George's Grandparents: Heinrich Christian Brand and Caroline Charlotte Sporleder
George’s mother came from the Brands, half farmers (Halbmeier) of Linse whose family had worked land in the village since about 1600. Her side of the family is traced further back than the millers’.
George’s grandparents
Her father, Heinrich Christian Brand, held the Brand half-farm at Linse Nr. ass. 1. On 28 April 1804 at Halle, by banns, “Heinrich Christoph Brand, half farmer at Linse, surviving son of the late Chr. Brand,” married “Caroline Charlotte Sporleder of Linse”. He already held the farm when he married. This entry calls him Heinrich Christoph, while every record from 1809 on calls him Heinrich Christian; the village, rank, bride and date all agree, so the groom of 1804 is almost certainly the later Heinrich Christian.
The farm owed a yearly rent (Meierzins) to the von der Wense estate at Bodenwerder, and a state file of 1839 to 1841 covers the buyout (Ablösung) of that rent owed by “the half farmer Heinrich Christian Brand Nr. ass. 1 at Linse.” A companion file of 1838 shows the small cottager Heinrich Seelemeyer of Nr. ass. 17 owing rent to “the half farmer Chr. Brand and wife,” so the household collected rent as well as paying it. In the valuation of December 1811 the same holding is house 1 of the half farmer (Halbspänner) Christian Brand, and the Christian Brand of 1811 was probably the man of 1839. In the land-tax roll of 1812 his half-farm was valued at 738 francs, the second holding of the commune by value. Beside it stood Heinrich Brand’s half-farm, number 2, at 560 francs; the half-farm of Johann Heinrich Conrad Sporleder, number 3, at 747 francs; and Heinrich Sagebiel’s, number 4, at 544 francs. The earliest file to name him dates from 1819 to 1820, when Christian Brand, half farmer at Linse, was acting with Carl Becker, full farmer at Lüerdissen, as guardian of the children of the late Christian Grupe, half farmer at Lüerdissen.
The couple had six children, recorded without a gap from their marriage to 1822, when the mother was thirty-nine.
| Child | Birth | Death | Married |
|---|---|---|---|
| Johann August Christian | 9 June 1805, Linse | 29 or 30 March 1822, Linse, aged 16 (probably) | |
| Johanne Caroline Wilhelmine | 16 July 1809, Linse; baptized 19 July | 12 March 1852, Linse | Heinrich Christian Ludewig Wesemann, 16 July 1832 |
| Hanne Wilhelmine Charlotte | 14 March 1812, Linse | ||
| Justine Wilhelmine Friederike | 21 April 1815, Linse; baptized 30 April | about 15 July 1840, Rühle, aged 25 | Carl Conrad Anton Dörries, 29 November 1838 |
| Heinrich Friedrich Christian | 18 June 1818, Linse; baptized 28 June | Dorothea Luise Friederike Wesemann, 24 June 1846 | |
| Heinrich Ludwig Wilhelm | 12 June 1822, Linse; baptized 23 June | 3 February 1847, Linse, of a chest illness | unmarried |
The two sons born in 1818 and 1822 are almost certainly the couple’s; the others are named with these parents in their own entries. Hanne Wilhelmine Charlotte has no marriage or burial at Linse to 1875. Justine married Carl Conrad Anton Dörries, master miller at Rühle, son of the Rühle master miller Carl Dörries and Luise Ohm, at Linse on 29 November 1838; she died at Rühle a year and seven months later and was buried quietly. Heinrich Ludwig Wilhelm was buried on 6 February 1847.
Caroline Charlotte Sporleder died at Linse on 26 December 1847, of a swelling (Geschwulst), and was buried quietly on the 29th. Her death entry gives her birth as 17 May 1782 and calls her the wife of “the half farmer and retired farmer (Leibzüchter) Heinrich Christian Brand of Linse”. He had handed over the farm by then. “Heinrich Christian Brand, formerly half farmer, latterly cottager, retired farmer at Linse, widower,” died at Linse on 3 March 1856 and was buried quietly on the 6th, “born 5 December 1780”; he was probably George’s grandfather.
