Research notes - Margaretha Elisabeth Baur / Michael Hamstein

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Winnenden, Württemberg, Germany
Surnames/tags: Hamstein Baur Finckh

^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]}

Purpose

The fact sheets of Margaretha Elisabetha Baur^[16] and Michael Hamstein^[17] found in a family tree on ancestry.com present a link between four persons: Margarethe Elisabeth Baur (1671-) (ME1), Margaretha Elisabetha Unknown (abt.1671-1712) (ME2), Michael Hammstein (1666-abt.1675) (MH1) and Michael Hamstein (abt.1666-1732) (MH2).

According to that source, ME1 and ME2 are the same person, as are MH1 and MH2. Since this involves four different profiles (at present), the research notes have been gathered here in a central place, so they do not have to be updated multiple times if and when new information becomes available.

Known facts from primary sources

ME1. Margarethe Elisabeth Baur was born in Oberbrüden, deanery of Backnang, on 13 Jul 1671^[19]. She was the daughter of Johannes Baur and Elisabeth Finckh. Elisabeth Finckh was born in Winnenden, near Waiblingen, Württemberg, was married in Oberbrüden and remarried in (Stuttgart-)Wangen after her first husband's death. She died in Wangen in 1679 during childbirth.

ME2. Margaretha Elisabetha had a child with Michael Hamstein (MH2) in Winnenden in 1695. Her last name is not mentioned on the baptismal record. Other children followed, first in Winnenden, and subsequently in Lorch, deanery of Schwäbisch Gmünd. Margaretha Elisabetha died in Lorch on 27 Jun 1712. The burial record gives her age at death as 41 years, which implies a date of birth in 1671.

MH1. Michael Ham(m)stein was born into family of cloth dyers on 21 May 1666 in Göppingen, a town in the valley of the river Fils, approximately 40 kilometres east of Stuttgart.

MH2. Michael Hamstein had several children with ME2, first in Winnenden and later in Lorch, where he worked as a cloth dyer. He died in Lorch on 5 Jul 1732. The burial record gives his age at death as 66 years, implying a date of birth in 1666.

The central problem

The connection is a purported marriage between ME1 and MH1 on 18 Sep 1691 in Winnenden, for which there is no primary source available. A marriage record could not be located in Winnenden, where ME2 and MH2 are the parents in a baptismal record in 1695^[2], nor in Lorch, where ME2 and MH2 resided in 1712^[7] and MH2 continued to live until his death in 1732^[8], nor in Göppingen, the birth place of MH1^[1], nor in Oberbrüden, the birth place of ME1, nor in Wangen, where ME1's mother died in 1679.

Another piece of evidence to contend with is the entry in the Family Register of Göppingen (produced in 1925-1928), which shows MH1 as having died on 17 Aug 1675^[10]. (The original burial record also has not been located.)

This lack of documentation is troublesome.

Reflections

Despite the gaps in the available records, there are reasons to believe that the situation presented in the family tree on ancestry.com is at least plausible.

1.	The burial records of both ME2 and MH2 record an age at death that indicates a year of birth coinciding with those of ME1 and MH1, respectively.
2.	ME1 had connections to Winnenden.
	Her mother was the daughter of Jacob Finckh, at one time the mayor of Winnenden, and her sister Anna Barbara married in Winnenden in 1696. After their father died in Oberbrüden in 1676, their mother remarried in Wangen near Stuttgart in April 1678, where she died less than a year later. At that time, the eight year-old ME1 and her six year-old sister had no blood relatives left in Wangen and may have been sent to live with family in Winnenden, a distance of less than 20 kilometres away (see map).
	Their grandfather Jacob Finckh (1610-1675) had at least 13 children from two marriages, but most of them died young. Aside from the date of birth, nothing is known about the last two of them, Johann Jacob Finckh (born 1640) and Anna Margaretha Finckh (born 1644), and it must be assumed that they either died as well, or were not in a position to support the two young girls.
	However, the girls' grandfather had two cousins, Jacob Finckh (1623-1694) and Hans Conrad Finckh (1631-1687), who both had families with children of similar ages as ME1 and her sister. One of them might have agreed to accept the children into his family. In addition, the girls' maternal grandmother Elisabetha Plebst (1613-1688) was still living.
3.	The list of godparents indicates respect in the community.
	Between 1695 and 1702 MH2 and ME2 had five children baptized in Winnenden[2][3][4][5][6]. The godparents in all five records are very similar. In particular, Johann Friderich Martin, identified each time as the mayor of Winnenden, was the godfather (listed first) in every record. This seems to indicate that the parents ME2 and MH2 had status in the community. An easy explanation is available if ME1 and ME2 are the same person, since ME1 was the granddaughter of a previous mayor.
4.	MH1 was born into a family of cloth dyers, and MH2 was working as a cloth dyer himself.
	MH1's father, Matthäus Hammstein (abt.1627-1695) was a dyer, as was Matthäus' father-in-law Endriss Baiker, MH1's maternal grandfather[11]. Further family members of the Hammstein family involved in the dye business are MH1's brothers Matthäus[12] and Andreas[13], as well as Andreas' son Johann Michael[14], and the husband of Andreas' daughter Anna[15].
	Meanwhile, MH2 passed his business on to his son Johann Michael[9].
5.	The geography involving MH2 is plausible.
	The distance between Göppingen and Winnenden is approximately 30 km; Lorch, where ME2 and MH2 settled in the early 1700s, is situated approximately 25 km from Winnenden and less than 15 km from Göppingen --- all distances a young man could cover on foot in a single day (see map).

