claim the appointment of mayors and judges for themselves. In both cases, the new enfeoffments in the late 17th century only included landed property with the lower magistrates; the sovereign powers with tax law, high courts and military deployment were reserved for the Electoral Palatinate. The wish expressed by Baron von Yrsch in 1787 to set up his own court of justice was consequently rejected. The old Gimperner Castle, which has been attested as the seat of the Helmstatt since 1329, was located in the castle garden between the Schlossstrasse, Hauptstrasse and Grombacher Strasse. Demolished in 1766, it was an almost rectangular structure with a wet ditch and therefore a type (1554 »Burgstadel«) that can often be found in the near and far surroundings. In 1766, the Yrsch family had the new castle slightly higher to the south-east. The simple, unadorned plastered building with an upstream farmyard only got its third floor in the late 19th century.

Over the centuries, only the knightly local lords are attested as landowners in Obergimpern. In 1554, the Hirschhorner – later Wiser’schen – part included a farm with around 148 acres of fields and meadows and three smaller estates with sizes of around 12, 31 and 47 acres; a courtyard was uncultivated. The Hirschhorn Forest had around 75 acres. A multiple of these areas, including around 240 acres of forest, certainly belonged to the Helmstatt or Irschian castle estate. In 1740 the Wimpfner Dominican monastery was entitled to interest on the land and capital from Obergimpern. From the Middle Ages to the end of the Old Kingdom, the Worms cathedral chapter received the grand tenth; the small tithe was part of the parish benefice or salary. In 1802, the village court was staffed with six judges in addition to the mayor. In the late 18th century, the municipality owned around 360 acres of the approximately 600 acres of forest in the district, and it also had a town hall and a sheep house. On June 22, 1807, Obergimpern came to the princely-Leingian office in Mosbach (intended for November 15, 1810, but not completed in Neckarbischofsheim office) and on July 24, 1813 to the district office in Neckarbischofsheim. On October 1st, 1864 the place changed to the Sinsheim district office, from which the Sinsheim district emerged on June 25th, 1939.

Economy and Population: In the mid-1650s, after the catastrophe of the Thirty Years' War, there were reportedly only fifteen subjects left in Obergimpern, but which was certainly a much larger population, i.e. around seventy to eighty inhabitants. After a long period of peace, in 1784 and again in 1802 there were finally around six hundred souls again, including six Jewish families. The population has always found their livelihood in agriculture and animal husbandry; the fields against Hüffenhardt, against Siegelsbach and against Babstadt have been attested since 1469. On the Krebsbach, below the village, two mills were already in operation in 1359 and again in 1802, and a third one in Untergimpern. In addition to the usual village crafts and trades, tailors, shoemakers, buckle makers, bricklayers, potters and linen weavers worked here at the end of the Old Kingdom.

Church and School: First historical mention: 1496. Since the Middle Ages, the branches of Babstadt (until 1732), Untergimpern, Ober- and Unterbiegelhof and Wagenbach belonged to the parish of St. Cyriacus in Obergimpern (1469). In addition to the high altar, there was an altar in honor of the Mother of God and Saint Sebastian in the church. The right of patronage rested with the Wormser Domstift. After the introduction of the Reformation in the 16th century and the re-Catholicization practiced by the Palatinate since 1685, the church, renovated in 1764, was used jointly by Lutherans and Catholics until the early 20th century. At the end of the 18th century, the Worms cathedral chapter presented the Protestant pastor, the Catholic Count von Yrsch. On the Catholic side, a sacramental brotherhood had existed since 1781. Without a doubt, with the introduction of the Reformation, the first school lessons also began in Obergimpern. Since the denominational split that occurred around the turn of the 17th century, there have been repeated arguments about the salaries of the two teachers from then on. Consequently, there were also two schoolhouses in the village at the end of the 18th century. The Simultankirche was renovated in 1764 in baroque forms using Renaissance columns, the Catholics received their own neo-Romanesque church of St. Cyriakus in 1905, hall building with ridge turret. Untergimpern is a branch of the evangelical parish, the Catholic parish includes Untergimpern, Babstadt, Hasselbach and the Zimmerhof.