Two men named Heinrich Christian Brand were half farmers at Linse in the same years, and they must be kept apart. One married Caroline Charlotte Sporleder in 1804 and held farm 1; he was George’s grandfather. The other married Christiane Grupe of Lüerdissen and held farm 2. This book calls them the Sporleder and the Grupe households. No document says how the two men were related, but both were probably sons of Christoph Brand, baptized in 1773 and 1780. No man had a daughter by a Sporleder wife in July 1809 and a son by a Grupe wife in October 1810, and the deaths of 1847 settle it: one Heinrich Christian Brand was dead by December 1847, and the other was alive that month, retired. “Heinrich Christian Brand, half farmer,” died at Linse on 3 March 1823, aged forty-nine, and was buried with full ceremony on 7 March; he was probably the son of 1773 and the Grupe husband, whose widow married again in February 1824. The two men died on the same day of the year, thirty-three years apart.
The Grupe household’s children were George’s mother’s first cousins.
| Child | Birth | Death | Married |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heinrich Christian | 2 October 1810, Linse; baptized 5 October | 22 December 1847, Linse (probably) | unmarried |
| Heinrich Christoph | 5 October 1811, Linse (probably of this couple) | ||
| Carl Friederich Wilhelm | 29 December 1813, Linse; baptized 1 January 1814 | probably 20 January 1853, Linse | |
| Hanne Caroline Louise | 29 July 1816, Linse; baptized 5 August | Johann Heinrich Conrad Meyer, October 1836 | |
| Hanne Justine Caroline | 12 December 1818 by her marriage, 20 December by the baptism as read, Linse (probably) | Johann Heinrich Carl Ludewig Vagebiel, September 1843 | |
| Heinrich Friedrich Ludewig | 9 October 1821, Linse | probably December 1851, Linse |
The mother, Christiane Grupe, was 21 in 1810, 23 in 1811 and 25 in 1813. Carl Becker of Dielmissen and Christian Brand stood together at the baptism of the son of 1813, as they did later as guardians of the Grupe orphans, and two godfathers named Carl fit a son named Carl. The child born in 1821 was entered as a daughter, Hanne Louise Wilhelmine. On 5 September 1852 the Halle pastor wrote beside the entry that, by a decree of the Ducal Consistory at Wolfenbüttel of August 1852, the child was a son, and the names were to be changed to Heinrich Friedrich Ludewig. He was probably the Heinrich Friedrich Ludewig Brand, prospective full farmer at Dielmissen, who married at Linse in December 1851, both his parents then dead. Their mother, the widow of the half farmer Heinrich Brand, married Johann Heinrich Ferdinand Kreuzhausen of Dielmissen on 12 February 1824. The unmarried Heinrich Christian, “son of the late half farmer Heinrich Christian Brand and the late Christiane Grupe,” died at Linse on 22 December 1847 of breathlessness and swelling and was buried on the 26th. A boy recorded as Heinrich Brand’s son was buried at Linse on 23 October 1810 aged three weeks, which fits the child of 1810; that the man who died in 1847 was the child of 1810 is still probable.
Other Brand households lived in Linse and Halle and are not part of this line: a Brand family of full farmers and innkeepers at Halle, on record from 1759 into the twentieth century, never stood godparent with the Linse Brands; and a sexton Heinrich Brand had a child born at Halle on 18 December 1810.
References
- Halle Kirchenbuch “Taufen Beerdigungen 1800–1814” (04-03075, churchRegister 390649, 188 images) and “Trauungen 1800–1808” (04-03076, churchRegister 390650), Kirchenkreis Bodenwerder, Archion online viewer. Also: Trauungen, Jg. 1804, Nr. 3 (Brand–Sporleder); Begrabene, Jg. 1803, Nr. 36 (Bild 167, written p. 310, the Brünig child) and Jg. 1800, Nr. 24 (Johanne Marie Brand); Begrabene, Jg. 1804, Nr. 27 (Bild 170, the Mittelmüller infant); Taufen, Jg. 1805, Nr. 21, Jg. 1809, Nrs. 16 and 17 (Bild 96, written p. 187), Jg. 1810, Nr. 36 (Bild 110), Jg. 1812, Nr. 20 and Jg. 1813, Nr. 36. The volume has no surname index of its own; images 185 to 188 run to an Ende marker. Also Begrabene, Jg. 1805, Bild 172, Nr. 18 (the Leibzüchter Johann Heinrich Waßmann, 29 November 1805, aged 76). Also: Trauungen 1800–1808, Bilder 3–20 (every entry), Bild 14, p. 22, entry 1 (the 1803 marriage of Ludewig Wesemann and Justine Marie Küster) and Bild 18, p. 31, entry 5 (the 1807 marriage of Friedrich Wilhelm Brand and Caroline Louise Wesemann); Taufen, Bild 87 (1808), Bild 109, no. 33 (8 August 1810) and Bild 143, no. 31 (20 November 1813). Also: Trauungen 1800–1808 (390650), 1804 no. 3; Begrabene, Bild 167, 1803 no. 35 (Georg Ludwig Sporleder); Taufen, Bild 100 (1810 nos. 1 and 2) and Bild 129 (1812 no. 20); the baptisms of August 1809 – 1814 (about Bild 94–152).
