17 January 2023

Locating Dörlesberg and Bronnbach

Last week's post connected the Jakob and Melchior Stumpf of the Banat with their parents and family in Dörlesberg and Bronnbach in Baden. 

Historical Gazetteers and Maps

Meyers Gazetteer, originally compiled in 1912 to catalog all the locations in Germany as it was in 1871 to 1912, is now available to search online.  An entry on a location includes: a clip from the original text - in Fraktur font, a map, and the governmental units the location is a part of (state, district, etc.).  There is a tab for map and religious locations nearby.

Map with Dörlesberg marked with a red location marker, Bronnbach, Schafhof, and Wagenbücher Hof marked with red dots. Reicholzheim is to the north. Reicholzheim and Bronnbach are on the Tauber River curving from south to north. (snip from MayersGaz.org)

Using the online Meyer's Gazetteer, we find Dörlesberg is listed as a Dorf, or village, in the Wertheim district of Baden.  Its civil registration office is in Dörlesberg.

Bronnbach is listed as Weiler, or a small village or farm.  It also is in Wertheim district of Baden, but its civil registration office is in Reicholzheim.  From Wikipedia, it seems that Bronnbach is actually an abbey or cloister or monastery.  The monastery had a few farms that it managed including Wagenbücher Hof and Schafhof.

Maps and Orienting in Today's World

Today, Dörlesberg and Bronnbach find themselves in the state of Baden-Württemberg in the Landkreis of Main-Tauber-Kreis, and in the district of Wertheim. 

Locator map TBB in Germany
Modern Day Germany with States outlined. The red region is Main-Tauber-Kreis in Baden-Württemberg (TUBS, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)


Wertheim im Main-Tauber-Kreis
The Landkreis of Main-Tauber-Kreis showing district of Wertheim in yellow. The river flowing through Wertheim is the Tauber River. (Franzpaul, Lencer and Kjunix, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Based on the maps shown, you can see that the village of Dörlesberg and the abbey of Bronnbach are in the northern-most tip of Baden.