My Third Great Grandmother, Amalie Ebritsch Mühlpfordt of Arnstadt and Wittenberg, Germany

 My grandmother Viola told me that her family came from Germany and that she only spoke German until she went to school. Her middle name was Bertha, after her mother’s mother, Bertha Milford. My grandmother told me that Bertha came to America and lived with her father. Since Bertha was single, “an old maid,” in the language of that time, her father expected her to take care of all the children in his new family. He told her he would never speak to her again if she married Robert Feldweg, who was almost a decade younger. She saw her chance and took it, and now we are all here.[1]

Genealogy documents having come online since I talked with my grandmother, I was able to learn that Bertha’s full name was Amalie Bertha Auguste Mühlpfordt, her father’s name was Johann Carl August Mühlpfordt, and her mother’s name was Johanne Amalie Ernestine Ebritsch.[2] Germans often had three or four given names, but commonly used one. Here I will call them Amalie and Carl. In 1854, Carl left his seven children behind in Germany, the youngest barely three, and probably also Amalie, and settled in Newark, N.J., where he married a fourteen-year-old girl and proceeded to have at least four more children.[3] I always wondered what happened with Amalie….

Over the years I discovered that Amalie’s eldest and youngest children stayed in Germany, but the three middle children emigrated to Newark in 1868. Using a son’s baptism record, I was able to discover that Amalie and Carl married in 1834 in Arnstadt, Saxony (now Thuringia in Germany).

In the U.S., most church congregations (and states) did not keep vital records in the 1700s or 1800s, but the Lutheran churches of Germany did. The handwriting style was completely different from what we used in the U.S., but I was feeling somewhat confident due to the Gothic handwriting course I took last spring.

So, last month I splurged $25 for a month’s access to online German church records (Archion.de).

Arnstadt is a small city, over a thousand years old, in the central German state of Thuringia.[4] It is not far from Erfurt and Leipzig, which we visited often while living in Germany.

Like many Germans, Amalie and Carl married in the Lutheran church. The wedding was held on April 17,1834 at the Oberkirche in Arnstadt. You can see photos of it at oberkirche-arnstadt.de. The church register says the bridgegroom, Carl August Mühlpfordt, was a master tailor, and the son of Johann Christian Mühlpfordt. The bride was Johanne Amalie Ernestine Ebritsch of Arnstadt, born on February 29, 1811, the eldest child of Johann Gottlob Christian Ebritsch, also a master tailor (who I will just call Gottlob).[5] Trades in Germany were regulated by guilds, so Amalie’s father and husband likely knew each other. This church register recorded the birth dates of every marriage party on this page except for Carl’s; but it’s unusual to see this information. It also gave the birthplace of Carl, but I can’t read it.

Mühlpfordt means the ford by the mill. Ebritsch is an unusual name. The German surname map website Geogen found only four entries in Germany today for that name, half of them in the same area as Arnstadt.[6]

AMALIE’S CHILDREN

From 1834 to at least 1851, Amalie bore and raised eight children. The first was a little girl, perhaps born in Arnstadt. The rest of their children were born in Wittenberg, world famous as the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation. Wittenberg was still in the same country as Arnstadt (Saxony; Germany didn’t exist yet).

Born on 26 August 1836, their eldest son, Johann Carl Robert Mühlpfordt, became a professor.[7] He lived in Berlin as late as 1895.[8]

Their eldest daughter, Ida Maria Louise, was born on 16 August 1838.[9] In 1861, she married Georg Franz Friedrich Stanislaus Leonard von Szymanowitz in Wittenberg.[10] From Hamburg, they sailed to New York City with two children, arriving on 23 January 1868.[11]

Amalie Bertha Auguste, my Nana’s grandmother, was born in Wittenberg on 1 August 1840.[12] She arrived in New York City from Bremen on 7 May 1868.[13] She went by Bertha in American records.

Friedrich Wilhelm Oskar was born in Wittenberg on 4 March 1843.[14] He arrived in New York City on 24 February 1868.[15]

All three of these siblings settled in Newark, New Jersey, where they were known as Mary, Bertha, and Oscar.

