A brief history of the John B. Goering – Jessie Schrag family through 1874, part III

by Rannie

back to part II

THE PALATINATE (REINFALZ) AND SUBSEQUENT MIGRATIONS

The Palatinate is the district in the Rhine Valley north of Alsace. During the 16th century it changed religious affiliations five times. This made the people somewhat tolerant, and it became a stronghold for Anabaptists. The area was devastated and almost depopulated by the Thirty Years War. Count Karl August was the ruler of the Palatinate 1648 to 1680. He was tolerant of Mennonites and needed farmers to help re-settle the land destroyed in the Thirty Years War. He offered limited freedoms, and many Mennonites responded. As in Alsace, the Swiss Mennonite farmers were welcomed because of their reputation for thrift and agricultural skill. The War of the Palatinate in 1688 laid waste the fields again, and several other wars followed. A letter requesting help from Hans Burghalter to the Mennonites in Holland in 1746 detailed occupation that summer by the French, English, and Austrians, as well as plague amongst their cattle that wiped out every head. The Mennonites were religiously persecuted, including the refusal of burial in the public cemetery. However, they left primarily for economic reasons (the effects of the wars, taxes imposed by the nobility, scarcity of farmland, and because they were not permitted to trade or live in the cities or apprentice in the trade guilds.)

In 1785 and 1786 a group of 28 families of Mennonites left the Palatinate for Galicia.

GACILIA was an area of southern Poland recently acquired by Austria. When Emperor Joseph II of Austria took the throne, he placed economic development ahead of the claims of the Church. He confiscated the Catholic church’s lands, and invited Protestant German craftsmen to come help develop them. In 1781 he issued a tolerance edict, and in 1784 added a special permit for Mennonites granting freedom from military duty. In 1785 a group of 6 Mennonite families and 29 Lutheran families traveled via Regensburg, Linz, Vienna, Biala, and Lemberg to settle in a village south of Lember (now the Ukrainian city L’vov) named Falkenstein. In this group were Johannes Schrag and his wife Elizabeth (Albrecht) who are direct relatives on the Schrag side, with their five children. Also included were Peter Krehbiel and his wife Charlotte (Nahrgan), and Joseph Mündlein with his wife Elizabeth (Maurer) who are direct relatives on the Goering side.

Joseph Mündlein was a converted Mennonite. He was the son of Count Philip Mündlein, who owned large estates in Bavaria near Munich. He was raised Catholic, but gave up his wealth and position to become Mennonite. He married Elizabeth Maurer in the Palatinate in 1781, and they had a daughter Katherina, born Jan. 16, 1791. They also adopted a boy, Paul Voran who is the ancestor of the Voran family name among the Mennonits. Joseph Mündlein was a leader amongst the Mennonites in Galicia, serving as major of the village. Apparently, his father, Philip, later learned that his son was in Galicia. He forgave him and gave him back his lost inheritance. However, it seems that Joseph never went back to claim that inheritance (although one source credits his with donations to build the church at Ugaraberg.)

A year later, in 1786, another group of Mennonites settled in a nearby village named Einsiedel. This group also included direct relatives Christian Albrecht, who died in Einsiedel in 1794, and his wife Barbara. In 1796, the Johannes Schrag family, Barbara Albrecht and the Peter Krehbiel family were among a group that responded to an invitation from Hutterite missionaries. They moved on to Wishenka, near Kiev, to briefly join a colony of Hutterites.

Within a year they became disillusioned, and in 1797 moved on to Michalin where they joined the Meenonites from Montbeliard who had settled there a few years earlier. The group in Michalin, including Barbara Albrecht, now remarried to Andreas Schrag (a relative through the Schrag side) also included a group of Dutch Mennonites under the leadership of Coun von Wedel (I believe this is a relative on my mother’s side). Because of political changes, the Mennonites were concerned about losing their freedom from participation in the military. Count von Wedel went to St. Petersburg to negotiate with the political authorities, but while he was gone the colony decided to move. The Swiss families moved on to the village of Beresina in Volynia near Dubno in 1801. (The Dutch-Prussian Mennonites meanwhile settled near Ostrog, and later joined the Chortitza and Molotschna Mennonite colonies.) Sometime during this time, between 1797 and 1801, Andreas Schrag and his wife Barbara Albrecht Schrag with their daughter Anna Albrecht left to join the Michelsdorf congregation. The remaining families in Beresina had to relocate again eight years later in 1810 because a dam was built to establish a paper mill. The dam flooded their lands in Beresina, so they moved to the village of Wignanka, near Edwardsdorf. They eventually became part of the Gemeinde of the village of Edwardsdorf.

