Ancestors of the Guelders' Stapels came from Pomerania.
(home = www.cstapel.nl)
Johan Hendrik (I) from Guelders´ Gendt is our earliest Stapel ancestor through connected certificates. Unlike his younger brothers and sisters his birth is not registered in Gendt's archives. His parents David Stapel and Anna Margaretha Böge, as her name was written in Hulhuizen, are mentioned as parents in Roman Catholic Hulhuizen and in five Nederduits Reformed birth certificates in nearby Gendt, but their own birth or marriage are not registered there. Apparently they did not come from these parts, as indicated too by the strikethrough in Jan Hendrik's marriage certificate.
All three are included though in a Church-book of Eickel, then a farming community of ±300 souls near Gelsenkirchen (G). The lines below so seamlessly match the Stapel family in Gendt that we may assume with great confidence that these are the oldest known certificates on the Guelder's Stapels:
Churchbook, Evangelic Church Eickel,
District Gelsenkirchen (G)
Images from a film kept by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: GS Film 469947, Batch M 97158-1.
MARRIAGE REGISTER 1747-1809 Marriages 1755,5. the 26th July David Stapel from Pomerania with Anna Gedruth Böger
BAPTISMAL REGISTER 1747-1819 Births 1758, 13. the 7th March Johann Henrich. parents David Stapel and Marg. N.
This means that David Stapel originated from Pomerania and came with wife and firstborn son from Eickel to Gendt:
- The births of Johann Henrich in Eickel, Joanna Maria in Hulhuizen and most children in Gendt line up well with steady intervals of 20 to 30 months.
- Both in Eickel and on arrival in Gendt they are the only Stapel and Böger in the Church-Books; David´s wife too must have been born elsewhere.
- Remarkably, the birth certificate names her Marg. N. in the same handwriting naming her Böger when she married. Like in Gendt her name was Margaretha, call name Greetje, confused with Geertje and Gedruth when she married. But the N for Böger seems to state that she no longer was a church member, probably due to her Roman Catholic sympathies. Shortly after Johann Henrich´s birth David and Margaretha must have left for Gendt in the Lower Countries, where they were not confirmed as church members either. Their two faiths made them outsiders in both religious communities.
Pomerania, from Slavic "po more", means "on sea" or "Sealand". David's Pomerania bordered nearly 500 km Baltic shores from Rostock all the way to Gdansk, with half a million inhabitants and the size of Belgium today. It consisted of Western Pomerania, now German, and of Farther Pomerania, declared Polish in 1945. According to his Eickeler marriage certificate David Stapel came from there, but Church-Books covering his birth, his parents and other family can no longer be found there. Still available and even online accessible is the Evangelic Lutheranian Church-Book 1820-1874 of Faulenbenz, then a 12 km2 hamlet of not quite fifty fireplaces, renamed Eichenwalde in 1886 and Dębice in 1945, a three hour's walk south of Naugard (Nowogard). Image 81 of that book shows a name which in the earlier Netherlands I mainly saw in most generations of Guelders' Stapels 1) and in 18th century's Prussia in Eickel alone: "David Stapel, retired farmer and village bailiff, aged 91 year, died in 1842".
The name David Stapel on the European continent is a strong indicator for a family tie with Guelders' Stapels, certainly until mid twentiest century.
Over a hundred Faulenbenz' Stapels have been registered in this Church-Book and just like those in Gendt they often had double or triple baptismal names taken from contemporary royalties. At its very end, in 1874 the birth is registred of Paul Emil Erich Stapel, who as a civil servant in Leipzich had to put in his "Aryan statement" late 1933. He therefore asked the reverent Bergin to find out his family tree, which today is kept, together with the related correspondence, at the "Geheimes Staatsarchiv" Berlin. At that time Bergin could still refer to 18th century Faulenbenz Churchbooks and found the birth of the above David (1751-1842) as the earliest Stapel related entry. He also found an elder brother Michael (1749-1808) as well as a younger brother Daniel (1753-?). Their parents were David Stapel (1705-1772) and Sophie Blode (1717-1805), who came to Faulenbenz after Michael's birth to become the founders of this large Stapel family. Bergin thought they might have come from nearby Alt Damerow, but he was unable to confirm this, after its Churchbooks got lost in a rectory fire.
David from Gendt fits uncomfortably in this family and only in the improbable case that the 18 year old Sophie Blode gave birth to him in 1735, that he ran away from home fifteen years of age before or when they moved to Faulenbenz and that he was imagined dead soon enough to name a second son after David in 1751. Even so, it seems odd that no children were mentioned between 1735 and 1749, but they would have been registered in Faulenbenz only when they married or died there and the reverent Bergin may have limited the family tree search deliberately to male offspring.
