Karlsruhe about 1900. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

I hadn’t been making much progress on my maternal family tree so I decided to look at the records again, starting with the marriage certificate of my maternal great great grandparents (click this link to view image of certificate).

Matthias Manock and Agathe Maria Lang were married on 12 April 1880 at Karlsruhe, then in the Grand Duchy of Baden, now a city in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

The 1880 marriage record is very informative, but the handwriting is difficult to read. I found someone on WikiTree to help. Thank you Jarrett Boenisch.

The groom was Mathias Martin genannt [called] Manock, twenty-eight years old. He was born in Stockach, near Lake Constance, on 2 November 1851, the son of the Crescentia Martin, deceased, born Manock, widow of Johann Martin. Matthias was born more than nine months after the death of Crescentia Martin’s husband Johann on 21 January 1850. Matthias’s baptismal record does not name his father.

The bride was Agathe Maria Lang, twenty-seven, born on 19 December 1852 at Zizenhausen, in the district of Stockach, not far from the northern end of Lake Constance (Bodensee). She was the daughter of Anna Maria Lang.

At the time of their marriage both bride and groom lived in Karlsruhe, between Strasbourg and Frankfurt on the Rhine 200 kilometers north of Stockach. I do not know why Matthias and Agathe married so far from their place of birth.

Mathias and Maria had three children, all born in Karlsruhe:

  • Maria Clementine Käthchen born 16 April 1881
  • Emil Wilhelm born 30 August 1883 (my great grandfather)
  • Stefan Mathias born 24 February 1891
Maria, Stefan, Matthias, Emil, Maria Manock

Matthias is listed in the 1893 “Adressbuch für die Haupt-und Residenz-Stadt Karlsruhe” as ‘schneider’, literally ‘cutter’, which may be translated as ‘tailor’.

During World War 2 much of the centre of Karlsruhe was bombed to ruins. Amalienstraße 55, where the Manocks lived, was flattened. Number 55 is now a petrol station.

Amalienstraße 55 Karlsruhe from Google Street view February 2022

The children of Matthias and Maria moved from Karlsruhe:

  • Maria married Carl Roster and died in 1973 in Waibstadt, 65 kilometers north-east of Karlsruhe
  • Emil moved to Berlin and died in 1966
  • Stefan moved to Freiburg im Briesgau and died in 1961

Matthias and Maria died in Berlin in 1925 and 1926. The informant on their death certificates was Emil’s wife Helene.

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