Das Gluck and der wall: Tracing the Zitterkopf Family from Germany to Russia and to the U.S.
As a child, I wondered why, when they lived in Lincoln, Nebraska, my grandparents and dad were called "those Rooshens". Yes, they were of German descent, but they were American citizens. No one in my family ever discussed a Russian connection; the emphasis was on assimilation into the American melting pot. Later, as a teenager in a small Kansas farm town, I still wondered about my origins, but I had other priorities: my car, work on the family farm and a college education. Time passed; I married and my grandparents died. But in 1974 my mother-in-law, knowing of my puzzlement over my "Rooshen ancestry," gave me a birthday present: a membership in the newly formed American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. After reading some of the first journals, I suddenly realized where my family had come from: Russia. But how and when and why?
I started with the usual approach. I pestered my parents, aunts and uncles with numerous letters and phone calls. I learned that two of my aunts had been born in Huck, Russia: Now why hadn't anyone ever talked about that before? After accumulating the names, birth and death dates of living family members and the deceased that could still be remembered by relatives in Kansas and Nebraska, I seemed to be up against a wall. How in the world was I to learn about an ancestral group that lived in Germany, emigrated to Russia in the late 1700's and then came to the United States, when my best data sources were dead or behind the Iron Curtain. Despite my education, I didn't know German, much less Russian, and despite my cleverness, I certainly wasn't equipped to penetrate the Communist block countries, James Bond style, even for the sake of family.
Using a combination of telephone books and the mail system, I learned that there were six Zitterkopf family groups in the US. Flint, Michigan, Moore, Oklahoma, Kansas (my own family) and western Nebraska suddenly became places that I would learn more about.. A series of visits and personal interviews, telephone calls and innumerable letters revealed a common pattern. All families were originally from Huck (aka Splaunucha) Russia and except for oral history, there were no records about Russia or Germany. We all agreed we were no doubt related ('shirt tail relation' was the term usually used) but how was unknown.
Eventually, I gave up on my quest until a Maryland friend, Les Holtschlag, suggested that I place an ad in a German genealogical periodical. "Your name is unusual and someone might have seen it in some records." A Periodicals in Print booklet in the Montgomery County (MD) library listed the Hessische Familienkunde as an interesting possibility. Les composed the following letter: "Ich suche die vermutlich hessische Herkunft des etwa 1770 nach Russland (Wolgagebiet) ausgewanderten Zitterkopf-Geschlechts and mochte diesbezuglich in Ihre Zeitschrift inserieren. Im Voraus meinen besten Dank. Hochachtungsvol; Dennis Zitterkopf" (A very literal translation is something like 'I search for the presumed Hessisch origin in which case about 1765 to 1770 towards Russia (Volga region) emigrated Zitterkopf-families and wish an inquiry referring to this inserted into your periodical. Meanwhile, in advance my thanks, my good sir. Yours faithfully, Dennis Zitterkopf')
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More time passed. About one year later I received a response that a reader of the periodical had seen references to the Zitterkopf name. I corresponded with him, via my German-American friend, Les. Another adventure was beginning and another crack in the wall opened. Herr Heinrich Goebel from Breitenborn, West Germany, had indeed noticed the Zitterkopf name while researching historical glass making sites and glass making families in the Breitenborn, Bishofsheim and Laubach areas, and was willing to conduct some research for me (for an agreed to fee, of course). The result of this work was published in the June 1978 issue of the Hessische Familienkund as "The Zitterkopf Glassmaker Families in Breitenborn". (A translation of this article has been submitted to the AHSGR library.) The article, based on church records in the private archives of the Prince of Budingen, provides documentation for Zitterkopf families beginning in about 1600 and ending abruptly in 1762. Another wall. There were some death records, but several family groups simply disappeared from the records. They probably moved - but to where? Was one or more of these the Zitterkopf family (or families) that emigrated to Huck in 1767? I despaired and waited.
Then in 1995, the AHSGR announced the availability of the 1775 and 1798 colony census records for the village of Splavnukha/Huck! You can only imagine the excitement when, on page five, I found Konrad Zitterkopf, wife Katarina Charlotte, and sons Johann Adam, Johann Peter, Johannes and daughter Eleonora. The names and ages fit exactly with one of the 'vanished' family groups from the German research done by Herr Goebel. I had made the transition from Germany to Russia, now could I bridge the gap to the US? Were these Zitterkopfs my Zitterkopf ancestors?
Using information from the 1775 and 1798 census records, I contacted the Russian-American Genealogical Archive Service (RAGAS) with a request for research of records available to them. (Again for a price.) Six months later, a fat envelope arrived from RAGAS. I learned with disappointment that the records available to RAGAS ended in 1845. My great-grandfather was born in 1850, but his sister Elizabeth was born on 3 March 1845. Another wall? I did a closer examination of the research done by RAGAS and used it to develop an extension of the descendant tree from the Goebel article. I noticed a family group of Johan Conrad, wife Anna Marie nee Hein, and daughter Elizabeth - born 3 March 1845. Those people were my great-great-grandparents, and Elizabeth was the final missing puzzle piece! I could now complete a descendent tree for my Zitterkopf family from Germany to Russia and finally to the US.
My next goal is to find a way to link the history of the various Zitterkopf families in the US to the information I now have from Germany and Russia. Some of my journey has been sad. Because of my outreach search in Germany, I have been contacted by relatives who formerly lived in Kazachstan. They haven't been able to aid my genealogical quest, but have given me great insight on the tragedy and suffering of family members who did not emigrate to the US. I still need the records in Huck from 1845 to about 1880. But that is just another wall that someday someone will conquer. I hope I get to do it. Given my luck this far, I think I can, but if I don't, I, at least, will have made the quest easier for those who follow me.
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