TRACING THE PATHS OF ANCESTRAL FAMILIES

The roots of the SCHRAG family probably came from Canton Bern with migration to the Palatinate in the late 1600s. Johannes Schrag left form [sic] Albisheim in the Palatinate for Falkenstein, Galicia in 1784. Andreas Schrag, a son married the widow Barbara Albrecht and appears on the Goering side of the family tree.  Johann Schrag, Jr. was the grandfather of Anna Schrag (my grandmother’s mother) while his brother, Daniel Schrag was the grandfather of John G. Schrag (my grandmother’s father). Another brother, Joseph was the father of Maria Schrag who married Johann Gering, Jr. Andreas Schrag, son of Daniel and brother of Jessie’s grandfather Jacob Schrag, was the representative of the Swiss-Volhynians sent to hep scout out American for suitable places to settle. The Schrag family settled in Yankton in the Dakota territory.

Grandpa Goering’s grandparents were from four Swiss-Volhynian families: Johann Goering, Elisabeth Graber, Johann Krehbiel, and Anna Stucky.

STUCKI was an Annabaptist name from nearly the beginning. Peter Stucki of Wimmis was executed in Bern on April 16, 1538. Christian Stucki (b. 1687) from Diemtigen in the Bernese Oberland emigrated to the Netherlands in 1711. Other Stuckis went directly from Switzerland to Montbeliard in 1723. Christian Stucki had a son named Christian and a daughter named Freni who are direct relatives. Freni married Joseph Schrag, and was mother of Maria Schrag. Christian, Jr. married Maria Kaufman on 5-13-1787. They were probably part of the group of Mennonites leaving Montbeliard for Podolia in 1791.

GRABER is a name originating in Kirchdorf, Canton of Bern. The first mention among Anabaptists was George Graber in 1596, dealt with by the Bernese Council because he was a member of the Anabaptists. Members of the Graber family were part of the mass migration from Bern to Alsace in the 1670’s, and to Montbeliard in 1708. Christian and Maria Graber were part of the group of Mennonites leaving Montbeliard in 1791 to settle in Podolia under the invitation of Price Adam Czartorinsky.

The name KREHBIEL originated near Bern as well. Han Krahenbuhl attended the Anabaptist disputation in Bern in March 1538. Jost Kreyenbul, direct relative, left Canton Bern for the Palatinate in 1671. He bought a leave to the land a Primerhof. Peter Krehbiel, as grandson of Jost, emigrated in 1785 from the Palatinate to Polish-Austria, i.e. Galicia. He married Charlotte Nahrgang. It’s interesting that he was one of the leaders in reading Scriptures, but was felt to be unqualified to be ordained as minister because he was married to a Lutheran wife.

The earliest known record of the name GOERING is that of a Swiss printer, Ulrich Goering who set up the first printing press in France. (Born c. 1140, died 1510) Gerig, Gering, Göring, Gehring, and Goering are all variations of the same name.

Gerig is a name originating in the Emme Valley (the river valley just northeast of Bern.) The records in Alsace show that Swiss Anabaptists by the name of Gerig arrived from Switzerland during the violent persecutions of the 1670’s. The name Gerig appears on a document signed by Jakob Amman in Alsace in 1704. The spelling was changed by Moses Gerig to “Goering” sometime during his stay in Montbeliard. The family moved across the Vosges mountains to Montbeliard, probably in 1712 (in response to an order to not tolerate Mennonites from the court of King Louis XIV.) Mossi (or Moses) Gering was baptized in Montbeliard in 1766. His name is listed on a passport issued by Prince Adam Czartorinksy of Podolia for safe passage in 1791. Johann Gering, Jr. was listed as an elder in the congregation at Edwardsdorf in 1834, and Johann Gering (Grandpa’s grandfather) was a minister and teacher in the schoolhouse at Kotosufka. He died in 1871, leaving his wife Elizabeth and his 23 year old son, Johann to lead the family in the emigration to America in 1874.

coming next: Life in Volhynia/Russia