Yet, all data together provide a sound basis for various possible connections between the Guelders' Stapels and those around Naugard in Pomerania.
Was he a nephew, then his father's name very likely was Johann, Wilhelm or Friedrich, judging from baptismal names given in Faulenbenz and Gendt. Considering the simple pure biblical names Michael, David and Daniel of his contemporary relatives, the name Johann seems the best fitting one.
Were he a great nephew, then his father could have been named David again, such as the colonist David Stapel living in Neu Carbe in 1763 (see below).
Church and State were well interwoven then and apart from a personal faith, religion was as much of a general and political factor. Farther Pomerania knew only 3% RC inhabitants then, so chances are that David only met his wife on his way to Eickel, more so when he ran away from home as a 15-year old lad. Mixed marriages were specially problematic there, after the banning in 1731 of all Salzburg protestants. Twelve thousand of them travelled a thousand km in mid winter across Europe to Pomerania where King Frederick William I of Prussia offered them hospitality, hoping that they would help it prosper again after its depopulation by the plague a few decades before. The Stapels in Faulenbenz took no part in this migration: Their family tree goes back to 1705 without mentioning it. Also Stapel is not included in a list of 3400 surnames of Pomeranian immigrants from Salzburg. Stapel farmers seem to have been living in this part of Pomerania since 1568, as detailed below under the heading "Colonists".
When and why David left Pomerania for Gendt is not known; the only documented part of his route to Gendt is his three years stay in Eickel, where he married and became a father. When he were indeed the son of David (*1705) and Sophie, running away from them as a 15 year old lad, then incompatible charachters are likely to have motivated him, making it probable that he met his wife-to-be only near Eickel. When he were his (great) nephew then he may have left Pomerania somewhat older and could have acquainted the Roman Catholic Anna Margaretha Böger before. Then they may have left together when her belief was too incompatible with his status at home. So, we do not know where David and Anna Margaretha Böger actually met. Her own name Margaretha and that of her daughter Catharina were not used by the Stapels in Faulenbenz; these and her RC sympathies likely came from the Bögers.
Anna Margaretha Böger was a common name, but RC namesakes born between 1725 and 1737 and not yet married are difficult to find, the more while Böger may be spelled in at least 24 different ways on internet (ö, o, oe, oi, eu, ue ± r, rs or n). On the Familysearch website a namesake can be identified in Baden, even with a mother Catharina, but her religion is not mentioned and Baden was for David a long detour to the west.
Faulenbenz or Eichenwalde, the farmers hamlet where possibly his parents but never David Stapel from Gendt himself ever lived, was renamed Dębice after WWII and doubled in size after Poland joined the European Union. On the right the DW106 south entry (Google Maps).
Stapels in Faulenbenz/Eichenwalde were farmers, living on and aroud a Vollbauernhof, a large farm in hereditary tenure. They often gave their children similar names as David and his (grand)children did in Gendt. From the Church-Book and from property contracts it appears that the Vollbauernhof was run by David (1751-1842), Johann David (1774-1850), Johann David (1808-1889) and Wilhelm Friedrich August Stapel (1837-1934) successively. They carried the titles Schulz and Gerichtsmann, like bailiff or burgomaster, titles always included in certificates and contracts. A few were stable- or wagonbuilder, potter or tailor. In between worldwars I and II Pomeranian directories still included some 70 Stapel households, but not one David. Directive 1939 lists Paul and Robert Stapel as the owners of the Faulenbenz Vollbauernhof, so it was managed by Stapels for nearly two centuries until WW II. The map of Farther Pomerania shows their presence in 1939, with 2 Stapels still included in Eichenwalde itself.
Pomeranians who did survive the war tried to flee ahead of the Russians to the west, but after in Potsdam July 1945 the Allies granted Farther Pomerania to Poland, over ten million remaining German speaking inhabitants yet were deported: the Heimatvertriebenen or displaced peoples.
Paul Emil Erich Stapel had three children, was a Leipziger insurance co. director from 1929 until retirement and died in 1958 as a GDR citizen, aged 84.
Colonists reclaimed the boggy belt along the Baltic Sea in the eleventh until the eighteenth century, sometimes called the "Ostcolonisation". Nobility in north eastern Europa was poor and ruled over even poorer, illiterate and mostly Slavic serfs. They invited Flemisch, Dutch and German colonists to reclaim the swamps and bring the land under cultivation, with their knowledge of canalization, watermanagement, development, fertilization and crop rotation. In exchange for the prosperity they so created, colonists were granted tax exemptions and land tenure. Envy of the original population forced them to live in clusters of several tens of fireplaces like in Faulenbenz, with their own security service. Even after seven centuries German speaking inhabitants yet were considered invaders, wittness the "heimatvertriebenen".
