GOODNIGHT-L Archives

From: "Susan Tilleman" <>
Subject: Our GUTKNECHT Family in Switzerland and Germany
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 23:57:09 -0800

This is in reply to Pat SHEMENSKI's posting to this list yesterday titled
"Susannah GOODNIGHT & George CONDER."

See the following archived posting regarding the marriage of George CONDER
and Susannah GOODNIGHT:
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GOODNIGHT/2001-03/0983837073

Yes, we do have information about our GUTKNECHT family in Germany. First,
see the following sites:
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GOODNIGHT/2000-03/0953454981
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GOODNIGHT/2000-03/0953459444
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~sweetpoe/llandings/1987/12on87.jpg

Furthermore, I have a copy of the book "Goodnight Family in America, Fourth
Editioin - Part One of Volume II," by Lola BUTLER JONES, 2000. Pages IX
through XVI of that book contain "a letter and genealogy by Kathleen
Schroers of Germany, written in 1990 to Veda Goodnight Jones and Jo Ann
Jones Yiesley. (Veda died June 22, 1995)." The information on those pages
discusses Kathleen SCHROERS's findings from researching the GUTKNECHT family
in Germany. It is much too lengthy to include here, but following are a few
excerpts.

Note that I lived in Germany from Oct. 1983 through Oct. 1987, when my
ex-husband was stationed at Ramstein Air Force Base, near the town of
Kaiserslautern. Coincidentally, I lived near the village of Hohenecken,
where Hans Michael's brother George lived, and thus sent the postcard which
appeared in the above-listed issue of the "Landers' Landings" newsletter.
Coincidentally, I also visited the village of Eppingen, which is mentioned
below, because my FUNK ancestors (Mennonites, originally from Switzerland)
reportedly lived in that village. Eppingen is near Heidelberg. Kathleen
SCHROERS wrote the following in her letter, dated 27 July 1990, which
appears on pages IX through XI of the above-mentioned book:

"I am missing a generation of evidence, but there is no doubt in my mind
that the most likely patriarch of our family is Hans Heinrich Gutknecht, who
came to Eppingen from Switcherland (Zurich). He had at least 7 children.
Many of the Gutknechts in the Karlsruhe area today are descended from his
first son, Abraham, who was a shepherd. This is the case for Gustav
Gutknecht, currently living in Karlsruhe. Hans Heinrich settled in
Eppingen. Abraham wandered all over the Palatine and Kraichgau area, but
his wife, Maria, died in Eppingen, and it appears from the records that he
considered himself 'based' there. Hans Heinrich and his wife, Barbara
Fritchi, had 6 other children, among them two sons, Hans Jacob and Hans. I
believe that this Hans is the grandfather of the immigrant brothers Hans
Michael, Georg and Christian. However, I cannot prove it. My evidence is
circumstancial. According to the dates, there are about four other
possibilities for Gutknechts to have sired these brothers. However, none of
the names or circumstancial evidence matches up.

Hans Henrich Gutknecht was born in 1609 and died May 5, 1668. His children
were: Abraham (5/30/1642, Zurich), Anna, Barbara, Magdalena, Hans Jacob
(1644-1704), Hans (1645-2 April 1690), and Anna Elizabeth.

...

The following is purely subjective reconstruction, based on the
circumstantial evidence I have found:

... the 50-year old Hans Jacob married a young girl, Salome Haug, ...

Hans Jacob died about 10 years after his marriage to Salome, ...

Two years later Salome married Johan George Werner from Lautern,
(Kaiserslautern) who may have been a good friend of the 27-year-old Hans.
...

Assume the relationship between the families continued. It does not seem
unusual that Hans might have named two of his sons Hans Michael and Johann
Georg. Johan George Werner might well have been Johann Georg Gutknecht's
godfather. And it may have been Johan Georg Werner's connection to Lautern,
that enable Georg Gutknecht to spend two years there from 1752 to 1754
before his emmigration to America. It is interesting to note that the
passenger list of the ship on which Hans Michael Gutknecht sailed to America
in 1752 included a passenger named Georg Werner as well as another passenger
named Johann Georg Werner. The evidence is entirely circumstantial, but
such parallels are not found elsewhere.

I have looked up all the Gutknechts of this area during the 17th and 18th
centuries, and am convinced that this struggling family is ours. I cannot
prove it. I will keep trying, but I fear the records for this era have been
destroyed.