Web address: https://www.leo-bw.de/en/web/guest/detail-gis/-/Detail/details/ORT/labw_ortslexikon/1828/Obergimpern+-+Altgemeinde~Teilort"^[1]

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obergimpern

• Neckarbischofsheim

"History: 988 Bisgovesheim. Certainly an earlier base of the episcopal-Worms landlords. The place bequeathed to the lower nobility, at the latest at the end of the 13th century to the lords of Helmstatt. Since the Thirty Years' War in Neckarbischofsheim the Lorraine and Bischofsheim lines. Neckarbischofsheim was incorporated into the Imperial Knights' Canton in Kraichgau. In the northern part of the district, Electoral Palatinate raised claims to the sovereignty of the cent. 1805 Baden, 1807 to the Waibstadt office, from 1810 also called the Neckarbischofsheim office, this was finally transferred to Neckarbischofsheim around 1819, and in 1864 to the Sinsheim office. As a noble residence in the village, a moated castle in the west, of which only the "Stone House" (16th century and later) survives, in the south the Alexanderburg from the mid-15th century, only sparsely visible remains. 1378 first named city. Wimpfen law. Irregular floor plan, divided into front and back town by the market square, 2 gates. The pentagonal tower from 1448 in the south has been preserved from the town fortifications. In the 19th century, the suburb was formed north of the Krebsbach near the church of the dead, perhaps above the site of the early village. People: Adolf Schmitthenner, 1854-1907, pastor and local poet.

Church and School: The church dedicated to John the Baptist (1496), probably the old church center of the whole area. The church property was sold in 1329 by the von Helmstatt to the Wimpfen monastery, and in 1348 the parish was incorporated into the monastery. Replaced as a parish church by the Reformation, it became the "Church of the Dead" with around 40 tombs of Helmstatt. The simple hall with a rectangular chancel and turret extended to the west in the 16th century. The Lutheran Reformation introduced by the local rulers around 1556. A 14th-century Marian chapel in the town elevated to the status of a Lutheran parish church. Late Gothic choir with nave from 1543, vaulting and furnishings from 1610. Temporarily two Protestant parishes. The Catholics until 1955 branch of Waibstadt, then until 1966 curate, since then parish with Adrsbach as a branch.

Web address: https://www.leo-bw.de/en/web/guest/detail-gis/-/Detail/details/ORT/labw_ortslexikon/6426/Neckarbischofsheim+-+Altgemeinde~Teilort"^[1]

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neckarbischofsheim

• Bonfeld

• Kirstetter Hof and Kirstetten

"1369 Kirsteden, Hof, perhaps previously a village. One half directly Palatine, the other half from Weinsberg via the Eppensteins to von Gemmingen, since 1339 a Palatine fiefdom, from 1365 belonging to von Helmstatt, who also received the Palatine part in 1545. Via the Landschad to von Freiberg, in the Thirty Years' War again to von Helmstatt, from their heirs, von Berlichingen and Schmitz Auerbach, the Palatine Court Chamber bought the farm around 1768. Website includes a survey drawing from 1875: https://www.leo-bw.de/en/web/guest/detail-gis/-/Detail/details/ORT/labw_ortslexikon/6144/Obrigheim-Kirstetterhof"^[1]

https://rhein-neckar-wiki.de/Kirstetter_Hof

Map

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1j9aIAdNyB5o5HQ84V6pBfQYZJ2Ha-eA&ll=49.268951790951164%2C9.016642627190734&z=11

Parishes

Births

Marriages

Deaths

Research Questions and Material

Uncollated Raw Material

"The origins of the Kerstetter family date back at least four centuries to the region of Germany southeast of Heidelberg known as the Northern Kraichgau. Kerstetters were living in the area before the end of the 16th century and may have been there in previous centuries. No one knows where they came from originally.