The "Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv" in Potsdam keeps a request dated 1763 from David Stapel, a colonist originating from Poland, then living in Neu Carbe, Friedeberg. His relationship with the Faulenbenz' Stapels yet is unclear, but the word "colonist" offers new views on the history of Guelders' and Pomeranian Stapels, more so because a.o. in Dębice (former Faulenbenz) there is still a part named "Kolonia", as above google-map shows. When Stapels ever started there as colonists, they may have come from the North Prussian plain or the Low Countries and who knows from one of the places named Stapel situated there. That may have been their starting point when, in between the twelfth and seventeenth century, they migrated eastward as colonists to harvest themselves a fortune in Pomerania, Poland or even Russia. Reverent Bergin found too that the land registry in nearby Falkenberg between 1568 and 1643 mentioned the farmers Peter, Marten and Jurgen Stapel respectively, names sounding more German-like than Dutch. Apparently the Faulenbenz' Stapels had permanently settled there already, as no single colonist is registered in their 19th century Church-Book, contrary to e.g. in Gollnow's. Others retired to their homeland with their savings, but there are no signs that David Stapel, on his way to Eickel and Gendt thought of his forefather's homeland as a final destination. His life story does make it clear though that he did not bring worldly riches with him.
1) I found two more early Stapels named David in the Netherlands, but their data do not fit the Stapel family in Gendt or any of the other Stapel families:
- David Stapel and Jenneken Rijcken sold to Geryt Hagens and his wife Jaexken Holtappels Sept. 16, 1613 the "White Unicorn", a house in the Hezelstraat Nijmegen (Guelderland).
Theoretically he or a descendant may have gone to Eastern Pomerania or Poland as a colonist, like more Dutchmen or Flemings did, but there is no corroborating evidence.
- David Stapel, born Sept. 13, 1733, sister Geertrudis born Sept. 16, 1729, both RC baptised in St Peter's church 's-Hertogenbosch, father Jacobus Stapel, mother Barbara Colet.
Name and birth fit David from Gendt, but origin, religion or their christian names do not. No further traces are available.
(home = www.cstapel.nl)
(home = www.cstapel.nl)Johan Hendrik (I) from Guelders´ Gendt is our earliest Stapel ancestor through connected certificates. Unlike his younger brothers and sisters his birth is not registered in Gendt's archives. His parents David Stapel and Anna Margaretha Böge, as her name was written in Hulhuizen, are mentioned as parents in Roman Catholic Hulhuizen and in five Nederduits Reformed birth certificates in nearby Gendt, but their own birth or marriage are not registered there. Apparently they did not come from these parts, as indicated too by the strikethrough in Jan Hendrik's marriage certificate.
All three are included though in a Church-book of Eickel, then a farming community of ±300 souls near Gelsenkirchen (G). The lines below so seamlessly match the Stapel family in Gendt that we may assume with great confidence that these are the oldest known certificates on the Guelder's Stapels:
Images from a film kept by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: GS Film 469947, Batch M 97158-1.
MARRIAGE REGISTER 1747-1809
Marriages 1755,5. the 26th July David Stapel from Pomerania with Anna Gedruth Böger
BAPTISMAL REGISTER 1747-1819
Births 1758, 13. the 7th March Johann Henrich. parents David Stapel and Marg. N.
This means that David Stapel originated from Pomerania and came with wife and firstborn son from Eickel to Gendt:
- The births of Johann Henrich in Eickel, Joanna Maria in Hulhuizen and most children in Gendt line up well with steady intervals of 20 to 30 months.
- Both in Eickel and on arrival in Gendt they are the only Stapel and Böger in the Church-Books; David´s wife too must have been born elsewhere.
- Remarkably, the birth certificate names her Marg. N. in the same handwriting naming her Böger when she married. Like in Gendt her name was Margaretha, call name Greetje, confused with Geertje and Gedruth when she married. But the N for Böger seems to state that she no longer was a church member, probably due to her Roman Catholic sympathies. Shortly after Johann Henrich´s birth David and Margaretha must have left for Gendt in the Lower Countries, where they were not confirmed as church members either. Their two faiths made them outsiders in both religious communities.
