Hello there:
I am looking for the origins of my family branch. (Sorry for writing in English; mein Deutsch is nicht zu fein, also...)
All I know about my great-great-great-grandfather Johann Kiesewalter is that he came to St. Petersburg in Russia from Libau (Lettland) at the end of the 18th century. He was an organist in some Evangelical/Lutheran church in Petersburg, and he lived a pretty short life, approximately between 1770 and 1805 (with a 10-year margin of error, I believe). He had a wife Daria (Dorothea?) and two sons: Eduard Karl (1794?-1857) und Konstantin (?-?). However, I have no information about his origin, whether he was born in Libau or somewhere in Silezia, or elsewhere. So, I would be very much obliged if anyone, who has access to church documents and has ever come across this name of Johann Kiesewalter pertaining to the aforementioned period, could let me know about any facts or hypotheses.
Thanks a lot in advance.
Cheers,
George Kiesewalter
Guelph, ON
Canada
kisewalter@sympatico.ca schrieb:
All I know about my great-great-great-grandfather Johann Kiesewalter is that he came to St. Petersburg in Russia from Libau (Lettland) at the end of the 18th century. He was an organist in some Evangelical/Lutheran church in Petersburg, and he lived a pretty short life, approximately between 1770 and 1805 (with a 10-year margin of error, I believe). He had a wife Daria (Dorothea?) and two sons: Eduard Karl (1794?-1857) und Konstantin (?-?). However, I have no information about his origin, whether he was born in Libau or somewhere in Silezia, or elsewhere. So, I would be very much obliged if anyone, who has access to church documents and has ever come across this name of Johann Kiesewalter pertaining to the aforementioned period, could let me know about any facts or hypotheses.
Hello George,
there is indeed some reason for such a supposition. The name origin seems to be the village of Kiesewald (Michalowice), now part of Petersdorf (Piechowice), district of Hirschberg (Jelenia Gora) in Lower Silesia (Poland), which is quite near to the Czech border. So the Silesian IGI events of the names KIESEWALTER in Flinsberg (5 km southwest of Kiesewald) and KIESEWALD in Hirschberg (13 km northeast of Kiesewald) as early as 1702 might point to the source. I would suppose that your organist came from a town and not from a village and suggest to have a look at the early (1709-1880) evangelic parish registers of Hirschberg. But of couse this must not necessarily proof the descendance.
A Karl Gottfried KIESEWALTER was teacher in Berthelsdorf, district of L�bau-Zittau, Saxony, from 1821 to 1825 (a teacher was quite similar to an organist and Berthelsdorf a center of radical protestantism - "Schwenckfelder", who emigrated from Silesia and partially joined the "Herrnhuter Br�dergemeinde").
Good luck,
Guenther Boehm
Lieber Guenther Boehm,
Vielen Dank fuer Ihre Hilfe!
Gruss,
George Kiesewalter