Siebmacher’s Wappelbuch, the exhaustive and definitive work on Germanic heraldry, reports that a family named Kirchstetter was part of the nobility in Vienna from the Middle Ages. An early entry from the year 1178 refers to an Udalrich de Chirchstetter as witness to a donation to the church. Later entries for von Kirchstetter and Kirchstetter continue through 1859 and suggest the family moved in court circles and was associated with law, the University of Vienna and perhaps the military. A small community named Kirchstetten is located in Austria southwest of Linz.

Kerstetters in the Northern Kraichgau, by contrast, were farmers and lived ordinary lives. Some members of the family lived in Obergimpern, a village not far from the Neckar River in an area that is largely Lutheran.

Other Kerstetters lived in the community of Bad Rappenau southeast of Obergimpern or in the community of Hüffenhardt northeast of Obergimpern. North of Hüffenhardt on Highway K3942 is the tiny farmstead of Kirstetterhof or Kirstätterhof. Visitors to Kirstetterhof in the 1990s found only an unoccupied farm house and farm storage sheds.

Still further north and east along Highway K3942 is the town of Obrigheim on the banks of the Neckar. The highway is renamed Kirstetter Strasse when it gets to Obrigheim and becomes a local thoroughfare.

Fragmentary records from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries show five generations of one Kerstetter line in the Northern Kraichgau through Joh. Martin Kirstätter, who left the region with his bride in 1727 for Pennsylvania:

• Wolff Kurstetter and his wife Anna were born about 1575.
• Wolflein Kurstetter was born about 1600. His wife’s name was Anna.
• Wolf Kirstetter was born in Obergimpern in 1618 or 1625. His wife’s name was Magdalena.
• Hans Leonhardt Kirstetter was born in Obergimpern on Nov. 28, 1668 and married in 1696. His wife’s name was Anna Ursula.
• Joh. Martin Kirstätter was born in Obergimpern and baptized on Sept. 5 or 15, 1697. He married Maria Dorothea Frey of nearby Bonfeld on April 29, 1727, in the Lutheran church in Neckarbischofsheim. Maria Dorothea was the daughter of Joh. Martin Frey and Anna Apollonia Junger. The church marriage record stated specifically that the couple was going to Pennsylvania. It also described Martin as a farmhand.

Martin and Dorothea were among the 300 “Palatinates” who arrived in Philadelphia in September 1727 aboard the ship Molly (possibly Malley or Molley) from Rotterdam and Deal, an English port just north of Dover.

Pennsylvania was established by William Penn as a haven from religious persecution. Penn recruited immigrants in Germany, and roughly one-third of the early settlers of Pennsylvania were German.

Germany had been devastated during the Thirty Years’ War that ended in 1648. The Palatinate was rebuilt, only to be devastated again by the French under Louis XIV. The state also became a center of religious conflict and oppression of Protestants under its Catholic elector John William in the early years of the 18th century.

Some Palatines fled to England in 1709 and 1710 and eventually resettled in the New World. The great migration directly from the Palatinate to Pennsylvania began about 1717 and lasted several decades.

Getting to North American in those early years was dangerous as well as thoroughly disagreeable. Immigrants typically started out on boats down the Neckar River from Heilbronn and then down the Rhine to Rotterdam. The trip down the Rhine lasted four to six weeks and involved delay after delay at 26 different customs houses on route. Immigrants boarded ships at Rotterdam and normally went to an English port before setting out across the Atlantic. The ocean crossing took seven to 12 weeks depending on the winds."^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Baden-Württemberg State Archive, Eugenstr. 7, D 70182 Stuttgart; Internet: https://www.landesarchiv-bw.de
2. ↑ THE KERSTETTER FAMILY: THE EARLY YEARS, 1727-1850; Steve Kerstetter; self published; 2010; pp 1-3.