http://mctiernan.com/benhis.htm 4-8-08

The History of the Bender Family from Rettigheim & Mühlhausen, Baden, Germany

from c. 1595 on

There are 15 known generations in our Bender family line. The earliest known direct member of my Bender family is Adam Bender, <1595-->1638, who was born only two generations after Martin Luther who by nailing his objections on the church door triggered the Reformation which in turn caused a massive crack in the cultural wall of the German agrarian based society at the time of our earliest known ancestor.

Even though our Bender line emigrated from the small village of Mühlhausen, Baden almost all of our Bender ancestors are originally from the very small village of Rettigheim, Baden which is about 2 miles SW of Mühlhausen. The Bender family immigrants that came west ended up not only in Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota in America but also in Canada. The ones that went south ended up in Mexico, Chile and other parts of South America. The ones that went east ended up in Serbia and Hungary. The ones that went north ended up in Russia and Poland. Our ancestor 2.1.2.2.3.1.1.1. Elisabeth Fellhauer, nee Förderer holds the known travel record taking 96 days to cross the Atlantic by sailing ship to America in 1846.

It appears the first destination point for my line of the Bender family is Kimmswick, Rock Township, Jefferson CO, Missouri, right on the Mississippi River south of St. Louis. Many of the Benders and the Herrmans were there in the 1860 census. Most likely Jean Michel Blaies met his wife Theresia Bender in that area before they moved to Mascoutah, IL around 1864 after they married. Also, four unconnected Benders are living with a Müller family in Rock Township, Jefferson CO and are listed as step children. They are all listed in the 1880 Jefferson CO census. See http://mctiernan.com/bnotes.htm

The earliest known Bender listed in Hubert Kamuf's books is Diether Bender who lived c. 1470 from the village of Östringen. As yes it is not clear if we are related to Diether Bender.

Our Bender line starts with Adam Bender who is our earliest known Bender ancestor as of now.

1. Adam Bender, <1595-->1638, born most likely in Rettigheim, Baden. Adam was married in 1615 but the name of Adam's wife is unknown. They had at least five children,

Adam's first child was a son by the name of Sebastian Bender, 1615--1688, born and died in Rettigheim, Baden. The vast amount of information on Sebastian Bender's line poses size limits so all subsequent data for Sebastian's specific family line is on a separate web site: http://mctiernan.com/hans.htm. Sebastian's number begins with the numeral 1.1.

I have had to redo the entire numbering convention based on the February 2006 new information from Bernhard. The full list of 1. Adam Bender's five known children and their descendants using the recent numbering scam is as follows:

1.1. first child, Sebastian Bender, 1615--1688, for line of descent see http://mctiernan.com/hans.htm

1.2. second child, Johann Jakob Bender, 1620--1888, for line of descent see http://mctiernan.com/adam.htm

1.3. third child a daughter, Unnamed Moninger, nee Bender, 1625--, for line of descent see http://mctiernan.com/adam.htm

1.4. the fourth child, Johann Bender, 1635--8-30-1691, for line of descent see http://mctiernan.com/adam.htm

Napoleon was defeated in 1815 for the last time and an era had come to an end. In 1805 Britain had already established its maritime supremacy with the decisive victory at Trafalgar, and from then on England became the bankers of the world. For the next hundred years, their Pax Britannica ruled supreme. In 1806, the 800 year old Holy Roman Empire collapsed with the abdication of Emperor Francis II of Austria. It was replaced by a loose German Confederation of forty sovereign states, Baden being one of them, all under the tutelage of an emerging military power, Prussia. In the Franco / Prussian War of 1870, Bismarck the new leader achieved his goal in the mirror hall of Versailles, Wilhelm I was crowned Emperor and a unified Germany marched under the Prussian boot towards 1914, with 54 of our Bender ancestors dying in The Great War.

The French Revolution at the end of the 1700s destroyed the Old World, Napoleon rebuilt a New One. Weather we like it or not, our present age dates from Napoleon and 12 of our Bender / Blaies ancestors were with Napoleon in his invasion of Russia.

Using the village of Rettigheim as the center and positioning it as 20 miles south of Heidelberg, this is how the other villages important in our history are positioned. Remember to position Rettigheim as the center of the reference point. A graphical map of our Bender family area is below.

Mühlhausen is NE about 2 miles away from Rettigheim
Malsch is NW about a mile away
Malschenberg is NW right on the other side of Malsch.
Rauenberg is N about 3 or 4 miles away
Wiesloch is a bigger village N by NW about 8 miles away
Östringen is S by SE about a mile away,
Mingolsheim is SW about 2 or 3 miles away, in 1933 the population was 2354
Waldorf is NW by N about 9 miles away
Bruchsal is a larger village S by SW about 18 miles away
Obergrombach is a small village about 7 miles south of Bruchsal
St. Leon and St. Leon Rot are W by NW about 7 miles away
Heidelberg is 20 miles north of Rettigheim

In the below grid are the totals of our Bender ancestors or their spouses who served or were killed in the many wars throughout German history, some in far off places in Russia and France with village names that at the time, a hard working German farmer might have had trouble pronouncing. The key here is to remember that almost all came from the one small village of Rettigheim.