- NLA WO, 91 Neu, Fb. 3, Ablösung files for Linse: Nr. 2645 (1839–41, 2 vols.), “Ablösung des Meierzinses, den der Halbmeier Heinrich Christian Brand Nr. ass. 1 zu Linse an das v. d. Wense’sche Gut zu Bodenwerder zu entrichten…”, the Meierzins owed by the Halbmeier Heinrich Christian Brand of Nr. ass. 1 to the v. d. Wense’sche Gut at Bodenwerder; Nr. 1779 (1838), the Kleinköter Heinrich Seelemeyer of Nr. ass. 17 owing to Halbmeier Chr. Brand und Frau; Nr. 1785 (1838), Halbrock, Köter und Müller, Nr. ass. 11, owing to the Domänenamt Wickensen.
- Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, Abteilung Wolfenbüttel: NLA WO, 13 W Nr. 1690, Aufn. 045–046 (the valuation of the commune of Linse, 6 December 1811), and 13 W Nr. 1747, Aufn. 0282–0287 (the land-tax roll of the Canton Eschershausen, 1812, Commune Linse), Arcinsys online viewer.
- NLA WO, 30 Neu, Nr. 1525 (1819–20), “Carl Becker, Vollmeier in Lüerdissen, und Christian Brand, Halbmeier in Linse, als Vormünder der Kinder des verstorbenen Christian Grupe, Halbmeier…”, guardianship of the children of the late Christian Grupe, Halbmeier of Lüerdissen, with Christian Brand, Halbmeier of Linse, and Carl Becker, Vollmeier of Lüerdissen, as guardians.
- Linse Kirchenbuch 1815–1853 (signature 04-03142, churchRegister 390716) and Linse Kirchenbuch 1854–1875, Kirchenkreis Bodenwerder, Archion online viewer. Full variant-name sweep of images 2–90 of the earlier volume, producing 29 hits and the bound-in W surname index at image 89; high-resolution reading of the 1832 marriage and baptism, the 1855, 1858 and 1861 death entries, and the 1857 baptism, 30–31 August 2026. Transcriptions:); the 1832 infant death (Verstorbene, Jg. 1832, Nr. 2); the 1838 stillbirth (Geborene, Jg. 1838, Nr. 10 and the unnumbered row following, Bild 27, written pp. 46–47); the 1846 marriage (Proclamierte und Copulierte, Jg. 1846, Nr. 1, Bild 58, written p. 149); the 1847 deaths (Verstorbene, Jg. 1847, Nrs. 1, 3 and 4); the 1852 death of Hanne Caroline Wilhelmine Waßemann geborene Brand (Verstorbene, Jg. 1852, Nr. 1, Bild 81, written p. 194); the volume’s own alphabetical surname index at written p. c. 197, Bild 83, B section read in full; and, in the 1854–1875 volume, the 1855, 1858 and 1861 deaths (Bild 46, 47 and 48, written pp. 215, 217 and 219) and the 1858 Leßing marriage (Trauungen, Jg. 1858, Nr. 3, Bild 35). Also, in Linse 390716: Bild 6 (1817 no. 3, the godparents of Dorothea Louise Friederike Wesemann), Bild 9 (1820 no. 2), Bild 10 (1822 no. 1), Bild 30 (1841 no. 6, the godmother Amalie Lüders née Küster) and Bilder 48–57 (the marriages of 1815–1841). Also, in Linse 390716: Bild 4–11, written pp. 2–15 (the baptisms of 1815 – January 1823, with 1815 no. 4, 1816 no. 2, 1818 nos. 2 and 4, 1821 no. 2 and the margin note of 5 September 1852 beside it, Bild 10, p. 13, and 1822 no. 2); Bild 14–19 (the godparents of 1827–1832); Bild 