When we grew up and went
to school, there were certain teachers… No, wait; that's a line from Pink
Floyd.
When we were growing up
in the late sixties and the seventies, our German dad told us firmly that he
was the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son… going back to a
Johann-Christoff von Schildt, who in 1630 had received special commendation
from the Spanish emperor (Franz Ferdinand), and/or the HR emperor, for Nixonian
dirty tricks done on His Highness's behalf.
Part of this
commendation was an awesome document: several large pages of vellum/parchment,
in a purple-felt -bound book. I've seen it; I held it in my hands (last time
was maybe twenty or thirty years ago), and turned the stiff pages with awed
fingers. The thing had been written up by a talented scribe, then signed by the
emperor in a huge, ornate scrawl that filled half a page.
The document (now, I
believe, in the hands of our uncle in Germany, Dad's younger brother) set out a
great array of privileges for Johann-Christoff and his descendants through
eternity – e.g., exemption from taxes, imperial conscription, and so on. Likely
(though Dad didn't say) there was a title and some lands that went with this
commendation (hence the "von" added to our last name).
Dad's grumble was that
an egalitarian descendant – great-grandson, I believe – about a hundred years
later repudiated these rights and privileges (and I guess at that point dropped
the "von"), and restored us to our rightful place amid the greater
unwashed, common masses. Thanks, Gramp!
This was a great
family-history tale Dad told us… but how true is it?
In 1989, a gentleman by
the name of Felix von Schroeder privately published a family history in
Germany. The second of two (?) volumes is the one of interest; it's
titled: Die Familie Schröder - von Schroeder aus
Königsberg i. Pr., Band 2: Die Geschwister Felix, Heinrich, Irene v. Schroeder
– Ahnenlisten, Stammlisten, Nachfahrenlisten. I translate this as: The Schröder / von Schroeder Family of Königsberg,
Prussia, Volume 2: The Siblings Felix, Heinrich, and Irene von Schroeder –
Ancestors, Family Trees, and Descendants.
It turns out that this
genealogist's grandmother was the sister of Dad's grandfather. If you do the
math or charting, you'll see that one quarter of his ancestry is the same as
Dad's; so a fourth of his book is quite pertinent to my family – my brothers
and sisters, and our own children, as well as cousins back across the water.
The last falling-out I
had with Dad was about 1990, when during a visit with him I had a chance to
look over his copy of the history. I could read German well enough (even better
now) to get the gist of what von Schroeder had laid out – this was fascinating
stuff! So I asked Dad if we could make a quick trip to the university down the
road (where he was teaching) and run me off photocopies of some particularly
interesting pages.
Dad rudely (it seemed)
pulled a technicality on me, his own son, at this reasonable request. He
pointed coldly at the copyright clause right there on the back of the
title-page. It said clearly: "Alle Rechte, auch des Teilabdrucks, der
Vertonung, Verfilmung der fotomechanischen Wiedergabe usw. vorbehalten"…
which meant he was forbidden by German law to make me any copies at all, of any
pages; he refused.
Yes, Dad, I fully
intend to take those pages and publish them around the world and make a great
profit, at the expense of our cousin's many decades of work. No; I would like
copies of select pages and sections to translate them – there just isn't time
right now to read it all; it's for private usage, not for publication.
Dad was as inflexible,
cold, and adamant as the brick wall that makes up part of our family crest, and
gives us our last name. How about the simple and obvious legal expedient of
copying that caveat-page and keeping it with the other pages? (I'd seen him do
this before, when photocopying copyrighted material for his students.) No. I
gave up, got up abruptly, and left.
We didn't stay
fallen-out of course. His declining years and my adult years were a great span
in which to bury many hatchets, and to forgive him his utter cluelessness in
how to be a parent (and my jerkiness as a kid and adolescent). I doubt I told
him I loved him, though, until the solitary, haunting hour I spent alone with
his body in 2003, waiting for the rest of the family to arrive at the church
for his funeral.
