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Diana, Goddess
of the Hunt — for Ancestors!
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| Historical Districts and Sub-Districts of Wuerttemberg |
| The geographic history of Germany is extremely complex and a detailed
rendition is far beyond the scope of this page, but I hope this page will
be helpful in a limited way (for a limited period): to help clarify
the geographic origin of our German immigrant ancestors from Wuerttemberg
[Württemberg].
In the 19th-Century, Wuerttemberg was divided into four kreise (singular, kreis). The word, "kreis," literally means "circle," but is usually translated into English as "district." The kreise of Wuerttemberg were further subdivided into oberamter [oberämpter] (singular, oberamt [oberämpt]). The word, "oberamt," literally means "upper office," but could be loosely translated as "main office" or "headquarters" — oberampter were the smallest divisions of government administration above the village or town. Like kreis, the word oberamt is usually translated into English as "district," which is one source of the confusion between the two because, in fact, they are not equivalent. From a practical standpoint, it would probably be more useful for American researchers to think of kreise as being comparable to U.S. counties and oberamter as being comparable to U.S. townships (i.e., the subdivisions of counties — not the "townships" of the Public Land Survey System). The four kreise of the Kingdom of Wuerttemberg are listed below, with their included oberampter. Please keep in mind that the history of the geo-political organization of "Germany" is exceedingly complex and the organization described below existed only for a limited time (e.g., the four kreise were erected in 1817 and all of the oberampter were abolished in 1938). If more refinement is needed, more detailed sources should be consulted. |
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| Sources: some excellent posts to the Baden-Wuerttemberg Mailing List online in the Mailing List Archives at RootsWeb.com. A search on "Lothar Schmid" and kreise in the 2001 archive will bring up the relevant posts. |
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| Everything I have is online at this web site. I have no further information, so please don't write asking me if I do. On the other hand, if you feel I've made an error, please don't hesitate to notify me. |
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