30 (1841 no. 8); Bild 33–46 (the baptisms of 1843–1853), with Bild 38 (1847 no. 3), 40 (1848 no. 2), 42 (1850 no. 1) and 46 (1852 no. 5); Bild 50–62 (the marriages of 1824, 1836, 1838, 1843, 1851 and 1853); Bild 64 (1817 burials, no. 1, written p. 161); Bild 66 (1822 no. 3 and 1823 no. 2, written p. 164); Bild 76–81 (the burials of 1847–1852, with the 1852 death re-read on enlarged crops). In Linse 390717: Bild 36 (1859 baptisms, no. 1); Bild 46–57 (the burials of 1854–1875, with 1855 and 1856 no. 2, Bild 46–47); the volume’s W index. Also, in Linse 390716: Bild 69 (the burials of 1830, no. 1, written p. 171). In Linse 390717: the marriage section of 1854–1875, read entry by entry.
- Rühle Kirchenbuch 1815–1839 (churchRegister 390750) and Kirchenbuch 1840–1859 (churchRegister 390751), Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evangelisch-lutherischen Landeskirche Hannovers, Kirchenkreis Bodenwerder, Archion online viewer: 390750, Bild 128, p. 302, 1838 no. 9 (the marriage of Carl Conrad Anton Dörries and Justine Wilhelmine Friederike Brand); 390751, the burial of July 1840 and the remarriage of March 1841. Also 390751: Bild 143, p. 311 (the burials of 1840, no. 16), Bild 117, p. 239 (the marriages of 1841, no. 2), and Bild 84, p. 162 (the baptism of Carl Franz Dörries, 1854, no. 11).
- Arcinsys, Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, the Halle Brand households: NLA WO, 40 Slg, Nr. 8695 (1759); 7 Alt, Fb. 2 Va Nr. 717 (1791); 130 Neu, 3 Nr. 1381 (1837); 91 Neu, Fb. 3 Nr. 5605 (1845–46, 2 vols.); 35 Neu, Nr. 2129 (1862–63), “Gastwirt und Frachtfuhrmann Conrad Brand, Halle./. Ither Hütte, Linse…”; 130 Neu, 3 Nr. 1756 (1903); 40 Neu 4, Nr. 1520 (1894–1907); NLA HA, Nds. 171 Hildesheim, Nr. 47827 and Nr. 37707 (1947–49).
- Halle Kirchenbuch “Taufen Beerdigungen 1766–1799” (churchRegister 390648, 286 images), Kirchenkreis Bodenwerder, Archion online viewer; with the register’s own surname index at Bild 205. Transcriptions:); Bilder 101–102 (the baptisms of September 1785 – March 1786); Bild 104, no. 15 (1786); Bild 113, no. 27 (1788); Bild 117, no. 14 (15 March 1789); Bild 144, no. 12 (25 April 1793); Bild 156 (30 November 1794); Bild 174, no. 8 (12 March 1797); Bild 182, no. 16 (1798); Bild 196, no. 34 (25 September 1799); Bild 250, nos. 7 and 10 (the burials of 1783). Also: Bild 4, 12, 22, 35, 45, 55, 70, 81, 93 and 116 (the baptisms of the children of Johann Christoph Brand and Anne Catharina Voges, 1766–1789); Bild 75, no. 18 (1779), Bild 89, no. 25 (20 May 1782) and Bild 100, no. 20 (1785), the Sporleder baptisms; Bild 176 (10 July 1797); Bild 207, 215, 226, 238, 270 and 271 (the Brand burials of 1766, 1768, 1773, 1777 and 1792, with 1792 no. 37); Bild 222–223 (the Sagebiel and Marahrens burials of 1771–1772); Bild 232, no. 9 (the burial of Franz Heinr. Brand, 1775); the Sagebiel burials of 1768–1771 and baptisms of 1773–1774.