In 1700 – my 6th great grandparents Jakob Johann Wenceslaus Leyies-Trauden and Anna Ottilia Schwartz were married in the Reformed Church of Contwig, Southwestern Germany, near the border with Lorraine. These were ancestors of my grandmother Leies. In this time period, the Leies surname was Trauden Leyies/Layies Trauden and recorded in church records as Lais, Leis, Loys, Trauden, Trauten, Traudi, Trauti, Traut, Leys, etc. Genealogists have speculated that Trauden was a mother’s surname at one point. But nobody really knows. Jakob was the son of Wenceslaus (Wentz) Trauden Leyies and a woman whose name is unknown.
After the Thirty Years War, Wenceslaus Trauden Leyies and his family were among the first 5 immigrant families to settle in the district of Oberhausen. Wenceslaus came in 1686 and purchased 1 and 1/2 lots of land in 1706. Each lot consisted of 14 acres of meadows, 3 acres of gardens, and 30 acres of manure fields. The primary source of livelihood for the inhabitants of Oberhausen was agriculture. (The information on their land was received from the Leyes family with whom we share ancestry. Their ancestor Michael moved to another village and the surname was spelled Leyes. Our ancestors moved to Nuenschweiler and it began to be spelled Leies.)
The only clue about their origin is the fact that Wenceslaus’s son Anton went by the nickname Donges and Donges is used in the High German language – one can look to see where that language was spoken at that time period. Lorraine spoke a German dialect, by the way.
Anna Ottilia Schwartz was born in the area of Oberhausen and her father Hans Adam was the local Gerichtsschoffe which is like a sheriff. We only know that her mother’s name was Magdalena. They too were members of the Reformed Church.
In 1717 – My 7th great grandparents Anna Apollonia Ziehl and Jean Michel Conrad were married in the Catholic Church of Hornbach, Germany, also near the border with Lorraine. Anna Apollonia was the daughter of farmers Johann Christian Ziehl, a farm manager, and a lady named Anna Maria Barbara from Dietrichingen.
Jean Michel was Hans Michael Conrad in the records at this time, but next to his name was the word Schweyen. I discovered that it was a village in Moselle, France. He was the first ancestor I found in my tree from France. He was baptized Jean Michel Conrad on December 3, 1697 in Loutzviller, just over the border with Germany. He was the son of Jean Gregor Conrad and Elisabetha Stauder. Jean Michel’s grandfather was named Jean Stauder dit le Suisse. “Dit le Suisse” means “known as” Jean the Swiss. Jean Stauder was born in Volmunster, France though. It was actually Jean dit le Suisse’s father who was born in Switzerland. What was he doing in France? I do not know. Jean Michel’s baptism is one of the photos attached. He too was a farmer. They were all ancestors of my grandmother too.
Finally, in 1881, also among these family members of my grandmother Leies, from this same area of Germany, there was a story printed in the Chicago Tribune newspaper involving her father’s immigrant uncle Ferdinand Bold, who had luckily survived the Grand Street Tenement Disaster in New York City. His mother-in-law and brother-in-law did not survive, while his wife was severely injured. His infant son was unscathed.
Are we related? Do you have a question about my sources or have an addition? Please email me – cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.
Today I share the baptismal record of my 6th great grandfather Frederic Scheidt, who was born in Louztviller, Moselle, France in 1691. He was baptized on March 12, 1691 at the Eglise de la Tres Sainte Trinite. He was the son of Jean Nicolas and Catherine Budel (Bittel).
Are we related? Do we share Scheidt or Budel ancestry? I would love to hear from you! Do you have a comment or an addition? Please feel free to email me – cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.
This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks theme is Rich Man.
My 5th and 6th great grandfathers of Farindola, Nicola Carusi, and Paolo Carusi, were wealthy men. I have profiled them in the past.
This week I memorialize what I know about my 7th great grandfather Jean Nicholas Scheidt of Loutzviller, Moselle, France, who lived from 1655 to 1724 and wasn’t rich by today’s standards of living in a mansion with servants. He was the town’s tailor and owned decent properties, one which included a business. He also owned a fair amount of livestock, and had a large family.
