Over the last two decades of research for the name Kemmler I already had evidence that the name Kemmler existed as well in Silesia (today a part of Poland). For example, I knew that the seed trade man, Paul Rudolph Kemmler from Goenningen was running a subsidiary in Breslau (today Wroclav).
In addition, I had found some Kemmler emigrants from Silesia during my U.S. research for the name Kemmler. During some internet research for the name Kemmler I found a hint, that in the book “Deutsches Familienarchiv – Vol 36”, would contain the family history of Karl G. F. Kemmler, Amtmann in Silesia.
The book was published by Verlag Degener & Co. in Neustadt an der Aisch in 1968. Luckily, I could purchase the book in an antiquarian library and transcribe the family tree into my database.
The family of Karl G. F. Kemmler, Amtmann in Silesia
Surprisingly the title of the article is headed by Karl G. F. Kemmler (Karl Gottlieb Friedrich Kemmler), but the history starts with his father, Johann Gottlieb Kemmler.
Unfortunately, there is only the birth year (1765) given for Johann Gottlieb Kemmler and that he passed away on November 3, 1824 in Michelwitz (Michalowice) due to a stroke, but there is nothing about his birth place or any information about his parents. In my database I didn’t find either any perfect match for him allowing me to connect him to his ancestors.
To my surprise however it included the already searched family of Johann Gottlieb Kemmler (1907 – 1983), who emigrated to the U.S. in 1954 with his wife and their four children. He died in Sun City, AZ.
Digging into the details I found out that Johann Gottlieb Kemmler was not the first one of the family who had emigrated to the U.S.
The great-children of the family founder, Gustav Mönch (Moench), born July 28, 1834 and his brother Richard Mönch (Moench), born December 3, 1836 emigrated to the United States in 1861 already.
Beside the occupation of Amtmann (governmental employee to manage an area) the descendants of Johann Gottlieb Kemmler (1768 – 1824) were merchants, farmers; his great-grandson, is even shown as owner of some manors.
No further connections to already existing entries for Silesia were found. So I think a special project for research in Silesia, will be required in the future.
A special challenge in the transcription of the family tree were the place names because in the book they only used the former German names. Today the region where they lived is located in Western Poland and so I had to find out the current Polish names first. In order to make the old names searchable, they were added in parentheses behind the Polish name.
The traces of the family can be mainly found in the city of Breslau (Wroclav) and in smaller cities south and southwest of Breslau.