Familie Bertold, Pector, Bechtold oder Pechtold ?

Zum Ende des Monats März wurde in der Posen-L Nachrichtensammlung, ein Newsetter den ich regelmäßig verfolge, eine Fragestellung aufgerufen, die sofort mein gesamtes Interesse und meine Zeit in Anspruch nahmen. Nach langer Zeit wurden wieder einmal Personen mit bekanntem Namen – diesmal aus der Familie Pechtold – aus unseren Dörfern der Vorfahren, Hochkirch und Königsbrunn beschrieben und nach möglichen Verwandten  zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts gesucht. Es entwickelte sich eine lebhafte Diskussion, an der auch ich mich beteiligen konnte, um anfänglich auch zum weiteren Durcheinander meinen Beitrag zu liefern. Schnell stellte sich jedoch heraus, dass es sich in der Diskussion immer wieder um die gleiche Familie – Pechtold – handelte. Wie schon im Titel benannt, gab es jedoch in der Geschichte die unterschiedlichsten Schreibweisen dieses Familiennamens. Aus MV, aus NRW, aus BW, aus Brandenburg und auch aus den USA beteiligten sich Interessierte und Familienforscher an dieser regen Diskussion, mit dem Ergebnis, dass sich in der heutigen Zeit, dank dieser erneut geführten Runde, neue familiäre Verbindungen fanden, die mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit auf die beschriebene Familie "Johann Christoph Pechtold und Ehefrau Dorothea, geb. Staiben" aus Brötzingen bei Pforzheim zurückzuführen sind. Dort wurden sie geboren und heirateten auch dort 1753. Nach Max Miller: "Die Auswanderung der Württemberger" (S. 113 und 135) ist auch eine Familie mit fünf Personen um Christoph Pechtold als Auswanderer und niedergelassener Zinsbauer im Amt Strelno, in Stodoly (Hochkirch) im Jahr ihrer Ankunft 1781, dokumentiert. 

Durch die nun nochmals vorgenommenen Einsichten in die damaligen Kirchenbücher (es gibt tatsächlich einige Digitalisate davon), konnten trotz der vielen verschiedenen Varianten des Namens die Personen und Familien zugeordnet werden.

In der folgenden Zusammenfassung (leicht gekürzt) gibt mein Cousin, IV. Grades, John seine langjährigen Ergebnisse bei der Suche, seine Erfahrungen und Erlebnisse im Zusammenhang mit dem Namen Pechtold wieder.

Rainer Zobel 

Zusammenfassung meines Cousins: 

I look forward to any additional information that you might find, Rainer. I am very open minded about new or different information from what I might have. I am also very excited about researching my Pechtold ancestors again.

The information you presented inspired me to go back to the Baden indexes to re-think some information. One thing I found is that the Andreas Bechtold who married Magdalena Barbara Waldhauer would not only have been too young to be married in 1777, but in addition he was still in Baden having children in 1792, when the Andreas Pechtold in my family was already in Posen. Therefore, that can not be the same person.

In general, I have found that some of the oldest church records from Strelno are very difficult to read. The digitalized images of the records also show that some of the original book pages in Germany/Poland have torn and deteriorated. In some cases, only small, separated pieces of the pages remain. This makes it especially difficult to determine all children of parents who were born in the 1790's. The marriage records are not available to review until the records from 1820. This, combined with the variation of name spellings as documented by the ministers sometimes make establishing entire families and the correct family names very challenging. 

I have found that there were no regulated spellings of names in the past. In addition, ministers in their records often appeared to have spelled names phonetically, at least until a family name was established or until the family was better known to the minister. Family members also could not always read and write and may not have known what to tell a minister regarding the spelling of their name. I found an example of spelling variations of names in the Mecklenburg church records for my Ladwig and Leverenz families. In the earliest records, from 1678 until almost 1800, the minister in the church that the Ladwigs attended spelled the family name as "Ladig." It was also periodically spelled as "Ladick." Similarly, they spelled the name Hedwig as "Hedig." The name was spelled as "Ladewig" at times after that until the spelling of "Ladwig" was consistently written - beginning in about 1815. The variations of the name Leverenz make more sense, but it was spelled Lewerenz, Lewrenz, Leverenz and Lewerentz at various times. Then in this country, Leverence was sometimes seen in the church records.

Here is a summary of some my findings and thinking about the earliest records of the Pechtold family from Strelno: I just reviewed the actual earliest records that I have found from Strelno. I never noticed this before but Reverend Johann David Neander, who was the minister from 1791 - 1824 in Strelno, spelled the family name as Pector or Pechtor in every Pechtold entry in the records in 1791, the first year of records from the church, and there were four entries.

They were:

The baptism of Christian "Pechtor" on 15 June 1791. This was a son of Christian Friedrich Pechtold, 

brother of Christoph.                                                                                                 

The baptism of Sibilla "Pechtor," daughter of my ancestors Christoph and Dorothea "Heubergern" 

("Heÿberger") on 17 July 1791.                                                                                              

The burial of the above Christian "Pechtor" on 29 Aug 1791.                                                     

The baptism of Anna Maria "Pector" on 12 Nov 1791, the daughter of Andreas.

In the following year, 1792, Rev. Neander started spelling the name as Pechtold or a variation of it in the two entries from that year. They were:

The burial of Sibilla "Pechtoldtin" on 9 Feb 1792 - the Sibilla cited above.                                          

The baptism of Christoph "Pechtold" on 31 Dec 1792 - a son of my ancestors Christoph and Dorothea "Heilberger."

He spelled the name as Pechtold or a variation of that thereafter. 

Additional reasoning on my part for the family in Stodoly was based on the indexed records that I found from Baden. I found the indexed baptismal records for Christoph, Christian Friedrich, and Andreas Bechtold/Pechtold from the church in Brötzingen, Baden, as well as the baptisms and marriage records for their parents, Johann "Christoph" Bechtold and Dorothea Staiben. I found the records of the burials of the family in Strelno, and they match closely to the correct ages for each, including a variation of Dorothea's maiden name. It was cited as "Steibin" in Strelno.

A summary of the records from Brötzingen, with the spellings as per the index were:

The baptism of Johann Christoph Bechtold on 1 Mar 1731

The marriage of Johann Christoph Bechtold and Dorothea Staiben on 13 Mar 1753

The baptism of my ancestor, Christoph Bechtold on 24 Nov 1760

The baptisms of twins Christian Friedrich Bechtold and Andreas Bechtold on 28 Oct 1765

It all fits with the Pechtolds in Stodoly.

One last note. I was reviewing my notes again yesterday in preparation for the report and remembered that I had deduced that Christoph Pechtold (b. 1760) was probably not the Christoph Pechthold noted in Dr. Max Miller's book as the colonist locating in Stodoly. It was probably his father, Johann Christoph Pechtold (28 Feb 1731 - 17 Jan 1814). Although he was baptized Johann Christoph, and although the index of his marriage cites his name as Johann Christoph, his name was documented as just Christoph for the baptisms of all his children in Brötzingen. The entry for his burial in Strelno again documents his name as "Johann Christoph Pechtoldt."

John W. Ladwig