Anyway, among Dad's
impressively disorganized jumble of books and papers were two copies of that
family-history book; one I now have (it belonged to Dad's mother, our sweet
Oma, who died in 1996), and the other (Dad's own copy) is with my older
brother. If there's even one more copy in the US, it would be with Dad's
sister, who moved to the US in the late 1960s.
About a year ago I set
to translating the pertinent quarter of the book, and found some wonderful
stories – from the achingly sad (plague victims, deaths in childbirth) to the
noble, and everything imaginable in between. (None of this I'd heard before.)
Most of this I've translated and charted out, and will soon pass along to the
rest of the family.
Some of the material
could indeed make a great novel, maybe even a movie; might just take a stab at
fleshing it out myself. I do plan to post extracts and (rough) translations
here… unless the publisher (a J. Ebner in Deggendorf) feels I'm overstepping my
own personal rights to the information, at which point I'll drop them… though I
may squawk a bit.
NB, though: I'm not
going to stick any of that history in my "Steal My Stuff" category;
this belongs to my family, not to me, so don't get any bright ideas: it'll be
here for your reading enjoyment and education only, okay? Thank you.
Anyway, though my dad
was indeed the oldest son, von Schroeder's history shows that Opa (Dad's dad,
1899-1965) had an older brother, about whom I'd never heard, and who appears to
have perhaps become something of a persona-non-grata in the family. This bears
digging into. More at some other point; this man's children are alive and
publishing, themselves, in Germany… though with a double last name.
And according to von
Schroeder's research, there really was a Johann-Christoff… but he's given the
vital dates of 1748-1810 (and his father was Christoff Johann, 1713-57); our
direct ancestors in 1630 were a Claus (1581-1640) and his son, Nic/kolaus
(1613-96), grandfather of Chrisoff Johann. First Guess is that Dad mixed up
some names and or dates… except that as I recall it clearly, that
aforementioned imperial decree clearly gives our 1630 ancestor's name (and,
yes, the date is included) as Johann-Christoff von Schildth. (slightly more
archaic spelling to the last name).
And, yes, though the
original document is missing (again, probably in our uncle's hands), I did find
a photocopy in Dad's papers, and will try to transcribe and translate that also
when I find it again.
Dad never shared the
information in that family-history book with us, and it soon was buried in his
mess of books, papers, magazines, and so on. This was to our collective loss,
and I don't think that was his intention. So my personal aim (until I enter the
monastery/seminary) is to set this right by making sure all my immediate
relatives, my generation and the next, have copies in German and English of
Herr von Schroeder's work.
Levels of interest
among them vary, of course (and I certainly have precious little time to devote
to this), but the information has to be spread out to the rest of us, or we
will all lose a dimension of our inner being.
I've found some
corroborations online (bear in mind that some ancestral lines go back to the
fifteenth century, and a bit earlier), and reestablished some family connections
with other lines that our family married into (or that married into ours,
depending on your viewpoint).
Besides birth/baptism
and death/burial dates, von Schroeder provides many little details on our
ancestors' / relatives' various professions, dates of high school and
university acceptance and graduation, in-laws, terms and types of military
service, recorded purchases of homes, businesses, estates, etc., etc., going
all the way back to the earliest records available to him.
Some of von Schroeder's
asides are worth noting and even repeating: here and there are details on
sad/tragic deaths (and a bizarre one or two), an ancestor rising into (or
falling from) the nobility, and so on. For instance, of one ancestor, Conrad
Gotzsche, who lived from about 1570 to 1660, von Schroeder mentions: "One
of his successors in office…, Adam Friedrich Körber, used the 1618-1652 pages
of the church registry-book to light his pipe!" ("Einer seiner Amtsnachfolger in Krölpa, Adam
Friedrich Körber, verwendete die Blätter des Kirchenbuchs 1618-1652 zum
Anzünden der Pfeife!" Schröder - v. Schroeder, p. 152)
Since these civil record-books
were among von Schroeder's prime sources of names and dates in his research,
one might imagine this tale is at least as horrifying as amusing to him. And,
as I said, I'd like to share some extracts of von Schroeder's research here. So
now and then I'll drop in translated bits, and thoughts/reflections on these
people.