Pomerania, from Slavic "po more", means "on sea" or "Sealand". David's Pomerania bordered nearly 500 km Baltic shores from Rostock all the way to Gdansk, with half a million inhabitants and the size of Belgium today. It consisted of Western Pomerania, now German, and of Farther Pomerania, declared Polish in 1945. According to his Eickeler marriage certificate David Stapel came from there, but Church-Books covering his birth, his parents and other family can no longer be found there. Still available and even online accessible is the Evangelic Lutheranian Church-Book 1820-1874 of Faulenbenz, then a 12 km2 hamlet of not quite fifty fireplaces, renamed Eichenwalde in 1886 and Dębice in 1945, a three hour's walk south of Naugard (Nowogard). Image 81 of that book shows a name which in the earlier Netherlands I mainly saw in most generations of Guelders' Stapels 1) and in 18th century's Prussia in Eickel alone: "David Stapel, retired farmer and village bailiff, aged 91 year, died in 1842".
The name David Stapel on the European continent is a strong indicator for a family tie with Guelders' Stapels, certainly until mid twentiest century.
Over a hundred Faulenbenz' Stapels have been registered in this Church-Book and just like those in Gendt they often had double or triple baptismal names taken from contemporary royalties. At its very end, in 1874 the birth is registred of Paul Emil Erich Stapel, who as a civil servant in Leipzich had to put in his "Aryan statement" late 1933. He therefore asked the reverent Bergin to find out his family tree, which today is kept, together with the related correspondence, at the "Geheimes Staatsarchiv" Berlin. At that time Bergin could still refer to 18th century Faulenbenz Churchbooks and found the birth of the above David (1751-1842) as the earliest Stapel related entry. He also found an elder brother Michael (1749-1808) as well as a younger brother Daniel (1753-?). Their parents were David Stapel (1705-1772) and Sophie Blode (1717-1805), who came to Faulenbenz after Michael's birth to become the founders of this large Stapel family. Bergin thought they might have come from nearby Alt Damerow, but he was unable to confirm this, after its Churchbooks got lost in a rectory fire.
David from Gendt fits uncomfortably in this family and only in the improbable case that the 18 year old Sophie Blode gave birth to him in 1735, that he ran away from home fifteen years of age before or when they moved to Faulenbenz and that he was imagined dead soon enough to name a second son after David in 1751. Even so, it seems odd that no children were mentioned between 1735 and 1749, but they would have been registered in Faulenbenz only when they married or died there and the reverent Bergin may have limited the family tree search deliberately to male offspring.
Yet, all data together provide a sound basis for various possible connections between the Guelders' Stapels and those around Naugard in Pomerania.
Was he a nephew, then his father's name very likely was Johann, Wilhelm or Friedrich, judging from baptismal names given in Faulenbenz and Gendt. Considering the simple pure biblical names Michael, David and Daniel of his contemporary relatives, the name Johann seems the best fitting one.
Were he a great nephew, then his father could have been named David again, such as the colonist David Stapel living in Neu Carbe in 1763 (see below).
Church and State were well interwoven then and apart from a personal faith, religion was as much of a general and political factor. Farther Pomerania knew only 3% RC inhabitants then, so chances are that David only met his wife on his way to Eickel, more so when he ran away from home as a 15-year old lad. Mixed marriages were specially problematic there, after the banning in 1731 of all Salzburg protestants. Twelve thousand of them travelled a thousand km in mid winter across Europe to Pomerania where King Frederick William I of Prussia offered them hospitality, hoping that they would help it prosper again after its depopulation by the plague a few decades before. The Stapels in Faulenbenz took no part in this migration: Their family tree goes back to 1705 without mentioning it. Also Stapel is not included in a list of 3400 surnames of Pomeranian immigrants from Salzburg. Stapel farmers seem to have been living in this part of Pomerania since 1568, as detailed below under the heading "Colonists".
When and why David left Pomerania for Gendt is not known; the only documented part of his route to Gendt is his three years stay in Eickel, where he married and became a father. When he were indeed the son of David (*1705) and Sophie, running away from them as a 15 year old lad, then incompatible charachters are likely to have motivated him, making it probable that he met his wife-to-be only near Eickel. When he were his (great) nephew then he may have left Pomerania somewhat older and could have acquainted the Roman Catholic Anna Margaretha Böger before. Then they may have left together when her belief was too incompatible with his status at home. So, we do not know where David and Anna Margaretha Böger actually met. Her own name Margaretha and that of her daughter Catharina were not used by the Stapels in Faulenbenz; these and her RC sympathies likely came from the Bögers.
