Johann Jakob Binkelmann, I

Notes:

Shown as a "Mauermacher" (brickworker, masonry) on the marriage record of his son, Christian Binkelmann. Pl?derhausen parish registers show him as a son of Hans Jerg Benkelmann und Anna Barbara, geb. Wallter.

Johann married Rosina Hofer on 2 Nov 1751 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. Rosina was born on 10 Dec 1729 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany; died on 12 Mar 1780 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

BonnieMargaret Jacobs writes that Jacob followed his father and grandfather into the trade of wannanmacher. She added that almost certainly the men of Pl?derhausen were farmers in addition to their trades, because trade alone was not large enough to support a man without land to grow his own food. BonnieMargaret noted that cabbage, millet, poppy, beets, clover and flax were all raised in the area (p. 53). BonnieMargaret also stated that the death record of Jacob showed his cause of death at the young age of 36 was attributable to 'delirium-fever.'

BonnieMargaret found records of Johann Jacob Benkelmann's death inventory in Pl?derhausen records. She explained that "upon death, every item belonging to the married couple was inventoried and the guilded artisans placed a monetary value on each thing owned by the parents. The property and inheritance of the wife would be deducted from the estate and the remainder would be divided equaily between the widow and living children. Since the widow would immediately receive possession of her own clothing, only the clothing of the deceased would be itemized"

Jacob's death inventory included the following property:

"one half of a two floor house and an additional building and yard under one roof, down in the lower part of the village besides Friedrich Bose and Christoph Gries", following the house there is a list of vineyards, meadows and garden. No cash is listed, but the couple owned one prayer book, one hand Bible and one hymnal. Furniture and household items consisted of: a bed, clothes wardrobe, hat box, milk box, trunks, child's bed, old trunk, hardwood table, two chairs, one footstool, bells and tools (household), garden tools, axe, field fork, scythe, one container of seed, foodstuffs (potatoes, etc), craftsman's tools, one pistol. His clothing consisted of one blue jacket, one waist cloth, one black pair leather pants, one pair deer leather pants, one hat, one blue chest cloth, one white cloth vest or jacket, one pair shoes. The inventory also itemized every kitchen tool, and the longest category in his inventory were the household linens, five pages in total of linens alone. The total inheritable property was valued at 1312 florins and 30 kreutze, and after re-listing all the property, the inventory specified who got what. It was signed by Eva and her curator, and by the curator of the children's interest. (p. 64).

Johann married Eva H?fner on 2 Feb 1773 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. Eva was born on 27 Nov 1752 in W?rttemberg, Germany; died on 29 Dec 1829 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

BonnieMaragaret Jacobs wrote that Christianus became a weaver, probably of the flax that was locally grown (p. 53).

Christian married Katharina Barbara Erlenmaier on 7 Jul 1778 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. Katharina was born on 4 Mar 1757 in W?rttemberg, Germany; died on 21 Apr 1803 in Schorndorf, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

In her 1981 unpublished manuscript, BonnieMargaret Jacobs writes that "Johann Jacob (III) grew up in Pl?derhausen with his sister and his cousins, but his father had died a year before the son would have begun his apprenticeship, thus he could not follow in his fathers trade as wannanmacher. He apparently apprenticed with his Uncle Christianius to become a weaver. When he was 20, perhaps in his wandering years as a journeyman, he met Maria Katharina Bauer, whose family had been citizens of Breech, in B?rtlingen parish, for several generations. There is, of course, no record of how the young couple felt about each other or what their intent was. But it was not long before they were faced with a difficult choice [because of Catharina's pregnancy]. Under the restrictive marriage laws of the time, it would have been economic suicide for young Jacob to marry Katharina, he would have had to forfeit his imminent promotion to master status. Katharina was pregant with no husband, and while her unfortunate situation was not unusual, it was still difficult. Though the illegitimacy rate in W?rttemberg was high, so was the infanticide rate. Many young women tried to hide their pregnancies and dispose of their children, but she did not. She would have been called before her pastor to explain the circumstances of her pregnancy and identify the father. In this case, both Katharina and Jacob acknowledged their relationship. In many other cases, that didn't happen and the child would bear his mother's surname. If the father was identified, and acknowledged his paternity, then the child would bear the name of his true father. (p. 56).

Family/Spouse: Maria Catharina Baur. Maria was born about 1776 in Breech, B?rtlingen Parish, G?ppingen, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany; and died. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Johann married Maria Margaretha Winkle on 7 Nov 1797 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. Maria was born on 18 Nov 1775 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany; died on 3 Mar 1822 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Johann married Catharina Barbara Ulmer on 22 Oct 1822 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. Catharina was born on 11 Aug 1785 in W?rttemberg, Germany; died on 26 Mar 1865 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

BonnieMargaret Jacobs shows that she married, on 2 Jun 1801, Johann Jacob Ayrer.