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Evangelische Landeskirche Württemberg. Kirchenbücher von Göppingen, vol.2, Baptisms 1639-1683, available online at Ancestry.com in collection Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985, Göppingen, Taufen 1558-1712, available online at https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/imageviewer/collections/61023/images/1056922-00000, frame 357, left side, second record from top, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} Evangelische Landeskirche Württemberg. Kirchenbücher von Winnenden, Dekanat Waiblingen, vol.2, Baptisms 1641-1701, available online at Ancestry.com in collection Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985, Winnenden u Winnental, Taufen u Heiraten 1558-1760, available online at https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/imageviewer/collections/61023/images/1056954-00000, frame 629, right side, fifth record from bottom, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Evangelische Landeskirche Württemberg. Kirchenbücher von Winnenden, Dekanat Waiblingen, vol.2, Baptisms 1641-1701, available online at Ancestry.com in collection Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985, Winnenden u Winnental, Taufen u Heiraten 1558-1760, available online at https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/imageviewer/collections/61023/images/1056954-00000, frame 643, second record on the left. Retrieved 14 Dec 2021.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Evangelische Landeskirche Württemberg. Kirchenbücher von Winnenden, Dekanat Waiblingen, vol.2, Baptisms 1641-1701, available online at Ancestry.com in collection Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985, Winnenden u Winnental, Taufen u Heiraten 1558-1760, available online at https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/imageviewer/collections/61023/images/1056954-00000, frame 652, left page, third record from bottom. Retrieved 14 Dec 2021.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Evangelische Landeskirche Württemberg. Kirchenbücher von Winnenden, Dekanat Waiblingen, vol.2, Baptisms 1641-1701, available online at Ancestry.com in collection Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985, Winnenden u Winnental, Taufen u Heiraten 1558-1760, available online at https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/imageviewer/collections/61023/images/1056954-00000, frame 663, left page, third record from bottom. Retrieved 14 Dec 2021.
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} Evangelische Landeskirche Württemberg. Kirchenbücher von Winnenden, Dekanat Waiblingen, vol.2, Baptisms 1641-1701, available online at Ancestry.com in collection Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985, Winnenden u Winnental, Taufen u Heiraten 1558-1760, available online at https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/imageviewer/collections/61023/images/1056954-00000, frame 687, left page, fifth record from the top. Retrieved 14 Dec 2021.
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} Evangelische Landeskirche Württemberg. Kirchenbücher von Lorch, Dekanat Schwäbisch Gmünd, vol.1, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1646-1725, available online at Ancestry.com in collection Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985, Lindach u Lorch, Familienbuch, Taufen, Heiraten u Tote 1646-1911, available online at https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/imageviewer/collections/61023/images/1340275-00000, frame 786, right side, third record from bottom, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Evangelische Landeskirche Württemberg. Kirchenbücher von Lorch, Dekanat Schwäbisch Gmünd, vol.2, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1726-1783, available online at Ancestry.com in collection Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985, Lorch, Heiraten, Tote u Taufen 1726-1815, available online at https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/imageviewer/collections/61023/images/1340276-00000, frame 96, right side, bottom third, record #41, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1} Evangelische Landeskirche Württemberg. Kirchenbücher von Lorch, Dekanat Schwäbisch Gmünd, vol.2, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1726-1783, available online at Ancestry.com in collection Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985, Lindach u Lorch, Familienbuch, Taufen, Heiraten u Tote 1646-1911, available online at https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/imageviewer/collections/61023/images/1340275-00000, frame 1182, top record on left, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1} Evangelische Landeskirche Württemberg. Kirchenbücher von Göppingen, vol.5, Family register 15-1800; H-S, available online at Ancestry.com in collection Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985, Göppingen, Familienbücher 1558-1800, available online at https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/imageviewer/collections/61023/images/1056940-00000, frame 487, left side, child #5, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
11. ↑ ^{11.0 11.1} Ibid., frame 487, left page, middle panel, right side, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
12. ↑ ^{12.0 12.1} Ibid., frame 487, right page, bottom quarter, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
13. ↑ ^{13.0 13.1} Ibid., frame 487, right page, left side of top panel, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
14. ↑ ^{14.0 14.1} Ibid., frame 488, left page, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
15. ↑ ^{15.0 15.1} Ibid., frame 487, right page, child #6, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
16. ↑ ^{16.0 16.1} "Familiengeschichtliche Website Weigel", fact sheet for Margaretha Elisabetha Baur, available online at Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/family-tree/person/tree/1599202/person/6063526648/facts, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
17. ↑ ^{17.0 17.1} "Familiengeschichtliche Website Weigel", fact sheet for Michael Hamstein, available online at Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestrylibrary.ca/family-tree/person/tree/1599202/person/6063525336/facts, accessed 13 Dec 2021.
18. ↑ Area map of Winnenden, Lorch and Göppingen, https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1ATLOYgdCYJGZhp70l6qNErYNjYOXK4L3&usp=sharing, created 13 Dec 2021.
19. ↑