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More than 600 Years of Family History !!!

The Peit(h)manns are one of the rare German families who can date back their first known ancestor to a year before the beginning of the 30 Years War (1618-1648). During those terrible 30 years most church records were burnt, and usually it is only noble families who have documents on their family line that go beyond 1618. The Peit(h)manns are lucky that their ancestors are well documented in the registers of the city of Stadthagen. The first Peit(h)mann mentioned there is Elseke Poyteman in 1394 when she became a citizen or burger of the city of Stadthagen. This usually happened around the age of 25 so that we can safely assume that Elseke was born around 1370. All Peit(h)manns living today can be traced back to Elseke.

For decades members of the two big family branches “Peitmann” and “Peithmann” have been digging up information on their forebears which enabled the initiators of our Peit(h)mann Family Association to organise a big family reunion in Stadthagen in May 1980. It was such a success that the Family Association was founded and registered the following year. Its purpose is to do genealogical research on the Peit(h)man(n) families and to edit the results of this research. The Association was also created in order to further the connection between the different members of our families. In order to do this we organise yearly family reunions. 

The efforts of the Peit(h)mann Family Association culminated in another very big family reunion in Stadthagen in September 2011 where the thick family chronicle was published written by Wilhelm Meier-Peithmann under the title „Cultural History of a German Family“. The following picture shows the chronicle:

 

Thanks to the generous donations from members of our Association and thanks to the yearly membership fees we were able to edit this book with 826 printed pages with many photos and facsimiles. The book can be bought from our Association at the very advantageous price of 20,00 € plus postage.

After the successful big Family Reunion in Stadthagen in 2011 we had other smaller Family Reunions in Bergkirchen in 2012, in Hessisch Oldendorf in 2013 and in Hildesheim in 2014. Each time we visited the towns where we met, and we listened to a talk given by Sonia Bounatirou.  She spoke to us about Peit(h)mann ancestors who had lived in the respective cities. Based on the information that Wilhelm Meier-Peithmann had collected over time Sonia did further research herself and came up with interesting new information. In her talks the Peit(h)manns of the past came to life!

We are looking forward to the next regular Family Reunion on Sept. 21, the venue of which has not been determined yet. Sonia Bounatirou will give another one of her interesting talks on a Peit(h)mann ancestor. There will also be time to visit  with other family members to exchange news and to get to know new ones.

Photo taken at the 2011 Family Reunion in Stadthagen