Our Family Tree: Chapter 2 - The Stahl Family

This is the second chapter of a handwritten book by my great-grandaunt, Jo Baginski. It covers the Stahl family back to the 1700s.

By Johanna Helene Baginski (Linked names open FamilySearch in a new tab)

View the original handwritten Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - The Stahl Family

Sometime in the 1700s, the Stahl family left Alsase-Lorraine because of Catholic persecutions and moved into the province of Salzberg, where they live for a while. About the middle of the 18th century, the Catholics again began their pogroms and so the Stahl family joined a large group of Hugbergers and other Protestants to get further away eastward in Germany. It is really surprising that families had the courage to leave their homelands and try to find new ones. In those days it was not just a matter of packing up and taking off in the Wilde, blue yonder. It meant abandoning almost everything and setting out for the unknown. Entering each section or principality, you had to register with the military authorities and receive written permission just to enter, stay or pass through. Everyone had to carry legal papers to be shown and stamped at every border. You might wander thru 1/2 dozen kingdoms before you were given a permit to stay. So when you started out, you were really taking a chance, never knowing where you might end up.

After the Stahls had wandered clear across Germany, they finally reached Ost Preussen (East Prussia) whose king, Friedrich II, gave them permission to settle there. They bought a piece of land in Kulmsee. The head of the family then was a Baumeist, an architect (my great, great, great grandpa) and drew plans and supervised the building of several large churches and other big buildings in the neighboring towns.

According to my grandmother (my mother’s mother) [Elisabeth Stahl] he was a very rich man. When he died, he left a large estate to be divided among his children and grandchildren. However, dishonest lawyers and commissioners got most of it. Even after the Stahl family had been living in Kulmsee for over a hundred years, they were still registered as “colonists!”

My grandmother’s father [Christoph Stahl] and grandfather [Unkown] were millers and had a big windmill on their farm there. As a little girl, my mother [Anna Marie Page] spent much time there with her grandparents, and she often spoke of the friendly music of the clickety-click of the big wings of the mill as they sailed round and round as the wheat was ground up. Her fondest childhood memories were always of Kulmsee and her grandparents there. [Christoph Stahl and Christina Simoneit]

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