Email Correspondence between Bernd-Wilhelm Linnemeier and Norman Streat

August 2002

 

 

This web page shows my correspondence with Bernd-Wilhelm Linnemeier about his discoveries in the Bückeburg State Archive regarding my ancestors in the 17th and 18th centuries.  What he wrote was highly significant.  Previously, I had been able to trace my ancestry in Stolzenau back to my 3rd great-grandparents.  This new information allowed me to trace back an additional 3 generations, and possibly even further.

To go directly to the most important document – follow this link

 

Contents:

 

1.    BWL to NS – 15 Aug 2002 – Bueckeburg News

2.    NS to BWL – 16 Aug 2002 – Bueckeburg News

3.    BWL to NS – 19 Aug 2002 – Bueckeburg List (The Senger Family of Bückeburg)  

4.    NS to BWL – 19 Aug 2002 – Bueckeburg List

5.    BWL to NS – 20 Aug 2002 – Bueckeburg List – Second Part of Reply

 

 

 

The following has been translated into English.  To read this email in the original German, go to this link

 

 

From: HJH1321@aol.com

Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 14:55:09 EDT

Subject: Re: Bueckeburg News

To: nstreat@dccnet.com

X-Mailer: AOL 6.0 for Windows DE sub 10512

 

Dear Norman,

 

 

First of all, I have to apologize because I am so late replying to your August 4 email.   At the weekend I will deal more intensively with the difficult connections between the old families from Stolzenau and take your considerations into account.

 

About a week ago I tried to research the older generations of Stolzenau Jews in the state archive in Hanover, but was unsuccessful.  I felt very frustrated.  But today I have good news, from the state archive in Bückeburg[1], where I did some research yesterday. 

 

Miriam bat Yitzchak, who was married to Samuel Levi in ​​Stolzenau and died in 1801, came from one of the oldest and most respected Jewish families in the medieval county of Schaumburg.  In the 17th century the county became Schaumburg-Lippe[2].

 

Her father was Isaak Simon (born ~1704; died after 1786) in Bückeburg.  I have not yet been able to find the name of her mother, who was born in 1721 and died before 1786. In 1771 Miriam was living with her parents and her younger siblings; she had a brother Moses (born 1751), sister Egelgen (born ~1755) and brothers Simon (born 1756) and Michel (born 1758) in Bückeburg.  In 1777 Miriam was apparently already in Stolzenau (which should agree with the date of birth of her eldest son there).

 

Her younger brother Simon (b. 1756) definitely stayed in Bückeburg.  He received a Schutzbrief in 1787, which ensured his permanent residence.  Her older brother Moses apparently left his parents' house before 1786.  I still haven't found out where he went.

 

Miriam's paternal grandparents were:  Simon Eleasar, also known as Simon Senger [Senger = singer/cantor], born ~1665 maybe in Bückeburg, but certainly in Schaumburg-Lippe, where - as he himself said in 1732 - his Ältervater lived.  In the 18th century, Ältervater (literally, “elder father”) meant either grandfather or great-grandfather.

 

Simon was married to Güdelgen David.  He received a Schutzbrief for his stay in Bückeburg in 1712.  Simon was also the only Jew in the entire county of Schaumburg-Lippe who, by special order of the reigning count, was excluded from the expulsion of the Jews (ordered by the same count) in 1718/19.

 

Simon had a brother named Michel, who settled in Stadthagen (another town in Schaumburg) after a few Jewish families were allowed to return to the county in 1729.
 
Miriam's father Isaak Simon was Simon Eleasar's eldest son.  He had been living in the town of Hagenburg in the north of Schaumburg-Lippe since 1728.  In 1739 he may have already moved to Bückeburg. In 1732, the father succeeded in establishing his second son Abraham as his successor in Bückeburg, and he also successfully campaigned for his youngest son Jacob (born ~1711) in 1739.  Records show that Jacob was living with his family in Bückeburg around 1771.  I have not yet been able to determine the name of a third son who also settled in the county.
 
As for Eleasar, Miriam's great-grandfather, I have not yet found enough time to search thoroughly for traces of him.  In this case, the period between 1650 and 1670 is of great importance, which I have so far not examined too closely for Schaumburg-Lippe.
 
In 1646, Seligmann Senger and Isaak Senger were mentioned as Jewish residents of Bückeburg, and in 1601 a certain Senger with wife and children lived in nearby Obernkirchen (which was then the largest municipality in the county).
 
