Family History

 

    The origins of our Gugenheimers are still being researched. There was a famous munitions dealer Joseph Guggenheimer of Augsburg mentioned in 1704 who could be our ancestor. Spelling prior to the late 1800s was phonetic, so the number of "G"s is not meaningful. We always thought the Gugenheimers were from Regensburg, but a recent visit to that city's archives turned up a family record showing that they had come from Swabia, where the name is more commonly seen (usually as Guggenheimer). Gugenheimer may mean "from Gougenheim" a town in the french region, Lorraine, but that is just conjecture.

Photo of the copy of  Jacob Guggenheimer's Portrait  Photo of his mother's portrait  Judit Lipschütz 1748-1842 (94)    Photo of the copy of his wife  Regina Gundelfinger's Portrait

Family lore is that our ancestor Jacob Gugenheimer was a "court jew" helping the Counts of Thurn and Taxis finance their stamp issue (probably apocryphal) among other things. The Regensburg records indicate that he was indeed a prominent merchant and burger in Regensburg. The family home was on an important central square. The Kleinerdlingen records indicate that In 1802 Jacob was allowed to settle in Kleinerdlingen, being mentioned as "from Hürben". Maybe he was born in Kleinerdlingen and had lived in Hürben for a while. His mother's surname was Lipschütz, this may have been from a second marriage. There is a record of an Abraham Marx Lipschütz who died 14 Aug 1826 at the age 89 at house Nr 4 in Kleinerdlingen. His grave might be nr 816 at the jewish cemetery in Wallerstein (the burial place for the Kleinerdlingen jews). Abraham Marx is mentioned around 1770 in the Kleinerdlingen taxlists. Maybe his widow moved to Regensburg after her husbands's death? [Source Rolf Hoffmann] an unknown Gugenheimer married Judit Lipschütz (b: October 14, 1748 Huerben (Hürben), Schwabia m: ? d: June 1842 Regensburg, Bavaria) and had at least one child: Jacob Gugenheimer (b: December 17, 1777 d: July 01, 1850 Regensburg, Bavaria) married Regina Gundelfinger (b: February 20, 1784 d: December 25, 1858 London, England) . Stasi has a commemorative china cup/mug made by Jacob's chief clerk on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary with all the children's names listed on a gold leaf tree. Jacob and Regina had ten children , some of whom emigrated to the USA and whose descendants are unknown to us.   Click here to view page with their children

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