Who is he to me? He is the direct ancestor of my immigrant second great grandmother Elisabetha Scheid Bold, who was born in Rodalben, Germany in 1822.
Jean Nicholas Scheidt was born in 1655 in Loutzviller to parents Hans Nicquel Scheidt and an unknown wife. It is believed his father was a miller. In 1679 he married Catherine Budel/Bittel of Loutzviller, daughter of miller Nicolas Budel/Bittel and Catherine Zeigler.
They had the following children:
Jean Michel
Jean Georges
Pierre
Laurent
Frederic – my ancestor
Jean Nicholas
Phillippe
Marie Elisabetha
Agnes
and an unknown daughter
There are various summaries of transcribed and translated notarial deeds floating around on the internet from Archives 57 in France explaining transfers of properties involving Jean Nicholas. Some of the terms describing land measure may not translate into today’s English terms. A few are listed below.
After Catherine Budel/Bittel’s father passed away in 1699, Jean Nicholas bought all of the estates of his father-in-law in Loutzviller, Eschviller, Ormesviller and Schweyen, which include the mills – Moulin D’Eschviller.
A deed of 1704 specifies that he is a seller of half of the Moulin D’Eschviller on the Schwalb River. Jean Nicholas sells this half to Jean Philippe Kneip for 300 Reichsthalers.
On August 6, 1704, Jean Nicholas intervened with Etienne Martini, mayor, Guillaume Kinder, Jean Nicolas Maus, and Dominique Muller de Loutzviller to sell to Philippe Buchheit a communal land to build at the price of one ecus? The same day, he intervened under the same conditions to sell to Guillaume Kinder a communal place at the price of 5 Florins.
On June 14, 1707, Jean Nicholas, a tailor at Loutzviller, sold to the parish of Loutzviller, represented by Adam Scheffer, mayor of Schweyen, Mathias Drexler and Guillaume Kinder of Loutzviller, Nicolas Zimmermann and Jean Koch of Breidenbach, 10 feet? of Lorraine to serve as school at the price of 64 Reichsthalers.
Because his signature appears at the bottom of each document, his descendants can assume he was literate.
In 1708, during the census of the taxable homes of Loutzviller it is shown that –
– Jean Nicholas Scheidt is called laborer with 1 boy over 16 years, 1 boy under 16 years and 3 girls;
¤ In land he owns: 77 journals of cultivated land, 4 days of meadows and 4.5 days of wasteland
¤ In livestock he owns: 3 cows, 30 sheep, 15 pigs and 2 oxen
¤ In materials: 1 plow and 5 horses (to pull)
¤ House staff: 1 servant
The property on which the Moulin D’Eschviller of 1699 existed is now part of another mill containing a newer structure built in 1731. Today it is also called Moulin D’Eschviller, and is an environmental museum. Both mills were grain mills.
Nuenschweiler’s Church of the Ascension via Wikimedia Commons
Nuenschweiler – On today’s date in 1842, my third great grandparents Franz Jacob Bold andElisabetha Scheidwere married in the Catholic parish in Nuenschweiler, Rheinpfalz, Germany by Father Joannis Feibel. They were the parents of Emilia Bold Leies.
Elisabetha and Franz Jacob were from neighboring Rodalben. She was born there while he was born in neighboring Knopp-Labach.
Their Catholic marriage record declared that Franz Jacob was the son of Adam Bold and Margaretha Becker, married residents of Rodalben. It looks like the parochial vicar of Rodalben, Father Petro Bold, is mentioned in the Latin marriage record. He was the older brother of Franz Jacob. He also baptized Elisabetha Scheid, according to the baptismal record I found on film which is now available online at Family Search.
The marriage record also declared that Elisabetha was the daughter of Johann Jacob Scheid and the deceased Catharina Buchler, also of Rodalben.
Franz Jacob Bold, the head schoolmaster of the Catholic school in Nuenschweiler, was the son of farmers. His Bold grandparents were named Johann Adam Bold and Magdalena Helf. Elisabetha’s ancestry has been detailed here and here.
Franz Jacob Bold, for all intents and purposes, appears to have died in Germany around 1880, which lead to his wife’s immigration to America. She died in New York City in 1905.