Family/Spouse: Johann Jacob Ayrer. Johann was born in Jun 1771 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany; died on 15 Jul 1854 in Pl?derhausen, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The kirchlichen Familienregister Band 1 shows that he was confirmed in 1802, and sometime after this "vanished" from the parish, perhaps understandably after this parents sordid deaths.

Notes:

The kirchlichen Familienregister Band 1 shows that he was confirmed in 1804.

Notes:

The kirchlichen Familienregister Band 1 shows that he was confirmed in 1807.

Notes:

The kirchlichen Familienregister Band 1 shows that she was confirmed in 1810, and was married in Schorndorf on 23 Nov 1817. The name of her spouse was not listed.

Notes:

In a 1979 letter that Margaret-Bonnie Jacobs wrote to Ben Benkelman, Jr she said: "You may have heard from one source or another that I'm putting together rather a comprehensive history of the Benkelman family. To date, it's taken me most of my time just to track the original 10 immigrants and get them firmly placed and dated and documented. This year I am concentrating on the reach back to Germany. I have hired a genealogist there to see how far back we can go with the family before the mass emigration of the '50s. Just by collecting the data on the 10 immigrant children I have learned a great deal. All of the boys were artisans with trades. In Germany that usually meant long apprenticeships. Since Adam and his brothers and sisters were born in different villages I assume the father, Leonhard, was also a tradesman of some sort rather than a farmer."

BonnieMargaret later concluded they were all actually born at the Schneiderhof, across from Breech, on the outskirts of B?rtlingen, and Parish records discovered later showed Leonhard's occupation as bricklayer

In her 1981 unpublished manuscript, BonnieMargaret wrote that "On February 6, 1796 Johann Leonhard Benkelmann was born to Katharina Bauer, and according to the parish record, he was born at the Schneiderhof. The pastor dutifully recorded that he was unehelic (illegitimately) born and that he bore the name of his unehelic father, Johann Jacob Benkelmann of Pl?derhausen. BonnieMargaret indicated that His mother was refered to on Leonhard's and his wife Dorothea's family register page as "Maria Katharina, frueher des Johannes Haeller auf dem Schneiderhof Ehefrau geborene Bauerin." This means that she was then the wife of Johann Haeller, and was born Maria Bauer. (pp. 56-58)

When Leonhard's father, Johann Jacob, married another woman the year after Leonhard's birth, he was first required to provide 75 of the 200 florins he had inheritied from his grandfather to his "Weibsbild" for the upbringing of his son born out of wedlock. (p. 58)

Leonhard was only 2l when his stepfather died , and as a result became the head of his mother's household. He must have discharged all of his responsiblities admirably, because only five years later he was allowed to be married to Dorothea St?hle, the daughter of a respected citizen and farmer of B?rtlingen. (Jacobs, p. 70).

On the Parish records, he is referred to as a "Bauer and Maurer"...farmer and bricklayer.

After Leonhard's death early in 1848, each of his 10 children that had survived into maturity emigrated to the United States. The first to leave was his namesake son, Leonhard, in the summer of 1849, who was age 21. The last was eldest son, Friedrich, and he left in 1873 at age 50, taking a large group of family members with him.

The Benkelmanns were not alone. A huge number of Germany left their homeland in and around 1848. This excerpt, from a website about the "The Origins of the Forty-Eighters" in Davenport, Iowa applies to the Benkelmann family as well, even though Leonhard and Dorothea's children instead settled in first in New York, and later Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado, versus Iowa.

Letters ... sent back to Germany were instrumental to channeling the influx of immigrants from Germany.....

Historian Scott Christiansen explains the purpose of the letters:

"They wanted to tell their friends back home how good it was in America. And they tended to exaggerate a little bit, because they were lonely and liked to have some of their compatriots come over and join them."

The decision to emigrate from one's homeland is generally informed by two forces: the so-called push and pull forces. Letters from family and friends who had already settled in the new world certainly qualify as pull factors. Other such factors were the multitude of job opportunities, inexpensive, yet fertile cropland, and - especially important to the politically motivated Forty-Eighters - the guarantee of democratic liberties such as freedom of speech and expression.

Many of the push factors are related to the causes of the German revolution. As the social and economic conditions in Germany worsened during the 1840s, many people were forced to look for new opportunities. [E]migration has become a matter of life or death, as one German newspaper put it. America with its promise of a new chance for everyone appealed to many Germans ready to emigrate. Reports from America, printed in German newspapers, underscored this notion. Iowa, for example, was described in 1847 as leaving little to be desired both to the productivity of its soil and the more bearable nature of its climate.

