The names Guckenbiehl, Guggenbühl etc. in the Palatinate

The names Guckenbiehl, Guggenbühl etc. in the Palatinate

Kaiserslautern, Otterberg and surroundings in the maps of the palatinian areas of Bavaria (1836-1841)

Kaiserslautern, Otterberg and surroundings in the maps of the palatinian areas of Bavaria (1836-1841) (Source: BORIS - Bodenrichtwertinformationssystem Rheinland Pfalz)

Most people named Guckenbiehl, Guckenbiel, Gukenbiehl or Gukenbiel living in today's Germany descend from Sebastian Guckenbiehl and his wife Maria Anna, née Bossong . They lived on Althütterhof southwest of Otterberg and are mentioned in a list of the inhabitants of Otterberg and surrounding settlements from 1803.[1] According to a document found by Dieter Gukenbiehl in the Rhineland-Palatinate State Archive, Speyer, Sebastian's son Anton still owned land on Althütterhof in December 1835.[2] Even in 2011 descendants of Sebastian owned land on Althütterhof. At the end of this page you may find links to maps of that region from the 19th century. From here family members spread to all of Germany and around 1850 even to the United States and England.

Maria Anna Bossong died on May 1st, 1817. It is not quite clear when she was born. The death record gives an age of 69, so she should have been born around 1748. The list of inhabitants of 1803 gives the age of 48, which wouldmean that she was born around 1755. In the internet one may also find a record, that she was born in Neumehlingen as daughter of Johannes and Maria Elisabetha Bossung and baptized in January 1752.[3] Again according to death records Sebastian died on April 12th, 1818 at age 73, so he should have been born about 1745. However the list of inhabitants of Otterberg in 1803 cited by [Kaller 1981] gives an age 60 for "Bastian".

The family background of Sebastian Guckenbiehl is not yet clear. His death record names his father as "Hector Guckenbiehl". However, I believe that this is not quite right but refers to his step father. Here is my reconstruction of Sebastian's story:

Otterberg is about 10 km north of Kaiserslautern Eugen Reis, who collected all the names occuring in church or city records in Kaiserslautern during the 18th century, gives only three entries for the name "Guckenbühler" or variations like "Gockenbiller", "Gobbenbiger", "Kochenbinder" and "Kockenbier".[4] Two of them are single man: some Wolfgang Guckenbühler acting as godfather in Trippstadt in 1743, and some Sebastian acting as godfather in Hohenecken in 1739. The latter is obviously to old to refer to Sebastian living on Althütterhof in 1803. However the third entry refers to a family: Christian Guckenbühler, his wife Maria Magdalena Sara and three children: Elisabetha, born in 1744, Anna Margareta, born 1745, and Sebastian, born 1748. According to Reis, some record of 1749 refers to Maria Magdalena Sara as widow.

Eugen Reis also mentions a wagoner Christian Hector, his wife Maria Sara and children Maria Barbara (born 1751), Johannes (born 1754), Maria Magdalena (born 1756) and Maria Dorothea (born 1760). Note that all children were born after the death of Christian Guckenbühler and that therefore Christian Hector's wife Maria Sara may well be identical with the widow Maria Magdalena Sara of Christian Guckenbühler. This is supported by a document again found by Dieter Gukenbiehl. It states that some Christian Hector and some Philipp Schutzmann had leased land on Althütterhof at least since 1765.[5] 1771 he acted as bestman for Sebastian when he married his first wife Maria Anna Herbrand. In 1776 his daughter Maria Dorothea was godmother to Sebastian's daughter Dorothea Franziska. And therefore I assume that the "Hector Guckenbiehl" mentioned in the death record of Sebastian was really Christian Hector, and that his natural father was Christian Guckenbühler.

Now, what do we know about Christian Guckenbühler, the probable father of Sebastian? Up to now it is not clear if he was born in the Palatinate or came with others from Switzerland, attracted by tolerant conditions for catholics in the Electoral Palatinate granted by Kurfürst Johann Wilhelm in a declaration concerning the relations between religions in his country in 1705. In the records searched by Eugen Reis he is first mentioned in May 1733. He was "Beisasse", meaning a citizen of Kaiserslautern with restricted citizen rights and was still unwed in November 1742.

Christian Guckenbühler earned his living as master of the "Bataverknechte". This term refers to the men that cut down trees and transported them to Holland where they were used for building ships. Even then (and up to now) oaks from the Palatinate forest were famous for their consistence. According to [Albert 1952] and [Albert 1969] the city of Kaiserslautern sold a huge number of oak logs from an area north of Kaiserslautern to the wood merchants Bartholomae and von der Wahl from Wesel.[6] Those logs were called "Holländereichen", meaning something like "oaks for Holland". After the trees had been cut down, wagoners like Christian Hector transported them to a place on a plateau west of the Lauter called "Ritschhof" or "Rütschhof", meaning something like "sliding site" in the local dialect. For from here the logs were slid down into the creek and then drove down the Lauter, the Glan and the Nahe to the Rhine where they were tied up to large rafts that went down the rhine to the shipyards of Holland.

According to [Albert 1952] the loggers and drovers had a small house near the Ritschhof, today the place of Forsthaus Hahnbrunn (Photo). The last sale of woods was in 1742. Afterwards Christian Guckenbühler seemed to have difficulties to earn his living; for in September 1747 he was granted support by the city council.[7] The corresponding record calls him an old man. And, as said before, city records from 1749 refer to his wife as a widow.

Links:

  1. ↑ [Kaller 1981], p. 511.
  2. ↑ see the protocol of the liquidation and its transcript to modern letters..
  3. ↑ But this record also states that she married Sebastian Guckenbiel in 1832, which is hardly believable.
  4. ↑ [Reis 2000], p. 307.
  5. ↑ C. f. Facsimile and the corresponding transcript to modern letters.
  6. ↑ Since van der Wahl had also contracts in the black forest and we know of people named Guggenbühler in that region, it may well be that Christian Guckenbühler is from that region.
  7. ↑ Records of the city council of Kaiserslautern, Sept. 4th, 1747, p. 216r (i.e. back of page 216)