Pictures of Nuenschweiler and Knopp-Labach can be found online here.
My great great grandfather Johann Leies was born in Nuenschweiler in the German Palatinate in 1843 to farmers Johann Adam Leies and Elisabetha Margaretha Pfeiffer. He came to America in 1867 and became a naturalized citizen of the United States that same year in Wayne County, Ohio. Before moving to Chicago and running a saloon, he worked as a farmer, a carpenter, in beer and wine dealing, and married a childhood friend from Nuenschweiler in Wooster, Ohio – Immigrant #24 ~~ Great Great Grandmother Emilia Anna Bold Leies~~and had their children, Alexander, my great grandfather, and John Ferdinand.
Uncle John wrote a lot about this immigrant grandfather of his and even visited the Catholic church in Nuenschweiler to obtain a transcribed copy of his grandfather’s baptism. The village is about 6 miles from the current day border of Moselle, Lorraine, France. Johann was born at Huber Hof near Nuenschweiler. Huber Hof was the name of his great grandfather Michael Conrad’s farm. Hof originally meant temple or hall in Old Norse. It later was used for courtyard and eventually for a collection of buildings on a farm. Source: Wikipedia.
When Johann was born, the farm had already been inherited by his grandmother Gertruda Conrad. Information on his estate came from a great source: Intelligenzblatt des Rheinkreises, Volume 7, or Google Books! Johann was the oldest of at least four children. The baptismal records of Nuenschweiler are missing a few decades which means there may have been more siblings.
Like me, Uncle John did not know the date or location of Johann’s arrival here, although he left a great trail for the researchers that would come after him. He thinks he may have entered the country in New Orleans.
I wondered why did Johann go to Wooster, Ohio when I read Uncle John’s research. This past summer when I found a relation of ours (Union Soldier Peter Leies, 1841-1862, born in Nunschweiler, Germany and killed at Antietam), I began looking for more Leies family members in the Civil War. That led me to two other first cousins of great great grandfather Johann that were drafted during the Civil War in Ohio – Henry and Anthony Leies. They were brothers. From what I can tell, they were only drafted and didn’t serve. Their parents were Heinrich Leies and Barbara Buchheit from Nuenschweiler and all of them had been living in Wooster, Ohio. Heinrich was the oldest brother of Johann’s father making them aunt and uncle to Johann.
Not only is it apparent at this point in my research that the Heinrich Leies family paved the way for the other Leieses to come to America, but they got here even earlier than our first direct American ancestor Johann Schuttler in 1849. Heinrich Leies, wife Barbara, and their sons arrived in New York City in 1848.
September 1848 Passenger Manifest of the Nicolas, which sailed from Le Havre, France
I do siblings when I count the immigrants in my tree. Do Heinrich and family count since he was the sibling of Johann’s father? Definitely.
Back to Johann. Do you think he lived with Uncle Heinrich or a cousin when he got to Wooster? It is very likely. Johann would only have been about 5 years old when his Uncle Heinrich and Aunt Barbara left Nuenschweiler. Both his Uncle Heinrich and Aunt Barbara were two of his baptismal sponsors, as you can see on the parish record below.
Johannes Leies Baptism, dated April 25, 1843, Catholic Parish in Nuenschweiler
Uncle John had a copy of a letter his grandfather wrote to his cousin Johann Leies (a different Johann!) in Massweiler, Germany in 1910 that he translated from German and distributed to his family before his death. One detail from his life in Germany is written in the letter. He stated that “When I was 18 years old I worked in Pirmasens near the church not far from Loewenbrunnen for a Jew called Wolf. He had a bone mill at Nuenschweiler; his son’s name was Alphonse. He went to America.”
Important facts about Johann’s years in America were listed in the letter to back home in 1910 in this order:
“I have been in America for 43 years. I worked as a farmer and carpenter for two years;
Then I worked 7 years in the wine and beer industry in Wooster, Ohio;
Then we moved to Chicago. Here in Chicago I have dealt in beer and wine for 8 years;
Then for four years in other types of work;
Then for 22 years in the piano business with my son.”