While economic necessity might have been a major driving force for many to emigrate, political reasons also factored into the decision to leave the homeland. In fact, the Forty-Eighters are per definition political refugees who for the most part did not struggle financially. But one might argue that a majority of emigrants regarded both political circumstances and economic distress as making life in Germany unbearable. The causes for emigration thus intermingle in many cases.

The strong early presence ...triggered a chain migration...in succeeding years. The term chain migration is defined by the Dictionary of Geography as [a] migration process which depends on a small number of pioneers, who make the first moves to set up a new home in a new place. They send information back home, and this encourages further migration from the originating area.

BonnieMargaret Jacob's cited similar reasons in her manuscript, pointing out the decrease of demail for high-quality goods of the small town artisan, the reluctance of these artisians to move to cities to work in factories, the restrictive craftsman guild system that made it difficult to learn and advance in a trade, and the equally restrictive marriage laws.

"The auswanderer went less to America to build something new than to regain and conserve something old...to till new fields and find new customers, true enough, but ultimately to keep the ways of life they were used to, which the new Europe seemed determined to destroy...people who traveled thousands of grim miles in order to keep their roots, their habits, their united families and the kind of future they wanted for their families. They did not wait passively for their roots to be broken, to be sure; yet they were conservatives, who acted radically in order to preserve, and who journeyed to another world to keep their homes." (Walker, Mack, GERMANY AND THE EMIGRATION 1816-1885, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1964, Page 69, as transcribed by BonnieMargaret Jacobs on pages 77 and 78 of her manuscript).

Johann married Maria Dorothea St?hle on 20 Nov 1822 in Schneiderhof, Waldhausen Parish, Welzheim, Jagstkreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. Maria (daughter of Georg Friedrich St?hle and Anna Maria Leins) was born on 5 Jan 1800 in B?rtlingen, G?ppingen, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany; died on 22 Oct 1853 in Transit to America, Lost At Sea. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

BonnieMargaret Jacobs wrote that he remained in Pl?derhausen where he married and raised a family. (p. 58). The kirchlichen Familieregister Band I (p. 58 and 94) shows that he was confirmed in 1814, and was a weaver, marrying first Eva Marai BAUER (10 Jan 1830) and second Catharina ERLENMEYER (November 1848).

She said he had only one son, Johann Jakob born in 1830. In 1856 this son married a Catholic woman.

Notes:

BonnieMargaret Jacobs wrote that he "migrated in 1836 to Schlath." (p. 58). The kirchlichen Familienregister Band I shows he was confirmed in 1819, and also indicates that in "1836 nach Schlath."

Repository: Name: Family History Library Salt Lake City, UT 84150

Title: Schlat Kirchenbuch, 1558-1915. Author: Evangelische Kirche Schlat (OA. G?ppingen). Publication: Stuttgart : Ev. Landeskirchenamt, 1972. Abbrev: Schlat Kirchenbuch, 1558-1915. Note: CONTENTS:

Parish register baptisms, marriages, deaths and confirmations. Text in German and Latin.

Contents:

Taufen 1558-1664 1056904 Heiraten 1581-1664 Taufen 1611-1651 (unehel.) Tote 1559-1664 Chronik Taufen 1746-1763 (unehel.) Taufen 1665-1788 Heiraten 1665-1807 Tote 1665-1786 Taufen 1789-1851 Einwohner (mannliche)

Taufen 1852-1921 1056905 Taufen 1832-1872 (unehel.) Heiraten 1808-1878 Tote 1787-1915

Familienbucher 1808-1896 1056906 items 1-4 Page: Page 19; Schlat Family Book (microfilm #1056904, 1056905, 1056906

Johann married Anna M?rdter on 18 Jan 1836 in Schlat, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. Anna (daughter of Johannes M?rdter and Maria Sophia Rapp) was born on 30 Oct 1799 in Schlat, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany; died on 16 Dec 1866 in Schlat, Donaukreis, W?rttemberg, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The kirchlichen Familienregister Band I shows he was confirmed in 1822, and that he was a "Weber und Tagl?hner (Weaver and Day Laborer) in Pl?derhausen, and that on 31 Aug 1836 he married Katharina Barbara EHMANN. (p. 57, 94) BonnieMargaret shows that they had two sons, born in 1840 and 1842, the elder migrated to Gaisburg in 1870 and the younger migrated to Holzheim in G?ppingen parish in 1867. (p. 58).