HANNB AND OUR SCHWARZWALDER BRANCHES

      The record shows that Hans Schuttenhelm moved from Nordlingen to Tubingen to advance his career and that his son, Heinricus, became a man of considerable influence in Tubingen and surrounding areas. As a graduate of Tubingen University, Heinricus caught the attention of Graf Eberhard im Bart, who rewarded for his work on the reunification of Wurttemberg with a great Coat of Arms and the position of Senior Judge. Thus, Heinricus' three sons- HannB, Burchard, and Georg- were blessed with a lot of social contacts and career options when they came of age. They could have followed in their father's footsteps and became lawyers themselves, or they could have followed in their grandfather's footsteps and pursued careers as master journeymen in one of the trades, but it seems that they became our first landowning farmers. We know that Heinricus' middle son was a Bauer (farmer) and that he died in Baiersbronn and that Heinricus' youngest son, Georg, was a Bauer who died in Dorhan sometime after 1562.
      It appears that farming land with tenants was in their best interest, and so it was with Heinrucus' oldest son, HannB, my 11x great-grandfather, who owned at least two farms in an area near Alpirsbach, Germany, which is in the heart of the Black Forest (Schwarzwald). We know this from a 1534 tax document in Alpirsbach which notes that "HannB Schuttenhelm and Jacob Ruoff, yearly renter, through their joint ownership of farms of Stueckhen and Guerttern" offered (among other things) "3 bushels of grain, ten hens, 9 chickens and 'joyful gift money' in the amount of 14 Batzen." (see Wilson, pg. 33) HannB Schuttenhelm lived in the Vogelsberg Congregation of the 24 Farms at Apirsbach, and he is the first recorded Schuttenhelm in the Black Forest. He is also the progenitor of the Schwarzwald line of Schittenhelms, which according to Wilson (pg.32), represents more than 75% of the Schittenhelms in Europe today.
      HannB was the first farmer in our family. He started the Schwarzwald branch of our family... and his three sons broke off into three distinct branches from there. HannB (HannB's first son) started the Vogelsberg branch of the family, which suggests that he stayed in the Alpirsbach area and may have even inherited his father's farms; HannB's son. Heinrich, started the Gruntal branch of our family (Gruntal is 12 miles north of Alpirsbach); and HannB's youngest son, Wilhelm, my 10x great-grandfather, moved to Aach, Germany (which is within walking distance of the Swiss border) and started the Aach branch of our family.
      HannB's son, Heinrich Schuttenhelm, is one of my great uncles and his descendants are my first cousins (many times removed of course). Many of these cousins were quite successful in their lives, becoming Mayors and Judges in their own right, The same thing can be said for "uncle" HannB's family. His progeny are also cousins of mine and perhaps yours too. Read Jean Sheathelm Wilson's book and you will be blessed to see some of what they accomplished... but to make my work somewhat manageable, I will focus primarily on Friedrich Schittenhelm's direct ancestors because he the Immigrant who brought us to America, Therefore we will turn our attention to Wilhelm Schuttenhelm and his descendants as we turn our attention to Generation 6 of the Schuttenhelm/Schittenhelm/ Shedenhelm family.
      As a minister myself, I can't leave the 16th century behind without mentioning the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation that affected the lives of most, if not all, Germans throughout the century. Religion is a sensitive subject in our own time, but it was downright sacred in HannB's time. HannB was alive when Martin Luther started the biggest theological fire that the world had ever seen by nailing his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, in protest to the practices that he thought were contaminating the Catholic church. The Pope immediately labeled Luther's protestations as heresy and the fight was on. Luther went into hiding the better part of a year, but his teaching spread through much of Germany, dividing its regions into Catholic and Lutheran. Since the rule at the time was that the citizens of any region or state would worship as their ruler worshiped, many people who had been Catholic forever... became Lutheran overnight! And if their ruler died or was overthrown, the same citizens might well become Catholic again. It was a chaotic time and HannB's sons lived to see Europe's religious differences lead to war. We don't know how much our ancestors were affected by the Reformation (it must have been a lively topic in a University town like Tubingen), but we do know that, while Wittemberg opted for Lutheranism early on, its citizens were free to worship as their consciences dictated, especially if they were Catholic or Lutheran.
   

The Schwarzwald (Black Forest)

Alpirsbach