If you wish to assume that Hans Heinrich Gutknecht is the patriarch of our
Goodnight family, then I can take you back a couple of more generations on
his wife's side:

Barbara Fritschi was born 20 December, 1618, the daughter of Martin Fritschi
(born 1582 and married 21 February 1613 to Magdalena Stocker).

Martin's parents were Martin Fritschi and Barbara Huber, married 1575. The
Hubers and Fritschi's intermarried so frequently (Neftenbach, Zurich) that
it is difficult to continue the lineage.

I will continue to search individual church records for Gutknechts in the
Palatine/Kraichgau area. ..."

Following are some excerpts from the genealogy, titled "To The Descendants
of Hans Michael Gutknecht," which appears on pages XIII through XVI of the
above-mentioned book:

"I recently elected to spend a week's vacation in Kaiserslautern in the
Palatinate searching for records of Gutknecht ancestors. The following is
an account of my searching:

The search began with a visit to the Institute for Palatine History in
Kaiserslautern on Monday, July 17, 1989. ...

Finally we hit upon a gold nugget: 'Auswandereung aus Rheinpfalz und
Saarland im 18. Jahrhundert' by Werner Hacker (Konrad Theiss Verlag
Stuttgart, 1987). It listed a Georg Gutknecht from Hohenecken as having
bought his freedom on May 8, 1754 and leaving the country for parts unknown.
Since by this time it was after 4 o-clock and past closing time for the
institute we decided to drive out to Hohenecken, which is now a suburb of
Kaiserslautern and only a few minutes drive from our hotel, past the
American base. Hohenecken is still a tiny village, nestled between high
forest-covered hills under the shadow of the ruins of the castle of the
Lords of Hohenecken. ...

A visit to the Kaiserslautern city archives showed an entry for two baptisms
in the name of Johan Georg Gutknecht, one child in 1752 and one in 1754.
...

The next morning, Wednesday, we were on the road at 8am to travel through
the Palatine forest to Karlsruhe to visit the General Archives ... In
'Scweizer Einwanderer in den Kraichgau' (Swiss immigrants in the Kraich
valley) by Diefenbacher we found two Gutknecht family listed:

Benedict, from Kerzers, near Fribourg (near Bern), laborer, was married in
Schwaingern 1682.

Hans Heinrich, von Hunikon (Neftenbach) near Zurich, came to Eppingen in
1661 with his wife, Barbara Fritschi and six children.

This information comes from the State Archives in Zurich.

The Kraichgau is the area east of the Rhine River, roughly between
Heidelberg and Heilbronn. It is beautiful rolling farm country, many Swiss
immigrants --?-- ships in the 17th century and many of its inhabitants
immigrated to America in that century. It is the only area of Germany where
I have found the name of Gutknecht thus far at all. ...

... The entries are part German, part Latin. We were able to verify
Hacker's entry. Georg Gutknecht bought his freedom on May 9, 1754 for 8
Gulden. ... We did not find any additional mention of the name Gutknecht,
in any capacity. For the moment we only had Georg living in a vacuum in
Hohenecken.

On Thursday we drove to Speyer, to the County Archives (Landesarchiv) ...
All I could find in Speyer was some general information about the name
Gutknecht. It comes from the middle high German word goutkneht, which meant
equal in birth to a knight. Later the word was a term for an honest man
(Biedermann). The earliest person of this name on record is Wernher
Goutknecht in 1284 in Alsace. In 1926 there were 51 listings of the name in
Zurich, one apiece in Stuttgart, Munchen, Augsburg, Berlin, Hamburg and
Elbing. (Deutsche Sippennahmen, Josef Barlmann Brechermacher). This
information cannot be entirely accurate, however, because it doesn't explain
all the Gutknechts living unto this day in the Kraichgau. But it does
appear that the name comes from Switzerland and/or Alsace.

At this point I would also like to point out that the ship list including
Christian Gutknecht specifies that the passengers came from the Alsace,
Zweibrucken (Western edge of the Palatine on border with France) and
Wurtemberg (which includes the Kraichgau).

...

"Johann is a pre-name, not really used for anything except for religious
purposes. The pastors always insisted on writing it in, even when the
person had dropped the name or never used it. The same goes for Anna and
Maria in women's names. ...

... we may be sure that Johan Georg Gutknecht, his wife Catharina and their
two sons lived in Hohenecken. ...

... we can make an educated guess that Georg Gutknecht lived and worked
either on the Thomann or the Becker farm at least from 1752 till May 1754.

...

