John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 2419

[Baptisms for Neuenbuerg - 1712, continued.]

On 17 April 1712 there was born and baptized on the same day the baby Hanss Wendel Thoma.  The parents were Johann Thoma and Anna Maria, whom we know was born Blankenbuehler.  The sponsors at this baptism were Hanss Wendel Neideck, of Oberoewisheim, and Maria Eleonora, the wife of Hanss Jerg Schaiblin.  [The Schaiblins were Germanna immigrants in 1717.]

The mother Anna Maria had three older brothers, all of whom had been sponsors for other individuals.  The fact that none of them were sponsors here leads one to believe that near relatives were not acceptable as sponsors in general.  We have seldom seen in the baptisms reported here a sponsor whose surname was the same as the father.  The closest that we came was for a Schoene where pastor Schoene from another village was a sponsor.

I still have the feeling that relatives were sometimes used, perhaps not close relatives but still someone who was in the extended family.  In the baptism above, the mother-in-law of Maria Eleanora (nee Ockert) was Catherina Neudeck (or Neideck) who was Nicolaus Schaiblin’s second wife.  So the two sponsors were probably related, and I suspect they were related to the mother also.

There is an Ortssippenbuch for Oberoewisheim-Neuenbuerg.  I have discussed this before, both in the Notes here and in “ Beyond Germanna ”.  This book attempts to give the genealogies that can be discerned for a village, in this case for the two villages.  It is from this book that I learn that Nicolaus Schaiblin’s second wife was Catharina Neudeck.  (There is a copy of this book at the Library of Congress.)  Incidentally, when I compare the reports in this Ortssippenbuch with the baptisms here, I find that the author of the book there was very inclined to change the names slightly.  Whereas the baptisms record zillions of the name Hanss, the author generally gives them as Hans, or as Johann (some of the different pastors had their personal preferences also).  Some of the spellings of the surnames are different also.  In part this may be due to the desire or need to standardize the spellings.  For example, we have seen the names Fischer and Vischer and the latter would be pronounced as Fischer is.  I believe that the author of the Ortssippenbuch reports one name as Blanckenbuehler, but we have seen many variations on this name.  Some of these differences are important because otherwise we might not recognize they are the same name.  For example, we are told that Thoman is an alternative spelling for Thoma.
(19 Nov 06)