For many years I have seen this document on the internet and then on Ancestry. However, I have never seen a complete translation of it. So, I decided to have it translated, especially now that I have more confidence in the fact that Conrad Wannemacher (1658) is also my ancestor.
Inglorious End of a Severe Inebriate
Conrad Wannemacher is the Patriarch of numerous Wannemacher Families in the District Area
hc. Blieskastel. It was during March of the year 1684. “A young man aged 26 years, named Conrad Wannemacher, a brickmaker by trade, haling from Darmstadt, clearly also born of honorable parents from his birth record, who married in Bierbach the daughter of a subject of the monastery and fathered a daughter with her, also during the course of his marriage and in the name of his good demeanor could offer plentiful testimony from the subjects,” sought permission from the administration of the Wörschweiler monastery to “set up residence and live there similarly to other adscript subjects of the monastery.”
At the same time, he had asked permission to build a brick kiln in the location. Apparently, he bought the building site from the heir of Georg Körner. Conrad Mannemacher’s [sic] request was agreed to. He settled in Bierbach and is the patriarch of numerous Wannemacher families in the district of Saar-Pfalz.
He was born on 4 April in the year 1658 in Darmstadt. His parents were Hans Jacob Wannemacher and Anna née Hilbert. It is highly unlikely that his ancestral line can be traced back to “Heinrich Wannemacher of Birbach and his married wife the late Drutgin,” who are named between the years 1467 and 1487 in the membership registry of the Sacraments-Brotherhood in Wörschweiler (a type of church building union).
Conrad Wannemacher had learned his profession as a brickmaker “through a guild.” Before he was “admitted” in Bierbach, he had owned the brick kiln in Blieskastel.
He was blessed with 15 children in his marriage to his wife Johanetta, daughter of the “bailiff” (mayor) Jean Plaideur of Bierbach. The baptisms of eleven children are entered in the church registries of the Catholic parish Blickweiler-Blieskastel and the Lutheran and reformed parishes of Zweibrücken. With the first child, Anna Marie, who was baptized on 3 December 1683 in Blieskastel, Hans Heinrich Wannemacher’s wife was Anna Barbara of Altstadt Patin.
This Wannemacher from Altstadt, likewise a brickmaker, already had a son baptized on 16 April 1682, Johann Christian, for which Conrad Wannemacher from Bierbach was a godfather. A close relationship between the two persons is probable. Perhaps they were brothers.
Likely a son of Conrad Wannemacher from Bierbach, Johann Jacob, married before or around 1714 and resided with his wife Barbara Maling (also Malin) in Ommersheim. Up until the year 1739, he had at least twelve children there, of whom seven were boys.
The direct descendants of this Ommersheim ancestor later lived there as brickmakers, peasants, linen weavers, and tailors. A representative from the family, Bernhard Wannemacher, is mentioned in 1744 and again in 1770 as a school teacher. His son Peter married Magdalena Fischer on 2 October 1781 as a teacher (ludi magister) in Blickweiler, and formed the Blickweiler branch with her.
His son Johann Peter was likewise a school teacher in Blickweiler and married Elisabeth Groh in the year 1809, who was born in Blickweiler and lived in Niederwürzbach. Another son, Christoph, was brought to Differten in the year 1818 as a school teacher and sacristan.
Brickmaker families with documented ancestral descent from Conrad Wannemacher from Bierbach lived from the early 18th century onward on the Gutenbrunnen, in Wattweiler, Mittelbach, Waldmohr, on the Bear brick kiln of Zweibrücken, and the Burg brick kiln.
Leonhard Wannemacher and Luisa Wannemacher from Bierbach married in the year 1784 in Lautzkirchen. They had eight children in Bierbach up to the year 1801 and later lived as peasants on Carls mountain (Carlsberg), also named Carlsbruch and Bruchhof, near Homburg, from where they saw to the spreading of the name in the Homburg region.
In Bierbach, the professional tradition of the brickmaker Conrad Wannemacher was continued by his descendants until far into the 19th century. That, as the saying goes, every family has its “black sheep,” is heartily attested to, in accordance with the times, among the descendants of Conrad Wannemacher, who was judged as so honest upon his arrival in Bierbach. On 24 August 1754, Johannes Wannemacher died in Bierbach, aged 49 years.
He cannot readily be integrated into the ancestral line, as further reference points regarding his person are lacking. The following can be read in regard to his death in the church registry of the Lutheran parish of Zweibrücken: “This nasty drunkard brought his dreaded evil life to an end through an evil and quick death on August 24th, when in the evening he broke his neck in the brick mud in a state of drunkenness. On the following day, he was buried amidst an extremely numerous funeral company with the holding of a sermon on the abomination and the awful consequences of drunkenness on 1. Cor. VI; he was 49 years old. NB.
14 days prior to that, he was to be heard in public company. He wanted only to booze until the parish fair was over, then he wanted to make a turn for the better; however, the parish fair was the day of his burial; do not be mistaken, God will not allow himself to be mocked.”
“Saarbrücker Zeitung,” 1 September 1976
At my request, this translation was provided by Ginny Lewis, Ph.D., Professor of German, Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota. (July 2018).
Julia Wannamaker
juliawannamaker@gmail.com
Project Administrator
Family Tree DNA (FTDNA)
Wannamaker DNA Surname Project
August 18, 2018
Wannamaker Genealogy 