Below is a crude family outline of our German ancestors who lived in Stetten, Germany. The oldest known names go back to the late 1600s. Credit for getting this information goes to Robert Hessdörfer, a Riedmann ancestor who lives in Stetten today. He received the information from Vinzenz Krebs who has spent a great deal of time reviewing the church chronics (chronicles, or records) in Stetten for many local families.
More ancestral information is available. Feel free to contact us for more detailed records, or click here to view the pdf file we received from Herr Krebs. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print it. If you don’t have it, the program is free and can be obtained by going to the Adobe Reader website. When you download it the document is sideways, but you should be able to rotate it if you look for a “Rotate” button in the Acrobat menu bar.
There are three pages: the first shows a detailed portion of the Joseph Schraut family tree, the second (illustrated to the left) shows the Riedmann family tree going back to 1704 and the Schraut family tree, the third shows the Georg Riedmann and Magdalena family tree and goes forward to Robert Hessdörfer (who we can thank for this information). Notice that this page interestingly includes information about Georg Michael Riedmann and his second wife in America. There still must have been some contact in the family for this information to have made it back to Germany.
In all the following entries we only have information about the one child who leads up to our part of the family that immigrated to the United States. You will also see in the older records we only have the year of the marriage, birth or death. During this time it was up to the Church to keep records of births and deaths. Government records did not exist.
Georg Michael and Adam Riedmann’s Ancestors
Nicolay Riedmann married Maria Burkard in 1704. (It is safe to assume that if they were married in 1704 they both were born in the late 1600s.) Nicolay was a town senator. At that time Stetten was a village of 6-800 people. The village was governed by a mayor and two senators. The mayor ran the village, but the two senators had the power to overrule him if they felt he was making bad decisions.
Michael Riedmann married Anna Maria Roth in 1730. They had a son also named Michael who was born in 1737 and died in 1809.
Michael Riedmann married Dorothea Kröner in 1767. Dorothea was born in 1737 and died in 1808. They had a son named Anton who was born in 1775 and died in 1848.
Anton Riedmann married Barbara Amthor in 1803. Barbara was born in 1777 and died in 1812. They had a son named Josef who was born in 1808 and died 6/2/1871. Coincidentally, years, four generations, later Anna Riedmann married an Amthor. Amthor was a common name.
Josef Riedmann married Margaretha Kröner 2/23/1835. Margaretha was born on 10/10/1803 and died on 10/12/1888. Josef was a farmer. They had a son named Georg who was born 7/26/1842. He died on 12/7/1919.
Georg married Anna Maria Magdalena Hessdörfer (see below) on 11/23/1869. Magdalena was born on 7/20/1846 and died on 12/26/1922. Georg made wooden wheels for carriages. They had 13 children in all, including his sons Georg Michael and Georg Adam who immigrated to America. From here you can read about the family on the Introduction webpage.
Georg’s brother Johann had a daughter who remained in Steten till her death in 2006, Rita Riedmann. Rita married Karl Röhling and had three children: Maria, Gabriel and Veronika. Maria Röhling married Helmuth Halls and had two children: Bettina and Bernd. Gabriele Röhling married Edgar Zankl and had three children: Sandra, Florian and Anja. Veronika Röhling married Dieter Reuchlein and had two children: Stephan and Eva. It was Anja Zankl Semmel (she married) who gave me this information. As you can guess there are now great-grandchildren among Rita’s descendants. As of 2018 there were five. Anja and Zankl Sandra Mehling (also married) have told me that many of the grandchildren grew up in the original house. Anja lived in the house behind the original Riedmann house at 9 Werntalstraße.
Anna Maria Magdalena Hessdörfer‘s Ancestors
Josef Georg Hessdörfer married Margarete Lambrecht and they had a child named Andreas Hessdörfer on 12/9/1805.
Michael Rueger married Barbara Amthor and they had a child named Anna Maria Rueger on 2/13/1809.
Andreas Hessdörfer married Anna Maria Rueger on 2/19/1836. Andreas was a maker of wine kegs. Stetten, as may have already learned, is a wine-growing region. They had a child named Anna Maria Magdalena Hessdörfer. She married into the Riedmann family as shown above.
Magdalena Schraut Riedmann’s Ancestors
Anton Schraut married Elizabeth Keser, year unknown. They had a son named Kasper who was born on 9/1/1809.
Kasper Schraut married Barbara Treudlein on 12/15/1836. Barbara was born on 10/10/1805. Kasper was a master baker which meant he was skilled and recognized as a teacher. They had a son named Joseph who was born on 1/24/1841. Kasper died on 8/24/1873 of an affliction called “nervenfieber” which means nerves-fever.
Joseph Schraut married Margaretha Deissenberger in 1864. Margaretha was born on 11/24/1844 and died on 2/25/1898. Joseph was also a baker and the family owned a flour mill. Joseph and Margaretha had a daughter named Magdelena Schraut who would later marry Georg Michael Riedmann before coming to America. Magdelena was born on 3/20/1874 after her father had died. She had at least 2 sisters, Barbara and Anna, and one stepbrother, Johann. After her father Joseph died in 1873 Margaretha married Johann Alois Schraut, Joseph’s younger brother in 1875.
Editor’s Notes Regarding the pdf
Some of the dates and information above were later updated by Robert Hessdörfer (2007) on a subsequent trip to Würzburg and will not appear on the pdf document.
The dates are in a day/month/year format. Dates with a ” * ” are birth dates/years and with a “†” are deaths. The dates in between the boxes with the “∞” are marriage dates. “geb.” refers to the maiden name. Occupation and/or birthplace may also be included.
You will notice many names are repeated. The number of families with different names in the village of Stetten was very few and it was up to the church to try and keep track of who was who to prevent the marriage of two people who were too closely related. Unfortunately, many of the first names were also repeated, such as Michael and Georg, and even worse, the names may have been used several times in the same generation, making it difficult to research. The older church records were first kept in Latin, then later in a low German dialect which was limited to the Stetten area. Add this to the type of lettering, or font, used, and it all makes tracking family genealogy challenging.