Julius Franz Bernhard lived only seven years, until 1852.[16] With today’s modern medicine, it’s hard for us to imagine how his five brothers and sisters were affected by his death.

Hugo Edmund Leberecht was born in Wittenberg on 26 October 1848.[17] He stayed in Germany, where he worked for the postal service, and died in Berlin in 1925.[18]

Friedrich Otto Hermann was Amelia’s last child, born in Wittenberg on 4 June 1851.[19] He moved to Erfurt, a larger city near Wittenberg, by 1870.[20] I have not found any record of him after that.

AMALIE’S PARENTS

Knowing that Amalie was the eldest child and knowing her father’s name (from her marriage record), I was able to identify her mother by finding her parents’ marriage record. German marriage records, unlike American records of the same time, are full of information about the families. Master tailor Johann Gottlob Christian Ebritsch, the son of the deceased Mr. Bonifacius Nicolaus Ebritsch, also a master tailor, married Miss Johanne Dorothee Friedrike Groz, who also had lost her father, a carpenter named Johann David Groz. They married in Arnstadt on May 24, 1810.[21] (I’ve found that the name Groz was also spelled Grotz or Groze). Amalie’s father Gottlob was from Naschhausen near Orlamünde; that parish’s minister also recorded the marriage.[22]  Those towns are about thirty-five miles from Arnstadt, but in those days, craftsmen had to go from town to town after their apprenticeships, working under different master craftsmen. That’s where the term journeyman comes from. Gottlob likely came to work in Arnstadt and decided to stay there after meeting Dorothee.

When Gottlob died in Arnstadt on June 18, 1828, the burial register noted that he was forty-seven years old, was born in Naschhausen in 1781, and had three sons and four daughters.[23]

Amalie’s mother Dorothee lived until April 3, 1853, and her Arnstadt burial record stated that her parents were Georg David Grotz and Johanne Dorothee Magdalene Zöllner. She left behind her three sons and three daughters.[24] It’s possible that Amalie was the daughter that died between 1828 and 1853, but so far, I have not been able to find proof of that. I'd like to think that her three children who emigrated to America didn't leave before their mother passed away, but a search for her death record in Wittenberg has been unsuccessful so far.


[1] Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, Return of Marriages, BI:187, no. 86, 7 Nov. 1869, Albert [sic] Feldweg and Bertha Milpfordt; New Jersey State Archives, Trenton, N.J.

[2] Evangelische Kirche Wittenberg (Wittenberg, Sachsen), Wittenberg Stadt Taufna[ch?]r 1832-1840, baptism, p. 27, no. 229, Amalie Bertha Auguste Mühlpfohrt, 17 August 1840; “Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971,” database and images, FamilySearch (familysearch.org: accessed 10 Nov. 2024) > IGN (Image Group Number) 101853297 > image 387 of 408. Note: the names August and Johanne are sourced from other records.

[3] Manifest, Mary Anna, Hamburg, 9 June 1854, unpaginated, line 14 (left), J. Muhlpfordt, Wittenberg; database and images, “Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1834,” Ancestry (ancestry.com: accessed 11 Nov. 2024) > 1850-1859 > Direkt Band 006 (15 Apr 1854 - 7 Dez 1854) > image 266 of 459; Staatsarchiv Hamburg. Essex County, New Jersey, Marriage record, K, no. 2339, Charles Mulforth-Crescens Kuhlmns [sic], 16 Aug. 1857; “New Jersey Marriages, 1678-1985,” database and images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FZRX-6JQ: accessed 19 Nov. 2024). 1880 United States Federal Census, Essex County, New Jersey, population schedule, Newark, ED 82, p. 22B, 65 Lillie Street, dwelling 145, family 230, Charles Milforth; “New Jersey, United States records,” database and images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9YBX-9Q16?view=index: Nov 19, 2024), image 306 of 747; United States. National Archives and Records Administration.

[4] “Arnstadt,” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnstadt: accessed 15 Nov. 2024).

