Question

Requesting help to determine when Smith (Schmidt) and Bower or Bauer combined as Schmidtbauer in early 1800's Germany

Answer 1

That might happen in every village in Germany in every century/ year before 1870-1875.

So please could you add the WikiTree-ID of the concerned person or write where (parish or location if possible) it happened in Germany.

I have the same phenomenon with other names from the 16th to the beginning of the 17th century in some German locations.

Comments

Hi Dieter, Thank you for responding. My mother relayed that she came from the Schmidbauer family line. According to the tale, when England weavers started using machines, our ancestor took his loom and began walking to France and on to Germany where he took a wife. They combined the name Smith and Bauer to make Schmidtbauer and lived in a village they named Gottersdorf "God's town." This must have taken place in the early 1800's because the ancestor was part of the "luddites" who objected to the weaving machines in England. A nice story, but all my relatives are deceased with not one to ask if any of this is factually true. Thanks for your interest. My DNA does show English as 3% well as 95 % Germantic ethnicity. So this is a possibility. Elizabeth

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Today in Germany there is only one Gottersdorf; it is a district of the town Walldürn in the Neckar-Odenwald Kreis (county) in Baden-Württemberg.

If the mentioned name Gottersdorf is correct it could be the right place, because the former village was incorporated to Walldürn on 1 Dec 1972.

The parish records of the catholic parish of Gottersdorf I cannot find online on https://data.matricula-online.eu/de/.

The parish records of the Lutheran parish of Walldürn are also not online yet on https://www.archion.de/ .

Because the are of Walldürn is catholic area the Lutherans hat to go to the Lutheran church of Walldürn.

There was a second Gottersdorf in the Prussian province of Schlesien (county Kreuzburg) until 1945, today it is the village Gotartów, Gmina Kluczbork, Województwo Opolskie, Poland.

On archion some church records from villages/towns of the county Kreuzburg are online, but not Gottersdorf.

Sorry, but at the moment I can't help you more. Maybe some people from that area have more information.

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Hi Elisabeth,

I believe it is most likely that your ancestor ended up in the then Gottersdorf in Silesia, which is since 1945 a part of Poland. Weaving was a very important cottage industry in Silesia, something men and women literally did in their huts prior to industrialisation.  Your 'luddite' ancestor would have felt very much at home.  , as the Silesian weavers were also dead against mechanisation and even went onto the barricades in 1844.  

Plenty of references, search google under 'Silesian Wavers Uprisings.'

regards

Hans