Anna Catharina Christlieb—Her Story

Anna Catharina's background is more detailed than Friedrich Carl's. The church registers of St. Alban and Dielkirchen reveal the names of her parents and her siblings, as well as the communities where they lived.

The daughter of Johann Peter and Anna Gerdrauth Engel, Anna Catharina was born ca. 1710 (between the years 1707 and 1711) in the tiny community of Gerbach. Because there was no Lutheran church in Gerbach, the Engel family worshipped at St. Alban, another small community within easy walking distance of Gerbach. Because of their close proximity to one another and strong indications that the Engels resided in both villages throughout the years, the appellation, St. Alban-Gerbach appears both in church registers and in this report. Situated about a quarter mile apart, St. Alban and Gerbach are located some 30 miles northwest of Dürkheim.

The Engel Family

Translated from the German surname, Engel means “Angel.” Regarding Anna Catharina’s ancestors, a German genealogist once reported:

“The Engel family seems to have spread to all the villages around St. Alban, after the Thirty-Years’ War. In the first half of the 18^th century, Engel was the most common name in that area. It appears in and around Dielkirchen, St. Alban, Gerbach, Marienthal, Würzweiller, Rüppertsecken, Wüsten-Gerbach, and perhaps in many more villages around there.”

The oldest church register of St. Alban dates from 1714 and contains a few death records from an earlier church book that did not survive the Thirty-Years’ War intact. Because Anna Catharina’s baptismal entry would have been recorded in the earlier church book, the dates of her birth and baptism can only be estimated.

The St. Alban church register at St. Alban contains the death entry for Anna Catharina’s father, Johann Peter Engel. The entry shows that he died in 1718 at age 50. This would place the year of his birth at 1668, twenty years after the end of the Thirty-Years’ War. Dated 1718, this is the death entry for Peter Engel, as it appears in the St. Alban Church Register.

January 9, 1718. Johann Peter Engel from St. Alban died and was buried the following day, age of 50 years.

Greatly reduced in size, this is the title page of the 1714 Lutheran Church Register for the communities of
St. Alban and Gerbach.

Research has revealed a Johann Peter Engel, who appears to have been Anna Catharina’s father, is listed as a God-parent at the baptism of Maria Barbara Aschenbrenner at nearby Ruppertsecken. Maria Barbara, daughter of Andreas and Margaretha Aschenbrenner, was born on October 15, 1708, and baptized on the 21^st of that month. Other witnesses were Anna Maria, wife of Johann Peter Stein from Gerbach and Anna Barbara, daughter of Maxim Engel from Ruppertsecken.

Pertaining to the previous generation, a tax list, dated 9 June 1673, shows a Hans Nickel Engel of St. Alban as having paid taxes in the amount of 45 Gulden that year for houses and goods. C 14 Nr. 323: Schatzungsprotokoll der Kurpfälzischen Leibeigenen in St. Alban, Gerbach, Obergrehweiller, 1673.

“With that [tax] document, we have proved that there had been a former generation of the Engel family in St. Alban. I think that the above named Hans Nickel Engel is the same as the one mentioned in the Marienthal records in 1698. We can’t prove the identity and the descent, but it seems to be very probable to me to take him as Peter Engel’s father.” Bernard Ullrich.

It should be mentioned that entries in the Lutheran Church records at Marienthal, a village nearby St. Alban and Gerbach, refer to a certain Maxim (Maximillian) Engel and his wife, Anna Catharina, who were residents of Ruppertsecken. Born ca. 1643 and 1648 respectively, Maxim and Catharina Engel were of the same generation as the aforementioned Hans Nickel Engel. At first glance, it would appear that Maxim and Catharina would have been the parents of Anna Catharina’s father. Their son was named Johann Peter Engel, and it logically follows that Anna Catharina would have been named after this “grandmother.” However, as it turned out, Johann Peter Engel of Ruppertsecken (son of Maxim and Catharina Engel) was born ca. 1684, about 16 years before Johann Peter Engel of St. Alban-Gerbach.