[5] Evangelische-Lutherische Kirche in Thüringen Kirchgemeinde Arnstadt, Trauungen 1825-1856, Sign. K 7 /1-38, p. 212-213, 17 Apr. 1834, Carl August Mühlpfordt-Johanne Amalie Ernestine Ebritsch; Landeskirchenarchiv der Evangelischen Kirche in Mitteldeutschland Eisenach; “ Trauungen 1825-1856,” images, Archion (https://www.archion.de/p/732990d34d/: accessed 10 Oct. 2024) > image 115 of 490.

[6] Search for Ebritsch, Geogen Surname Mapping (https://legacy.stoepel.net/en/?name=Ebritsch : accessed 21 Oct. 2024).

[7] Evangelische Kirche Wittenberg (Kr.St. Wittenberg), Taufen 1832-1840, p. 30, no. 232, 8 Sep. 1836, Johann Carl Robert Mühlpfort; "Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971," database and images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSQY-H3HY-Q?cc=3015626&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AQPX2-RJ9X: accessed 9 Nov. 2021) > IGN 101853297 > image 219 of 408. This is the record that says Amalie was married at the Oberkirche. It also says this child was the second child and first son, so the first child must have been a girl.

[8] Schöneberg, Berlin, Germany, Marriage record no. 279, Johann Carl Robert Mühlfordt-Johanne Emilia Liebrich, 14 Sep 1895; “Berlin, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1940,”

database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2957/: accessed 20 Nov. 2024) > Schöneberg I > 1895 (Zurückgeführtes Erstregister) > image 558 of 955.

[9] Evangelische Kirche Wittenberg (Kr. St. Wittenberg), Taufen 1832-1840, p. 27, no. 218, 30 Aug. 1838, Ida Marie Louise Mühlpfort; "Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971," database and images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89GC-K9JL-5?i=296&cat=142346: accessed 6 Oct. 2022) > IGN 4198125 > image 297 of 408.

[10] Evangelische Kirche Wittenberg (Kr. St. Wittenberg), Trauungs... 1861, unpaginated, no. 7, von Szymanowitz-Mühlpfordt; “Saxony, Anhalt, Anhalt-Bernburg, Anhalt-Dessau and Anhalt-Köthen, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1760-1890," database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61132/: accessed 13 Nov. 2024) > Wittenberg > 1855-1862 > image 628 of 862.

[11] United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, Manifest, Germania, 23 Jan. 1868, Hamburg to New York, ship 49, second page, line 84-87, Leon Szymanowitz & family, 31, innkeeper; database and images, “New York City, New York, United States records,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939V-5Y9Q-B5?view=index : accessed 14 Nov. 2024) > IGN 4679994 > image 432 of 511.

[12] Evangelische Kirche Wittenberg (Kr. St. Wittenberg), Taufen 1832-1840, p. 27, no. 229, 17 Aug. 1840, Amalie Bertha Auguste Mühlfohrt; "Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971," database and images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSQY-H3CB-7?cc=3015626&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AQPXL-C986: accessed 6 Oct. 2022) > IGN 101853297 > image 387 of 408.

[14] Evangelische Kirche Wittenberg (Kr. St. Wittenberg), Taufen 1841-1850, p. 10, no. 87, 20 Mar. 1843, Friedrich Wilhelm Oskar Mühlfohrt; "Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971," database and images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSQY-H3XC-M?i=105&cc=3015626&cat=142346: accessed 6 Oct. 2022) > IGN 101853298 > image 106 of 531.

[15] United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, Manifest, ship Hansa, 24 February 1868, Bremen to New York City, fifth page, 15th line from bottom, Oscar Muhlenfordt, 25; “New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7488/ : accessed 16 Nov. 2024) > Date > 1868 > February > 24 > Hansa > image 5 of 5.