So you see, where there are sufficient sources, you can learn a great deal.  But unfortunately, for Stolzenau, this is almost impossible because of the losses suffered by the Hanover State Archives during the war.
 
There is also an old Jewish cemetery in Bückeburg.  Perhaps there is more information hidden there, but no one has yet documented the inscriptions.
 
I will soon compile my findings in the usual form (with the usual references as footnotes). This first short compilation may be sufficient for today.
 
As for information about Beyle from Lindhorst (wife of Marcus Levi), I haven't got very far in Bückeburg due to lack of time. However, I know that there have only been Jews in Lindhorst since 1748 and that at that time two Jewish families had established themselves there: namely Levmann Moses from (?) Fritzlar and Isaak Joseph, whose family had previously lived in Stadthagen, but he had been driven out from there in the expulsion of 1718/19.  For a long time only these two families seem to have lived in Lindhorst, and Beyle emerged from one of them. It shouldn't be difficult to determine Beyle's family background.
 
Kind regards for today

 

Bernd-Wilhelm

 

Fri Aug 16 15:31:48 2002

 

 

Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 22:41:36 -0700

To: HJH1321@aol.com

From: Norman Streat <nstreat@dccnet.com>

Subject: Re: Bueckeburg News

In-Reply-To: <12f.15f88613.2a8d530d@aol.com>

 

Dear Bernd-Wilhelm:

Thank you so much for your latest message with all the information about my early ancestors from Bueckeburg.  As you might guess, I was thrilled with what you have uncovered.

I will be pleased to receive a copy of this family tree in your usual format, with footnotes.  My biggest question, is what surname(s) did the descendants of this family adopt in later generations?  Or maybe you already told me - was it SENGER?

I was interested to note a small connection with Stadthagen - and I see on the map that Bueckeburg is actually quite close to Stadthagen.  I am aware that there was a famous Goldschmidt family in Stadthagen.  Maybe this means nothing, or..., who knows?    

Best wishes

Norman

 

 

Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 11:18:51 -0700

To: HJH1321@aol.com

From: Norman Streat <nstreat@dccnet.com>

Subject: Re: Bueckeburg List – attachment in German – attachment in English

In-Reply-To: <12f.15f88613.2a8d530d@aol.com>

 

Dear Bernd-Wilhelm:

This is to acknowledge that your latest message, which included the descendants list of the SENGER family of Bueckeburg, arrived in good order.  Once again, thank you so much for sending this to me.

I can forward the information to Ernie Stiefel.  I'm sure he will be thrilled about it too.  I expect he will be able to use your WORD 97 document, but if he runs into any difficulties, I will help him sort it out.  I will ask him to write to you.  I understand that he and his wife were recently in Toronto at a Jewish Genealogy Conference - but I believe they are home again now.

Thank you for your comments about the likelihood of a connection with the Goldschmidt-Stadthagen family.  I understand that you see no evidence of such a connection.  I am still clinging to the hypothesis that Levy Samuel (Stolzenau) didn't choose the name "Goldschmidt" at random, but he may have believed he was a Goldschmidt descendant - either through his father or his mother.  I'm still hopeful that some evidence will eventually turn up.  In this regard, it would be interesting to discover the name of Isaak SENGER's wife (b. 1721) - who would have been Levi Samuel's grandmother.

One other thing I should also comment on - in an earlier message I put forward the idea that Samuel Levi (Stolzenau) might be a son of Levi Simon (Stolzenau), rather than Levi Marcus (Stolzenau).  This guess was based, in part, on the frequent recurrence of the name "Simon" in later generations.  In fact, the tradition of naming sons Simon, both as Hebrew and English names, continues among Goldschmidt-Stolzenau descendants down to the present day.

But now I see that Simon SENGER was a great grandfather of Levi Samuel Goldschmidt.  He could well have been the original "Simon" whose name has been repeated in later generations.  So I withdraw my earlier suggestion - there is no need to assume a direct connection to Levi Simon.

Another comment - you told me in an earlier message that Samuel Levi, by his own declaration, was born in Stolzenau in 1742.  You may wish to add this to the information on your second page.

