From German Girls Genealogy (Teresa Steinkamp McMillin & Debra A. Hoffman):
Our last post began to highlight some of our findings to demonstrate how your hard work can pay off. We started by looking at land documents and this week we look at another land document from 1819. The land record is for Friedrichstal located in what is now Baden-Württemberg. The document is from Grundbuch Band 1, 1811–1830.
Grundbuch – Land Records
Friedrichstal is a small town located 16 km north of Karlsruhe in Baden-Württemberg. It was founded in 1699 by Protestant refugees, including Huguenots. In 1975, Friedrichstal merged with nearby villages to form the town of Stutensee. With that merger, Blankenloch became the overseer of the town’s records.[1] Information on records for that town was in an online finding aid found on the website of the Grundbuchzentralarchiv – Kornwestheim. The finding aid directs researchers to the Stutensee StadtArchiv. However, there is no full-time archivist and the records for the different municipalities, including Friedrichstal, are not centrally located in a repository. When we arrived at the Blankenloch Rathaus, we were blessed with a wonderful person who retrieved the Friedrichstal records during her lunch break and allowed us to review them in her office.
We reviewed the several volumes searching for records pertaining to the Demarez and Braun families.
This example is from 1819.[2] Anytime we are dealing with old documents, we need to understand the terminology. In this record, we see the abbreviation “fl.” used as well as the term “gulden.” At this time in Baden, Germany, the Gulden and florin were fundamentally the same currency unit with “gulden” being the German term and “florin” (often abbreviated as fl.) serving as the Latin/international equivalent.[3] Latin terms are something to keep in mind as you transcribe and translate German documents. This land record contains other Latin terms, such as “Actum” for act.
The land record captures the following sale.
At Friedrichstal on 14 April 1819. According to the auction record of 4 March 1817. Sold at public auction by Jacob Demarez’s widow Magdalena, née Terraß, with assistance from Heinrich Füßler, the following fields under the stated conditions:
- No measurement will be granted.
- The purchase price must be paid in two installments; one half in 14 days, the other half on Candlemas on the 18th. [In 1818, Candlemas was on 2 February.]
- The buyer must bear all costs alone.
- Ownership will be retained until the purchase price is fully paid.
The property is:
- No. 23: 1-1/2 viertel in the Gottsackerfeld, on one side Conrad on the other Johann Gorenflo. Bidder Heinrich Füßler on behalf of the widow – 143 fl.
- No. 24: 2-1/2 viertel in Zwingenfeld, on the one hand Heinrich Hornung, on the other hand the buyer himself. Bidder Friedrich Demarez, carpenter, for 256 fl.
Document signatures below. Two tracts of arable land have been inherited by Jacob Demarez’s children from Catharina Walter, therefore, the approval of the guardian had to be granted before it could be given. This official permit has only just been received, as can be seen from Appendix 1332. Done at Friedrichsthal on 14 April 1819.
Sellers
Magdalena Demarz Vogt Gorenflo
the children’s guardian Heinrich Hornung
T. Johan Lacroix[?[ Philipp Goranflo
Jung Peter Herlan
[extracted]
Gorenflo
More work is required to fully research this document and the relationships among the individuals, but there are some tantalizing clues already!
[1] “Friedrichstal (Stutensee),” article, Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrichstal_(Stutensee) : accessed March 2026).
[2] Friedrichstal, Baden, Grundbuch, Band 1, 1811–1830, nos. 23 & 24, 14 April 1819, Jacob Demarez; Signatur B21, Stutensee Stadtarchiv, Blankenloch, Baden-Württemberg.
[3] “South German gulden,” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_German_gulden : accessed 2026).
Lind Street Research 