[16] Evangelische Kirche Wittenberg (Kr. St. Wittenberg), Duplicat des Todten Buchs…1852, unpaginated, no. 235, 22 Nov. 1852, Julius Franz Bernhard Muhlpfordt, son of Johann Carl Muhlpfordt; “Saxony, Anhalt, Anhalt-Bernburg, Anhalt-Dessau and Anhalt-Köthen, Germany, Lutheran Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1760-1890,” database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61132: accessed 16 Nov. 2024) > Wittenberg > 1835-1854 > image 651 of 853.

[17] Evangelische Kirche Wittenberg (Kr. St. Wittenberg), Taufen 1841-1850, unpaginated, no. 297, 26 Dec. 1848, Hugo Edmund Leberecht Mühlpfordt; “Saxony, Anhalt, Anhalt-Bernburg, Anhalt-Dessau and Anhalt-Köthen, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1760-1890," database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61132/: accessed 6 Oct. 2022) > Wittenberg > 1841-1850 > image 382 of 531.

[18] Berlin, Germany, Sterberegister der Berliner Standesämter 1925, death certificate no. 100, 4 Feb.1925, Hugo Edmund Leberecht Mühlpfordt; Landesarchiv Berlin; Berlin, Deutschland; “Berlin, Germany, Deaths, 1874-1986,” database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2958: accessed 16 Nov. 2024) > Schöneberg Ii > 1925 (Erstregister) > image 104 of 1058.

[19] Evangelische Kirche Wittenberg (Kr. St. Wittenberg), Duplicat der Tauf Nachrichten...1851, unpaginated, no. 170, 4 June 1851, Friedrich Otto Hermann Mühlpfordt; “Saxony, Anhalt, Anhalt-Bernburg, Anhalt-Dessau and Anhalt-Köthen, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1760-1890," database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61132: accessed 16 Nov. 2024) > Wittenberg > 1835-1854 > image 478 of 853.

[20] Hauptregister über den Personenstand der Stadt Erfurt, Friedrich Otto Hermann Mühlpfordt, Löbergera Street, no. 45, unpaginated; “Erfurt, Germany, House Lists, 1859-1872,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60863/: accessed 18 Nov. 2024), image 549 of 574.

[21] Evangelische-Lutherische Kirche in Thüringen Kirchgemeinde Arnstadt, Trauungen 1804-1824, Sign. K 7 /1-37, p. 148, 24 May 1810, Ebritsch-Groz; Landeskirchenarchiv der Evangelischen Kirche in Mitteldeutschland Eisenach; “Trauungen 1804-1824,” images, Archion (https://www.archion.de/p/c253bca4d0/: accessed 10 Oct. 2024) > image 79 of 284.

[22] Evangelische-Lutherische Kirche in Thüringen Kirchgemeinde Orlamünde (AG. Kahla), Orlamünde Aufgebotene u. Getraute 1809-1849, p. 3, 24 May 1810, Ebritsch-Groze; "Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971,“ images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSD4-HJ2?cat=338246&i=105&cc=3015626: accessed 17 Oct. 2024) > Kirchenbuchduplikat, 1809-1875 > Taufen 1871-1875 Heiraten 1809-1875 Tote 1809-1870 > IGN 102700290 > image 106 of 778.

[23] Evangelische-Lutherische Kirche in Thüringen Kirchgemeinde Arnstadt, Beerdigungen 1825-1843, p. 182, no. 54, 18 June 1828, Johann Gottlob Christian Ebritsch; Landeskirchenarchiv der Evangelischen Kirche in Mitteldeutschland Eisenach; “Beerdigungen 1825-1843,” images, Archion (https://www.archion.de: accessed 12 Oct. 2024) > image 98.

[24] Evangelische-Lutherische Kirche in Thüringen Kirchgemeinde Arnstadt, Beeridigungen 1844-1861, Sign. K 7 /1-55, p. 463-464, 3 Apr. 1853, no. 36, Johanne Dorothee Friederike Ebritsch; Landeskirchenarchiv der Evangelischen Kirche in Mitteldeutschland/ Eisenach; Bestattungen 1844-1861, images, Archion (https://www.archion.de/p/36d2428f25/: accessed 12 Oct. 2024) > image 280 of 553.

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