I have two questions about names.  Both are on page 2.  You say that the third child of Isaak Simon was called Eggelgen.  This is an unusual name.  Could it be Engelgen (or Engelchen)?  Also on this page, you mention Guedelgen Davids.  Why "Davids", rather than "David"?  It does not appear that you have added the "s" for grammatical reasons.  

Of course, it's nice to find a connection with someone famous - like Heinrich Heine. 

The information you have provided has made it necessary for me to read about the history of Schaumburg-Lippe.  I have been doing so over the past weekend.  Up to now, I hadn't paid attention to this State (can we call it a State?)  I see that its history is quite distinct, yet intertwined, with that of the Kingdom of Hannover and the Kingdom of Westphalia.  I'm enjoying learning about these things.

Once again, many thanks.  And best wishes.

Norman 

 

 

This email was written by Bernd-Wilhelm Linnemeier in English.  His English is excellent.  The reason he sometimes writes to me in German is purely a matter of convenience.  He knows that I can read German without much difficulty, therefore on occasion, it may be quicker and easier for him to write in German.

 

From: HJH1321@aol.com

Message-ID: <a7.25553f44.2a93ed06@aol.com>

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 15:05:42 EDT

Subject: Re: Bueckeburg List-Second Part of Reply

To: nstreat@dccnet.com

 

Dear Norman,

 

Yesterday I answered your mail a little too quickly and not in detail.  I hadn't finished reading it completely, which I just noticed when I printed out the text - please excuse my inattentiveness.

 

Of course I want to follow the Goldschmidt traces forever, because Moses Samuel Goldschmidt aka. Moshe Kramer had sons-in-law in Stadthagen.  I want to try to get the texts of the older tombstones at the Bückeburg Jewish cemetery (there is a documentation by the Central Archive for the History of Jews in Germany in Heidelberg, whose director, Dr. Honigmann, I know slightly).  Perhaps there is an inscription that fits Isaak Senger's wife.

 

Of course, I added the date of birth of Samuel Levi (1742) to my "Goldschmidt list", which I have not yet been able to complete. I forgot to add the date to the Senger list.

 

Regarding the names on page 2: I wrote them down as they appear in the file, i.e. it is possible there may also have been misunderstandings by the former writers - and in the case of Eggelgen that appears to be so; because there is a second list from 1771 (StABÜ, L 2, P, No. 13) and it says "Engelchen" quite correctly!  When I compiled the overviews yesterday, I only had the lists from the city administration of Bückeburg in front of me and did not compare them with the overviews of the count's administration (in which "Engelchen" is written).  So you can replace "Eggelgen" with a clear conscience by "Engelchen".

 

For Güdelgen Davids, the "s" at the end of the second name is just a harmless genitive that emphasizes the patronymic form - and so it is in the letter of protection from 1712.  I have often encountered such genitive patronyms previously (Simons, Abrahams, Isaaks, Behrens etc.) among Jewish names in northwestern Lower Saxony (Oldenburg) and Denmark, which does not necessarily mean that Güdelgen comes from there.  In your case, too, we may be lucky with a tombstone, but I do not know the old Jewish cemetery in Bückeburg and hope that the Heidelberg colleague will help me with this as well.
 
Beyond the - so far indirect - connection to the Heine family, there are more indications.  If I remember correctly, the well-known court factor Leffmann Behrens Cohen in Hanover claims in a letter to the Counts von Schaumburg-Lippe that Isaak Heine in Bückeburg was his "Vetter" (maybe here that does actually mean "cousin")[3].  These older connections among the leading families in Schaumburg-Lippe and Hanover are still almost completely in the dark.  As for the origins of the Heine family, I already have some materials that were previously completely unknown, but these are not yet ready for publication.  There is still a lot to discover...
 
Kind regards for today

 

Bernd-Wilhelm  Tue Aug 20 18:59:49 2002


[1] Translator’s note:  The main branch of the state archive of Lower Saxony is in the city of Hanover.  The state archive has other branches, one of which is in the town of Bückeburg. 

[2] Translator’s note:  Schaumburg was a medieval county founded in the 12th century.  It is called a county because it was ruled by a count.  It was amalgamated with Lippe, to become the county of Schaumburg-Lippe in 1647. In 1807 Schaumburg-Lippe became a principality; and from 1871 it was a state within the German Empire.  

[3] Translator’s note:  The German word “Vetter” means cousin.  I believe what Linnemeier is saying is that maybe Leffmann Behrens Cohen and Isaak Heine really are first cousins.