At the time of the 1880 Census in Wooster, Ohio, Johann’s cousin Henry Leies was running a saloon. I can’t help but think that Johann may have been working there at some point before he moved to Chicago in the “wine and beer industry.”
The paper trail on Johann picks up in Chicago in 1880 where he is running a saloon according to the census. I would love to know the name of his saloon – his beer and wine business. I couldn’t find anything on newspapers.com regarding his saloon. By the mid 1890s, the hard-working and diligent Johann owned his own piano dealing shop – John Leies Pianos. Later he brought his son Alexander into the piano dealing business and they became known as John Leies & Son Pianos.
Chicago City Directory, 1896
Johann remarried in 1896, two years after the death of Emilia Bold. His second wife, Carolina Sickel, was born in New Orleans. The 1910 Federal Census stated that her father was born in France, and that her mother was born in Germany. She had been put into a home before Johann died in Chicago in 1922. You can see his Find-a-Grave Memorial here.
Written in Latin above, in the margin next to Johann’s baptism, is his date of death in America. Uncle John knew his grandfather often sent money home to the parish in Nuenschweiler. The priest back home either received word of his death from a relative in Nuenschweiler, a relative in Chicago who wrote home, or from Uncle John himself when he visited. In turn, the church books of Nuenschweiler were photographed by the Latter Day Saints. I would like to think it was from Uncle John.
Uncle John wrote a fantastic report on this grandfather of his. Email me if you wish to have a copy.
The Ancestry of Johann Leies (so far)
The great grandmother of Johann was Margaretha Rubly. It is in this part of Leies line that we descend from The Anabaptist Rubeli of Aeschlen bei Oberdiessbach, Switzerland, religious refugees to the German Palatinate in 1672. I really enjoyed researching that part of the Leies family.
One of Johann’s ancestors was named Hans Adam Schwartz, born around 1650. According to the Contwig Reformed Church Records I found, he was a Gerichtsschoffe or Court Alderman in the Zwiebrucken area of the Palatinate. He was our 7th great grandfather. His daughter Anna Ottilia married our 6th great grandfather Jakob Johann Wenceslaus Layies-Trauden. Leies was spelled as Layies at that point in the church records.
Johann also had ancestors born in France like his wife Emilia. The earliest known of them was Jean Michel Conrad, born December 3, 1697 in Shweyen, Moselle. I would like to point out that in 1697, parts of the Palatinate were under French rule. His baptism from the Archives of Moselle is below. Thank you cousin G. Pfeiffer in France for sharing and emailing many Conrad records to me.
Like some of the ancestry of Emilia Bold, going back to the 1400s in this part of Europe, there are two parts of Johann’s ancestry that “claim” to be able to trace back to the 1400s, and even to the 1300s in a town in the present-day Saarland. In the 1300s the region of present-day Saarland was part of the Holy Roman Empire. Emilia’s Helfrich line isn’t a myth right now like Johann’s pre-1600s ancestors are for American researchers. Maybe those trees on Geneanet are correct, but I can’t prove it!
Johann’s 1910 letter stated he had a photo album of his family back in Germany. If that album still exists, it must be a treasure.
Sources:
Wayne County, Ohio Historical Society
Nuenschweiler, Germany Catholic Church Records
Hornbach Catholic and Protestant Church Records
Intelligenzblatt des Rheinkreises, Volume 7
Cousin G. Pfeiffer, France
Baptemes Loutzviller 1691-1723, Archives 57
Contwig, Germany Church Records
Weisbach and Massweiler, Germany Catholic and Reformed Church Records
Zur Familie Trauden/Layes von Oberhausen, by Johannes Becherer via L. Broschart in Koblenz, Germany
United States Federal Censuses
Ohio Birth and Marriage Indexes
Uncle John
Chicago Marriage and Death Indexes
Find-a-Grave
Newspapers.com
New York Passenger Lists/Manifests/National Archives
Wikipedia
Google Books
Chicago City Directories
Numerous French and German personal genealogy databases
Who is he to me? He is the direct ancestor of my immigrant second great grandmother Elisabetha Scheid Bold, who was born in Rodalben, Germany in 1822.
Cinziarosa's Descendants (c) 