Genealogist Bernard Ullrich came to the conclusion that Nickel Engel of St. Alban-Gerbach and Maxim Engel of Ruppertsecken, who were both born in the 1640s, were closely related – perhaps even brothers. It was also his conclusion that the Engels of Saint Alban-Gerbach had their roots in Ruppertsecken.

In order to delve further into the ancestry of Nickel and Maxim Engel, further Ruppertsecken research would have to be undertaken. Ullrich suggests that if earlier Engels cannot be found at Ruppertsecken, the origin of the family might lie elsewhere – perhaps at Solingen or Elberfeld – where two different Peter Engels were born in 1668, the year that Anna Catharina’s father was born.

The first of the two Peter Engels was baptized in the Lutheran Church in Elberfeld on December 5, 1668. His parents were Benjamin and Maria Engel. The second Peter was baptized in the Reformed Church in Wald, near Solingen on July 27, 1668. The church record names his father as Engel [Engelbert] Engels, a resident “auf der Heiden.” In relative proximity to each other, Elberfeld and Solingen are located some 100 miles north of the communities of St. Alban and Gerbach. International Genealogy Index.

The possibility that either of these Peter Engels would have been Anna Catharina’s father is rather weak. At least for the time being, the better consideration would be that Hans Nickel Engel of St. Alban was probably the father of Johann Peter Engel, and therefore the grandfather of Anna Catharina Engel/Bock/Christlieb.

It is unfortunate that so little is known of Anna Catharina’s mother whose maiden name is unknown. Her middle name, Gertraud, is an old German name for Gertrude.

A baptismal entry from Ruppertsecken reveals that Gertraud Engel was a witness at the baptism of Johann Aschenbrenner, son of Andreas and Margaretha Aschenbrenner, on November 29, 1711. There, she is listed as “Gertraud, Joh. Peter Engel’s wife from St. Alban.”

Although the Engel’s connection with the Aschenbrenner family is unknown, there is a possibility that Anna Gertraud Engel was from this family. Genealogist Ullrich concluded his findings on the Engels with this comment, “I think it is evident that there are close relations between the St. Alban and Ruppertsecken or Gerbach Engels. And even relations to the Aschenbrenner family, too. Maybe these are the relatives of Gerdraudt Engel. Perhaps she was born Aschenbrenner.”

Because the church records of St. Alban date only from 1714, there is no marriage record for Anna Catharina’s parents, nor are there any baptismal records for them. Based on the projected dates of some of their children’s births, Peter and Gertraud probably married ca. 1695. Johann Nikolaus Louckhard, who served the congregation from 1708 to 1714, would have conferred the sacramental rites of baptism and confirmation upon Anna Catharina and her siblings. Upon his death or retirement, he was succeeded by his son, Georg Wilhelm Louckhard, who served the congregation from 1714 to 1764. When Johann Peter Engel died in 1718, this second Pastor Louckhard would have administered the necessary funereal rites.

The original church at St. Alban was built in 1548, a few years after the death of Martin Luther. After standing nearly 100 years, the church at St. Alban along with nearly all of its records was destroyed during the Thirty-Years’ War (1618-1648). A second church, which was erected ca. 1648, survived until 1912. Although it survived 264 years, it was in very poor condition for generations. As early as 1753 the church was in dire condition – the floor was sinking and the walls had developed huge cracks. Repairs were made in 1862, but the cracks in the wall increased as the floor kept shifting. It was reported that the old structure was so decrepit that children were able to pick holes in the walls with their fingers.

When the church was razed, four ancient stone burial crypts were unearthed. These were accompanied by stone figures, part male and part female, stemming from the same time period and found next to a stone pot for sacred water. One figure, as well as a piece of roof tile, dated from Roman times. Although some concluded that the stone coffins dated from the 11^th or 12^th centuries, historians at the Pfalz Museum theorized that all of the artifacts dated from Roman times. Information and photos are from a 1962 booklet printed on the occasion of the 50^th Anniversary of the new church at St. Alban.