Our Bender ancestors or their spouses that served in or died in the German wars from the village of Rettigheim and neighboring villages
The German Wars	Total Bender Ancestors or spouses that served in the war
Uprising of German Knights 1522 - 1523
German peasants war 1524 - 1525
Turks lay siege to Vienna - 1529
Thirty Years War 1618 - 1648
Repulsion of the 2nd Turkish attack on Vienna 1683
Silesian Wars between Prussia & Austria 1740 - 1745
The Seven Years War, Prussia against Austria, Russia, France and Sweden 1756 - 1763
Prussia's rise to power, 1793 - 1807 & Partitions of Poland	1
Napoleon's Invasion of Russia 1812	12
Post Napoleon Era	1
German 1848 Revolution [starts in 1844]	5
American Civil War 1860 - 1865	5
Austro-Prussian War of 1866
Franco-Prussian War of 1870	2
The Great War 1914 - 1918	54
WW II 1939 - 1947	121
Total Bender ancestors	201

Many but not all of our Bender ancestors killed in The Great War and WW II are on the plaque in the entrance hall of St. Nickolas Catholic Church in Rettigheim as a few came from villages close by. See http://mctiernan.com/bwardead.htm for the list of our individual ancestors killed in the many wars.

One of the historical ironies of life is that several of our Bender ancestors died invading Russia helping at least to write the military history of Europe. Way back in the early days all invading armies had to wait till the grass had come up in late spring before they started their invasion de jour. Said a different simpler way, no grass no horse, no horse no calvary, no calvary no army. Grass was necessary as you could not carry enough horse feed. Calvary was the eyes and ears of any invading army and were needed to know what you were getting into.

Obviously a calvary man rides a horse and in order for his horse to eat they had to wait for the grass to start growing so the army waited also. This meant that every invading army on the way into Russia came through just when you were doing the spring planting which would see you through winter. In the fall at harvest time that invading army was returning from the invasion before the grass died and therefore their horses. The farmer, our Bender ancestor was trying to plant and harvest crops while all this was going on around him. One stressful job.

This grass / horse problem is one reason why the invading Huns never got past Vienna further into western Europe. They were a horse people that ran out of time. When the grass started to die in the fall they turned around and went home till next year. Russia early on had figured out the code which was that all invading armies intend to live off the land as they invade not only for their horses but for the soldiers also. Sort of fight and eat as you go.

Russia invented the scorched earth policy on a large scale. As an army invades, everyone runs and hides but before they do they set fire to everything including pasture and crops. So the invading army ends up neither fighting nor eating for some 2000 miles and the famous Don Cossacks attack the 2000 mile long supply line. Hence the lesson learned from Napoleon invading Russia in June of 1812 with over 500,000 men and 1146 guns getting out with only 15,000 men while the Russians had 183,000 men with 15,000 Cossacks with 938 guns. How 6 of our 10 Bender ancestors survived this military disaster when 485,000 others did not is unbelievable. Starting in January 1812, Napoleon assembled his army in Germany. One hard lesson but the Germans in WW II also made the same mistake as did Charles XII of Sweden in his invasion of Russia that pre dates Napoleon. On the retreat out of Russia, Napoleon's army actually found by lucky accident the same crossing at the Beresina River that Charles XII's Swedish army used many many years before.

They all fought Russia's two best generals, General Distance and General Weather. They caught Napoleon 2000 miles inside of Russia in Moscow in the fall as the first light snow started to come down. Hence the reason for only 15,000 men getting out, one of which was 1.1.2.7.1.1. Johann Wagner, the husband of my Blaies-Bender generation's 3rd cousin five generations removed. There were nine of our additional ancestors that were in Napoleon's invasion of Russia, one of which received the active service honor by the Badish Grand Duke in 1830. See http://mctiernan.com/bwardead.htm for the list of our Bender ancestors killed in the many German wars.

With the additions of all the Benders that Judy Linenfelser found while she was in village of Rettigheim recently and also from the history book titled Rettigheim Familienbuch Vol I and Vol II by Hubert Kamuf it is very difficult to keep all the names straight. In order to keep them straight I had to go to labeling by number for each individual with everyone in chronological order. This means as an example that on one of the pages all of a sudden when you are reading about a recent family line that completes in 1999, another sibling in the same family comes back in starting up two centuries earlier. Some of the numbers get quite large but still it is the only way I can think to keep it straight down through time. The last digit in everyone's number is the chronological order in which they were born in their parent's family. If it is a 3 then that individual was the third child born to that set of parents. Any individual with 11 numbers in front of their name is in my Bender generation, with 10 numbers in my parent's generation and with 12 they are in my children's generation.

Rettigheim is a small remote farming village in the District of Ortstl, with the zip code of D6909, twenty miles south of Heidelberg. The closest railroad connection is in the village of Malsch, a mile or so away. The village of Mühlhausen is less than two miles away. Rettigheim is in the county of Heidelberg, state of Baden-Wüttenberg. The street addresses of the Bender houses in the village of Rettigheim are noted later in both of the main general Bender histories.