How did Georg come to live in a Reformed Church enslaved in the midst of a
Catholic village? Family connections? My guess is that he originally
intended to travel to America with his brother, Hans Michael, in 1752.
However, the pregnancy of his wife, due to give birth in July 1752, would
have made such a journey unfeasable. Georg and Catharina went to
Hohenecken, to friends or family, to work until such a time as they could
also leave for America. If they intended to leave in 1753 Catharina would
have again called a last minute stop to their plans, for she would have
known in April that she was pregnant again. Johannes was born in January.
This time they made it. ...

... Is this perhaps the Jonathan Goodnight of Westmoreland County,
Pennsylvania, who is listed on the tax rolls in 1784? ...

There is one generation missing to make the possible connection. A likely
candidate for having been the father of Hans Michael Gutknecht is Hans
Gutknecht, born on July 14, 1679 and a grandson of the original Swiss
immigrant Hans Heinrich. His father's name was also Hans. One finds
constant repition of names within individual families. After this
generation there is no more record of Gutknechts anywhere in the area. It
is interesting to note that the next town, Weiler, was home to a large
number of Landeses. We contacted a protestant deacon ... He knew of his
family that an anabaptist of this name originally came from Switzerland, and
that all Landeses (Landers, Landiss, Etc.) in Germany, Australia and America
are supposedly descended from the original Swiss immigrants. Again, there
is no record for the generation that would have produced Christian Landes.
It is possible that such records may still exist in the Church records of
Weiler (now a part of Sinsheim). We have not yet been able to examine these
records. ..."

See the following archived message for information about obtaining a copy of
the above-mentioned book:
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GOODNIGHT/2002-07/1027370962

Sue Tilleman
List Administrator
http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/t/i/l/Susan-E-Tilleman/?Welcome=1078465447

----- Original Message -----
From: <>
To: <>
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 8:24 PM
Subject: Susannah GOODNIGHT & George CONDER


>
> > >When her ancestor Hans Gerg Konder came from Trier Germany to American
he
> > >started using George Conder for his name.
> >
> > >Peggy was daughter of George Conder, Jr. and Susannah Goodnight. >
> > Susannah was Henry Goodnight's sister, so Peggy and John were first
cousins.
> >
> I am descended from David CONDER, son of _a_ George CONDER and Susannah
> GOODNIGHT. David CONDER was born ca. 1789, probably in Mecklenburg Co.,
NC. He
> married Mary Alsey APPLEGATE in 1811 in Bullitt Co., KY.
>
> I've been "lurking" for some time, but this is the first time I've seen
> someone else mention Susannah GOODNIGHT and George CONDER. Was there
really a
> Susannah? Was she the daughter of Hans Michael GUTKNECHT and his first
wife? Did
> Susannah come to America with her father in 1752, or was she born in
America?
>
>
> No one I know has ever found the supposed marriage of Susannah and George
in
> Mecklenburg Co., NC. Another question I have about the GUTKNECHT family
is
> did Hans Michael have a sister named Catherine? I'm trying to find out if
> Catherine GUTKNECHT/ GOODNIGHT was the "Catherine" who married Johann
Nicolaus
> Heinrich KRESS/ CRESS, instead of the widow Catherine EBERHARDT.
>
> Has anyone ever found out where the GUTKNECHT families came from in
Germany?
> If their origins can be traced, then church records could be checked to
find
> out about the above Susannah and Catherine. I don't understand why no
> researcher has traced the German ancestors of President Harry Truman as
has been done
> with the British ancestors of many other presidents. I even contacted the
> Truman Library in Missouri! Why is it more important to find out that
the Bush
> presidents are related to Marilyn Monroe! <G> We GOODNIGHT cousins
need
> to do something about this!
>
> > >If anyone has access to Darrell W. Conder's Genealogy of the
Conder
> > family, I >would like to talk with them. A lot of my information on
the
> > Conder family comes >from Darrell's article in the History of
Washington
> > County Kentucky.
> >
> A CONDER cousin says that Darrell Conder is very elusive, if he is still
> alive.
> His book "Conder/Konder/Condor: family history and genealogy" can be
rented
> from the LDS Family History Library. Go to the LDS website
> www.familysearch.org
>
> and do an Author Search for Darrell W. Conder. It's microfilm # 1750734,
> Item 45. The book is also at the Library in Salt Lake City.
>
> Pat Shemenski
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Ted

This thread:

• Our GUTKNECHT Family in Switzerland and Germany by "Susan Tilleman" <>