Anna Margaretha Böger was a common name, but RC namesakes born between 1725 and 1737 and not yet married are difficult to find, the more while Böger may be spelled in at least 24 different ways on internet (ö, o, oe, oi, eu, ue ± r, rs or n). On the Familysearch website a namesake can be identified in Baden, even with a mother Catharina, but her religion is not mentioned and Baden was for David a long detour to the west.
Faulenbenz or Eichenwalde, the farmers hamlet where possibly his parents but never David Stapel from Gendt himself ever lived, was renamed Dębice after WWII and doubled in size after Poland joined the European Union. On the right the DW106 south entry (Google Maps).
Stapels in Faulenbenz/Eichenwalde were farmers, living on and aroud a Vollbauernhof, a large farm in hereditary tenure. They often gave their children similar names as David and his (grand)children did in Gendt. From the Church-Book and from property contracts it appears that the Vollbauernhof was run by David (1751-1842), Johann David (1774-1850), Johann David (1808-1889) and Wilhelm Friedrich August Stapel (1837-1934) successively. They carried the titles Schulz and Gerichtsmann, like bailiff or burgomaster, titles always included in certificates and contracts. A few were stable- or wagonbuilder, potter or tailor. In between worldwars I and II Pomeranian directories still included some 70 Stapel households, but not one David. Directive 1939 lists Paul and Robert Stapel as the owners of the Faulenbenz Vollbauernhof, so it was managed by Stapels for nearly two centuries until WW II. The map of Farther Pomerania shows their presence in 1939, with 2 Stapels still included in Eichenwalde itself.
Pomeranians who did survive the war tried to flee ahead of the Russians to the west, but after in Potsdam July 1945 the Allies granted Farther Pomerania to Poland, over ten million remaining German speaking inhabitants yet were deported: the Heimatvertriebenen or displaced peoples.
Paul Emil Erich Stapel had three children, was a Leipziger insurance co. director from 1929 until retirement and died in 1958 as a GDR citizen, aged 84.
Colonists reclaimed the boggy belt along the Baltic Sea in the eleventh until the eighteenth century, sometimes called the "Ostcolonisation". Nobility in north eastern Europa was poor and ruled over even poorer, illiterate and mostly Slavic serfs. They invited Flemisch, Dutch and German colonists to reclaim the swamps and bring the land under cultivation, with their knowledge of canalization, watermanagement, development, fertilization and crop rotation. In exchange for the prosperity they so created, colonists were granted tax exemptions and land tenure. Envy of the original population forced them to live in clusters of several tens of fireplaces like in Faulenbenz, with their own security service. Even after seven centuries German speaking inhabitants yet were considered invaders, wittness the "heimatvertriebenen".
The "Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv" in Potsdam keeps a request dated 1763 from David Stapel, a colonist originating from Poland, then living in Neu Carbe, Friedeberg. His relationship with the Faulenbenz' Stapels yet is unclear, but the word "colonist" offers new views on the history of Guelders' and Pomeranian Stapels, more so because a.o. in Dębice (former Faulenbenz) there is still a part named "Kolonia", as above google-map shows. When Stapels ever started there as colonists, they may have come from the North Prussian plain or the Low Countries and who knows from one of the places named Stapel situated there. That may have been their starting point when, in between the twelfth and seventeenth century, they migrated eastward as colonists to harvest themselves a fortune in Pomerania, Poland or even Russia. Reverent Bergin found too that the land registry in nearby Falkenberg between 1568 and 1643 mentioned the farmers Peter, Marten and Jurgen Stapel respectively, names sounding more German-like than Dutch. Apparently the Faulenbenz' Stapels had permanently settled there already, as no single colonist is registered in their 19th century Church-Book, contrary to e.g. in Gollnow's. Others retired to their homeland with their savings, but there are no signs that David Stapel, on his way to Eickel and Gendt thought of his forefather's homeland as a final destination. His life story does make it clear though that he did not bring worldly riches with him.
1) I found two more early Stapels named David in the Netherlands, but their data do not fit the Stapel family in Gendt or any of the other Stapel families:
- David Stapel and Jenneken Rijcken sold to Geryt Hagens and his wife Jaexken Holtappels Sept. 16, 1613 the "White Unicorn", a house in the Hezelstraat Nijmegen (Guelderland).
Theoretically he or a descendant may have gone to Eastern Pomerania or Poland as a colonist, like more Dutchmen or Flemings did, but there is no corroborating evidence.
- David Stapel, born Sept. 13, 1733, sister Geertrudis born Sept. 16, 1729, both RC baptised in St Peter's church 's-Hertogenbosch, father Jacobus Stapel, mother Barbara Colet.
Name and birth fit David from Gendt, but origin, religion or their christian names do not. No further traces are available.
(home = www.cstapel.nl)