The Population over time of the Village of Rettigheim [courtesy of Hubert Kamuf]
Year	# of Families	Village Population	Average size of family
1600	20	100	5
1658	20	78	3.9
1726	50	248	4.9
1802	85	368	4.3
1900	120	600	5
2000	500	2100	4.2

The two drops in the average size of a family may be due to the 40 Years War and Napoleon's invasions. According to the St. Nickolas parish book the main reasons for the mass emigration in the late 1840's were:

• The Turks had been displaced from the eastern part of the German lands and resettlement was starting.
• The local land was over taxed and was not producing the expected crop yield.
• The previous 50 years [1795 to 1845] had a greater number of wars than normal.
• The French were recruiting Germans to settle their over sea's colonies.
• The 1848 revolution that started in France and then spread to Germany.
  

For some reason how our ancestors died was important to write down so there is a lot of information as to what they died from.

This is in order of occurrence as to how the majority of our Bender ancestors died other than old age.

1. infant mortality
2. died in a War, from Napoleon's invasion of Russia, the German revolution of 1848, the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and the two wars that tipped the scales, The Great War and WW II.
3. TB seems to be listed as one of the main causes of death in peace time

Other patterns that appear to be true at this point in time.

1. Most got married in:. No matter where they lived or who the spouse was not all but nearly everybody got married in Rettigheim or in Rauenberg.
2. main industry / job for our Bender family was farming
3. second main industry / job was working in a cigar factory
4. third main industry / job was working in a shoe factory.
5. Statistically, most births, deaths or marriages seem to fall on the 15th or 22nd day of the month more than others.
   

At this point you must choose which of the two major Bender lines to go down, either Hans' or Adam's. Both histories are way to big [20,000+ ancestors] to have as one file taking over 500 pages to print out both histories. It would kill to many trees. Before starting down either road get a cup of coffee and relax, and remember:

• Each of the individuals in our Bender history has a unique number that shows the individual's relationship and position to the individuals above and below them in the history. Due to the volume of names of our Bender ancestors the numbering scam may be difficult to adjust to at first. If a number does not seem right, remember a number is never wrong it is only inaccurate, so look again to be sure you see the number the way it is and not just the way you think it ought to be. But if you do see an error please let me know.
• I, as a descendent of the Bender / Blaies branch am related to both Adam Bender and Hans Bender, as The Blaies family line in Illinois is and you may be also. The Blaies family history is at http://mctiernan.com/bhis1.htm
• The jumps. At some point it might seem like you are in the middle of a horse show with all the jumps that are used. Jumps are when two cousins married and had kids. To list their descendants under each of the individual cousins as their line converges means doing it twice so to make it easy on the writer under one of the xxxx individuals I list the descendants and under the other I say go to xxxx to see the line of decent. This is tough to do within just one of the histories but in many cases the jumps go from Adam's line to Hans' line and Hans' to Adam's. I have not yet figured out how to make that less painful but hope to do so soon if possible.

Our earliest known Bender ancestor is Adam Bender. Our Blaies / Bender line descends from Adam Bender.

When you search for an ancestor with the given name of Hans, Johannes or Johann. Look for him with all three different spellings. Late in the game, no matter what the record might have said about the spelling I normalized most of the different spellings to Johann. The task to do this is by no means complete as yet. Likewise the surname of Catharine or Catharina was or should be changed to K, spelled Katarina or Katharine.

On the maternal side, if like myself your mother's maiden name was Fries and her mother's maiden name was Blaies and her mother's maiden name was Bender then you descend from Tara who was one of the 7 European daughters of Eve. If your grandmother's surname was Blaies or Blaes and your mother was her daughter then these test results apply to you also. If you are a male with the surname of Blaies / Blaes or Fries this does not apply as the mtDNA is passed down maternally not paternally. Even though I am a male McTiernan, my mother was a Fries and her mother was a Blaies and her mother was a Bender so I have their mtDNA but my children would not. They have their mother's mtDNA not mine. This maternal mtDNA tracking is better explained at http://mctiernan.com/mtdna.htm

For the Adam Bender line go to http://mctiernan.com/adam.htm

For Adam's first son, Sebastian Bender line go to http://mctiernan.com/hans.htm

The three remaining European family histories are below.

Blaies family history connects to the Bender family.

Fries family history

Lucash family history

The known Bender family line goes back 15 generations to 1595 My direct Bender / Blaies family line has been in America since c. 1848. Other Bender lines have been here since the 1830s. Marianne David lives in Southern CA, Marilyn Rutledge lives in Missouri and Judith Jo Lindenfelser lives in southern VA. Erika Heydinger lives in Texas. Mike Mullen lives in Kansas. Robert Heimann lives in Berlin. Diane Panza lives in Germany. All other Bender descendants are spread out over America and many other countries.

Regards

N40 03' 09.4"
W75 24' 14.1"

Click here to send E-mail michael@mctiernan.com

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