The Mensch Family

The Mensch line connects with the LeBert line and thus the and thus the Paradice line through Louisa Mensch who married Richard LeBert.

The earliest verified Mensch ancestor is Valentine Mensch (about 1782¹-1848²), who arrived at the port of New York in 1834, accompanied by his wife and ten of his children. Although they were Germans, the family sailed from La Havre, France.¹ Finding their place of origin proved challenging.

The challenges stemmed from shifting political boundaries, the fact that several German towns have the same name, and the existence of local place names that can be similar or identical to the names of towns hundreds of kilometers distant. Various U.S. census records showed family members as having been born in Prussia, Bavaria, and even Alsace. A partial breakthrough occurred when a researcher published an account stating that his ancestor, a daughter of Valentine, was born in Neunkirchen. However, there are at least three Neunkirchens in modern Germany. Other online family trees showed Valentine Mensch as coming from “Faulenberger Hof, Neunkirchen,” or simply Faulenberg (two different places). The final breakthrough came with finding the christening record of Josephus Aloysius Wilmer, one of Valentine’s grandsons, which stated that Josephus’ mother was born in Saarbruck.³ There is a Neunkirchen about 20 km from Saarbruck (Saarbrücken). This is the place where Valentine Mensch was married⁴ and presumably where he was born.

Online genealogies, most notably that of Horst Klein, show that Georg Valentin Mensch was born in Neunkirchen, Saarland and was the son of Johannes Mensch (1748-1808) and grandson of Johann Nikolaus Mensch (1717-1793).⁵ Although this line has not been verified,[1] it suggests a connection to an interesting piece of local history and an explanation of the genealogies that refer to Faulenberg.

Hofgut Menschenhaus is a destination restaurant in Neunkirchen that used to be the house of a family farm. It takes its name from the surname of its builder, Johann Nikolaus Mensch, whose family ran the farm for 140 years. Holda Schulten wrote a history of Hofgut Menschenhaus, which at one point appeared on the restaurant’s website.

According to this history,⁶ the Mensch farm was located on a piece of land called “Am Faulenberg” or “Am Füllenberg.” These are local names (flurnamen or “field names”) that appear in the border descriptions of the municipality of Spiesen, to which Faulenberg belonged from 1538 to 1974. The historical border between Prussia and the Bavarian Palatinate, and the earlier border between Zwelbrücken and Nassau-Saarbrücken, rule ran through the Faulenberg. For a long time, the meadows of Menschenhaus lay on Bavarian soil and the fields on Prussian soil.

The rulers of Nassau-Saarbrücken had a high fence erected through the forest along the border to prevent deer from escaping into Zwelbrücken territory. On the road between Neunkirchen and Kirkel there was a folding gate in the fence. It was guarded and operated by a gatekeeper or game warden. In 1754, Johann Nikolaus Mensch (“Nikolaus “) became the gate keeper.

Prince Wilhelm Heinrich of Nassau-Saarbrücken-Otweiler decided to build a a hunting lodge and pleasure palace in Neunkirchen that became the baroque castle “Jägersberg.” As a result, many foreign and domestic craftsmen settled in the area. Among them was Nikolaus Mensch, who originally was a carpenter. Johann Nikolaus was born in 1717 in Homberg (Glan) and moved from Nabollenbach near Ider-Oberstein. Subsequently, he came to the Saar to work on constructing the prince’s castle.

After construction of the castle was complete, Nikolaus Mensch took over the position of gatekeeper. He restored the crumbling gatehouse, converting it to a simple dwelling. Apparently pleased with his various services, the prince gave him permission to clear a larger forest plot (about 22 acres) on the Faulenberg and live there as a tenant farmer. The new farm consisted of half-timbered huts, simple stable, and simple scourers. It was given as an “inheritance,” which meant that by paying rent, the descendants of Johann Nikolaus Mensch could keep the cleared land and continue to bequeath it. However, the land could not be divided. The name of the farm first appears in the baptismal register of the local church as the “Neuhof am dem Weltmesser.”[2]

Johann Nikolaus died in 1793, the year when the last prince of Nassau-Saarbrücken managed to escape from his hunting lodge as French revolutionary troops invaded the area. Johann Nikolaus had already ceded the farm to his son Johann in 1776.

 

Source Citations

 

     1.  "Year: 1834; Arrival: New York, New York," online images, Ancestry.com (http://home.ancestry.com : accessed 18 Mar 2014), manifest, Asia, 26 May 1834.

     2.  Erie, New York, Estate Papers, 1800-1929, Case 15074-15121, Valentine Mensch, Case Number 15086; digital images, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, FamilySearch [Online} https://familysearch.org : accessed 20 Mar 2014.

    3.  "New York, Births and Christenings, 1640-1962," entry for Joh. Joseph Wittmer. GS Film number:928696, Reference ID: Pg. 21, #83.  Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Family Search, [Online] https://familysearch.org/. Accessed 21 Jun 2022.

     4.  Ancestry.com, "Saarland, Germany, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1776-1875," Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016, Entry for Valentin Mensch and Margt Walzer.

    5.  Family tree by horstklein. [Online} https://gw.geneanet.org/horstklein?lang=en&pz=horst&nz=klein&p=georg+valentin& n=mensch. Accessed 2 April 2024.

    6.  Schulten, H. (undated). Geschichte des Hofguts Menschhausen: Chronik der forstbäuerlichen Familie Mensch. [Online] https://www.hvsn.de/index.php/presse/presseartikel/geschichte-des-hofgutes-menschenhaus. Accessed 19 Jun 2022.

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[1] The author has communicated with Mr. Klein, who was unable to provide his sources but assured me that he had seen the original birth and marriage records and was confident about his conclusions.

[2] The name Weltmesser is derived from the middle German Welt = pasture and Messua = moss. Thus, it refers to a moss and a swamp area consisting of pastures.