Alt family of Bannerod, Germany and possibly Steinalben

[tenterfieldjulie]

I have been looking at my Alt family again because this is my family on the 5xggpt thread this week. What I found was that when Ralph Alt wrote his book in 1989 on my Alt Family, he wrote that Christoph Alt of Bannerod, Hessen-Darmstadt (1783-1844) married his 2nd wife Anna Margareta Ruhl on 20 November 1817 at Neider Moos, Germany and that Christoph Alt’s parents were Johannes Heinrich Alt and Anna Marie Dahmer. There is no further information on earlier generations in his book. Ralph only wrote information of which he had documentary proof and he is now deceased.
Recently I found a public tree on Ancestry which has a lot on a further two generations of Alts, supposedly ancestors of Christoph, living mainly at Steinalben, Sudwestpfalz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany: Johannes Heinrich Alt’s father, Johann Nikolaus Alt, his parents Marx Alt and Anna Juliana Stahl. Johannes Heinrich Alt’s mother, Maria Elizabetha Oster who married J. Nikolaus Alt in 1752 at Horbach Catholic Church.
What is concerning and confusing is that this tree has Johannes Heinrich Alt married to Anna Margareta Ruhl at Moos, Amberg-Sulzbach and Ralph has this lady as Christoph Alt’s 2nd wife not his mother.
The following is what was on the public tree.
Johann Nikolaus Alt – (Parents: Marx Alt and Anna Juliana Stahl)
Born 23 Jan 1728 in Steinalben, Sudwestpfalz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Died 2 July 1769 Steinalben, Sudwestpfalz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Married 18 July 1752 Horbach Catholic Church
Maria Elisabetha Oster -
Born 1733 in Hermersberg, Hohenlohekreis, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany
Death 1776 in Steinalben, Sudwestpfalz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Children:
Anna Barbara Born & Died Steinalben Germany 1753-1755;
Maria Elisabetha Born Waldfischbach 1755 died Steinalben 1806;
Anna Maria Born & Died Steinalben 1757-1803;
Maria Barbara Born Steinalben 1760;
Johannes (Johann) Heinrich Alt – 5 April 1765 Steinalben, Germany
Johann Adam Born Steinalben 1767;
Maria Magdalena Born Steinalben 1768.

Any thoughts or suggestions as to how to disprove any of the above would be really appreciated. Julie

[kiterunner]

There isn't much German stuff available online, so I guess you would need to contact the tree owner to ask them if they can share their documents with you, or pay a researcher to check the info in the local record office for that area or go there yourself. But you could check what is on FamilySearch in case they have anything from that area - they do have some German stuff which hasn't been indexed yet and has to be browsed.

[tenterfieldjulie]

Thanks Kate.
I thought my cousin was going to check with the tree owner, so I will need to follow that up.
Next step is to find out how to purchase Christoph Alt's 1817 marriage record and prove for certain the facts that Ralph put in his book.
I was thinking last year, that I need to obtain film from the Mormons, (a problem will be that it will be written in German.) In order to do this I purchased last year, a book which is a map guide to the German Parish Registers for the Grandduchy of Hessen by Kevin M. Hansen and was printed in 2004. I need to study it in detail, as there are different maps for the Catholic and Lutheran parishes, it is a very different system to the UK, Irish or Australian.
From the family tree on Ancestry I don't like the distances between Bannerod, Steinalben and Horbach, as they are in opposite directions from Frankfurt, but maybe the German's were a lot more mobile.
I know that while Johann Heinrich owned land at Bannerod, they were very poor and Christoph and his brother trained as man servants and did compulsory military service for the Hessen archduchy.