IV.1.1 Hartmannsdorf – origin of all Saxon Hutsteiner families

IV.1.1 Hartmannsdorf – origin of all Saxon Hutsteiner families

According to my latest research Hartmannsdorf near Kirchberg in the district of Zwickau seems to be the originating place of all known Hutsteiner families in Saxony, i.e. in the eastern part of Germany.

On the one hand there are some hints which could pinpoint to a hessian origin of the first known family member.

First, Johann Georg der Ander, duke of Saxony had been duke of Jülich, Cleve and Berg around the 1670s, a region where Hutstein family members of Westphalian/Hessen-Nassau line were living. Dillenburg, origin city of many Huthsteiner family members, was part of the duchy of Berg, too, as well as Geldern, a region close to the Netherlands and home town to Peter Hutstein in 1634.

Second, the area of Teuchern not far away from Hartmannsdorf was given away to hessian aristocrat family von Freywald, who probably pulled some families of their home to Saxony. Did any Hutsteiner family of Hessen-Nassau come over there, too?

On the other hand it is known that some nearby settlements like Beierfeld (close to the city of Schneeberg) or the city of Johanngeorgenstadt were founded by Bavarian/Austrian immigrants, so a Bavarian/Austrian origin would have been a possibility, too.

Anyhow, first known family member is Michael Hutsteiner a shoemaker, who is mentioned in several court records of Kirchberg in 1637 and then again in church records of Hartmannsdorf in 1641 when he married Eva Hertel.

Michael Hutsteiner, the ancestor of all Saxonian Hutsteiners, born in 1590, likely the son of Pankraz Hutsteiner of the Falkenstein’s fief of Hutstein, lived 1626 in Hofkirchen i.M. Acc. to court records of Saxony he was a shoemaker, Schuster in German language.

Hofkirchen 1626

In 1570 and 1608 in Hofkirchen there was a Michael Schuster mentioned in the Urbar. Perhaps Michael Schuster was the father of Mathias Schuster who took over the Falkenstein fief of Hutstein, Michael Hutsteiner’s home, while he went to Hofkirchen.

It looks like both families had some tight family relations at that time.

Michael Hutsteiner obviously was an immigrant as no earlier documents of this Saxonian region Hartmannsdorf/Kirchberg mention any other Hutstein family members. Court records including last wills or civil contracts of Hartmannsdorf are available as early as 1491, but the first Hutstein family member, Michael, occurred 1637, about 150 years later.

Any other Hutstein family members first popped up in 1682 within a request of Georg, Michael’s son, mentioning Michael’s three surviving children. No other Hutsteiner record between 1637 and 1682.

Hartmannsdorf (church not visible)

A careful look into the history of Hartmannsdorf provides us another important fact: the pest plague was hitting Hartmannsdorf during the 1630s so heavily that by end of 1633 only 8 couples survived. A new colonization of the area was initiated by the duke of Saxony.

Sachsens Kirchen-Galerie, 9. Abteilung, Inspektionen Chemnitz, Stollberg, Zwickau und Neustädtel, Beilage, Dresden 1841 / SLUB Dresden, CC0,
Church of Hartmannsdorf (about 1840)

Taking all this into account the Hutsteiner family probably immigrated from abroad around 1635.

Michael Hutsteiner’s confession had been protestant so this is pointing to an Hessian origin. But from Austria, from the so called “Mühlviertel”, the neighbouring area to Bavaria/Wegscheid, home to the Bavarian/Austrian Hutsteiner families, a lot of exultants with protestant confession joined Saxony until 1635, too.

Michael Hutsteiner is known in Kirchberg church records (2nd hand source) as Huttensteiner, Huttsteiner and ‘Huet’. This ‘Huet’ is clearly pinpointing to an origin in southern Germany’s or Austria’s dialect, where all Hutsteiners were known as ‘Huetstainer’ before the 1700s. It was not the case in Hesse-Nassau/Geldern. Also found in Hesse-Nassau and Geldern: before the 1700s our family name was written as “Hutstein” only.

So, an Austrian origin, as an exulant, seems likely.

Finally, it turned out that this is the real origin of saxonian Hutsteiners. In fact, Michael Hutsteiner was an inhabitant of Neustift i.M. a small town in Upper Austria and left it around 1626.

Let’s look into the court records of Michael Hutsteiner: he several times bought meadows and fields in Hartmannsdorf ~1640. This shows us, that he was not a poor beggar, but came along with some money in his pocket. And this was exactly the fact for some of the exulants until the 1630s who had left their country of religious reasons:  the wealthy ones could afford emigration, many others had to stay and converted back to Catholicism – if it was possible. In later times poor exulants of local population emigrated, too.

2nd source record of church records in Hartrmannsdorf

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