The research on my family name started at an early age and has
always been fun to do. But I soon ran out of Sholder ancestors and
descendants as there were not too many of us bearing the surname
Sholder. In fact it could be considered rare occurring only 0.065
per 100,000 people according to the 2000 and 2010 census.
As any good researcher does, I attacked from another angle. I worked
on some of my other ancestors and their descendants all being very
close in and around Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Then one day
while researching the Updegraff family, I came across and entry for
Clinton Miller Calkins who married
Caroline
M. Sholder, they had three children and of course some of
their descendants were still living in Williampsort, Pennsylvania.
After making contact with
Lois Grace (Calkins)
Huggins and her sister
Shirley Ruth
(Calkins) Kriner in September 1992, I discovered that they had
a treasure trove of original documents that belonged to
Christian
August Sholder and his wife
Anna
Margareta Lutscher, well only five, but they were all original
documents used by
Christian and
Anna
to travel from Degerloch, Württemberg in 1831 and
Anna's
mother, Katharina B. (Reiser) Lutscher who traveled in 1849 to the
United States. As well as the marriage certificate for
Clinton
Miller Calkins and
Caroline M. Sholder.
What a find this was!! We discovered that their surname had been
changed from Scholderer to Sholder at some point after they arrived
in March 1831 first settling in Centre County, then moving to the
Bottle Run area of Lycoming County in 1838.
I had no way to research further in Germany in 1992, before the WWW
was a "thing," and exploded in the late 90's. Using a dial up modem
I trolled various genealogy boards and eventually the WWW with not
much luck for several years. Then on 2 January 2002 I received a
reply from a mailing list about Baden-Württemberg. My question was
simple, "Does anyone know about the town of Degerloch?" The reply
from an unknown woman actually living in the town of Degerloch, and
once again this sparked the fire for further research around my
ancestor
Christian August Scholderer or Sholder.
This wonderful person who lived in Degerloch was
Erika
Viktoria Lanz, which we would find out latter as our research
continued, that we were also actually related through the Scholderer
family.
Erika and I corresponded for close
to 13 years regularly and then that slowly dropped off until I was
contacted by her daughter about her death in 2018. She was born 11
February 1938 and died on 28 March 2018 at the age of 80 years, 1
month and 17 days. The fruits of
Erika's
research using original church documents and records has helped to
provide a solid foundation for the research shown on this website
about the Scholderer families and their descendants.
Martin Scholderer born circa 1600 is the
oldest known
documented ancestor for the
Scholderer / Sholder family that settled in Pennsylvania. He married
Dorothee [-?-] between 1620 and 1625.
Martin
Scholderer died on 23 September 1635 at Remmingsheim, Oberamt
Rottenburg, Schwarzwaldkreis, Württemberg.
The present day state of Baden-Württemberg was formed after World
War II in 1952. Before this Baden and Württemberg were considered
separate states, and actually separate kingdoms ruled by the feudal
system of Europe. Württemberg itself dates as far back as the 13th
century when ruled by the Counts of Württemberg. Then around 1495 AD
it was given rights by the Holy Roman Empire as a Duchy. Even though
the area around it was mostly Catholic, Württemberg remained mostly
Protestant.
During the next 100 years the name Scholderer and many variations
would emerge in the mid 1500's during the height of the religious
wars, in the small village of Rosenfeld, which was founded around
1255 by the Counts of Teck, and became a possession of Württemberg
in 1317. Between 1546-1547, Emperor Charles V defeated the
Protestant princes and towns that allied against him. Then in 1555
the Peace of Augsburg gave the Lutheran states equal rights with the
Catholic ones, by granting the princes the ability to determine the
religion of their territories. By 1556, Charles V retired into the
monastery of Yuste. Within Rosenfeld we find two main Scholderer
families during that time,
Jacob Scholderer
(born circa 1537) and
Georg Scholderer
(born circa 1549). The
working theory is that
Georg Scholderer's grandson
Martinus
Scholderer (born 10 November 1600) and
Martin
Scholderer (born circa 1600 - died 23 September 1635) of
Remmingsheim are one in the same person. This has yet to be proven.
Remmingsheim is where my ancestor
Martin
Scholderer lived and raised his family. It is not known where
he came from other than the theory above, but he died there in 1635
about two weeks before his last child was born, leaving a wife and
five or six children. Based on the research done by
Erika,
she states: "Looks like they had an epidemic in the fall of 1635, in
Remmingsheim, as over half the village had died."
From there his son
Martin (18 March 1629 -
17 March 1704/05) moved to the nearby village of Wolfenhausen, where
he married and raised his family of eight children, seven boys and
one daughter. The towns of Remmingsheim, Wolfenhausen and
Nellingsheim were united in 1971 to collectively form the
municipality of Neustetten. Today they have a population of about
3,500 people. The towns of Remmingsheim and Wolfenhausen are both
seen in history as early as 1111 AD, but can be traced back as early
as the 7th century. The Haus (House) Scholderer in Wolfenhausen,
still exists today, it was most likely built and owned by the
Scholderer family around 1750. Some of the homes in Wolfenhausen
today still carry the names of the people who were their inhabitants
hundreds of years ago, ours is one of them.
During this time the 30 Years' War raged over Europe and undoubtedly
the Scholderer family lost many family members due to diseases and
hunger brought on by the war. By the end of this war in 1648, the
entire population of Württemberg went from about 450,000 to less
than 90,000 people. The Scholderer family survived and our line
remained in Wolfenhausen until around 1712, when
Stephan
Scholderer (born 24 December 1688) married on 26 April 1712,
Anna Maria Ulmer (born 4 April 1690 - died 2
February 1761) from Degerloch.
Degerloch is now a suburb of and a part of Stuttgart, the capital of
Baden-Wuerttemberg. Degerloch has an early history and celebrated
its 900th birthday at the turn of this century in the year 2000.
Degerloch is first mentioned in 1100 AD in the Codex Hirsaugiensis
(the manuscripts from the monastery in Hirsau); "The high-noble
Hesso von Wolfsölden and his son Sigehard donated to the Monastery
Hirsau, twelve farms to Degerloch." From 1712 through 1832, the
Scholderer family would prosper, live and raise their families in
the town of Degerloch.
There are three of Martin's descendants that have been documented
that have traveled to America.
Jacob Friedrich Scholderer (1794-1863)
Degerloch to Chillicothe, Ohio
Christian August Scholderer (1807-1874)
Degerloch to Williamsport, Pennsylvania
The children of
Regina Dorothea (Scholderer)
Sauter (1793-1850), from Weilheim, to Greenfield,
Massachusetts
