From Merkelbeek to Märckelbach:
A Social History with Deep Roots

being cobbled together by Henry K van Eyken
for Elisabeth H., Marc, Elisabeth G., Eric, Adriana, & whomever may come ...
in memory of Adriaan Märckelbach (1896-1965)

October 16, 2010
4. Bones of contention
a chapter without end in sight, where in untangling one conundrum another one takes its place (plus a few words about co-operative editing)    2

What a difference a word makes! Upon receiving a copy of the book, Nederland's Patriciaat.* I tried to fit the Merckelbach ancestry as published there into my existing versions of Trunk. But that did not quite work out. To see where the shoe wrings, go to a copy of that ancestry as found in Branches. The oldest ancestor listed there is a Carcyllys von Merckelbach, married to Cathryne NN. Then follows a long list of decendants beginning with Carcyllys's son Leonhard, who is the father of Steven. Turning to our Trunk, we find a corresponding list, but here it is Emont Merckelbach (t.1.3.1.2.) instead of Carcyllys von Merckelbach who is the father of Leonhard (t.1.3.1.2.2.). The Patriciaat tells us that Leonard has two sons: Steven, married to Elisabeth Schumkens, and C[arcillis]. It names a nephew of Steven: Leonardus, notary in Heerlen. Those pieces of information correspond to what we find in Trunk, but not to what we find in Dechamps, Der Ursprung des Geschlechtes Merckelbach. On this score the Dechamps manuscript and the Patriciaat do not merely disagree; they actually clash head-on.    3

The information in the Patriciaat is well researched, no question about that. The Dechamps document, too, carries a substantial degree of authority among those researching the Merckelbach ancestry. That document is, indirectly, the source for much of what is found in our Trunk which itself has basically been constructed from a database found on a site maintained by Peter Kreutzwald, whose work is gratefully acknowledged. A copy of the Dechamps manuscript now appears on this site; it can be found here. The script comes with a series of small tableaux, labelled VIII-f to VIII-l, of parts of the Merckelbach genealogy. Each tableau is followed by a discussion of relevant source material. The manuscript I received had stapled to it yet another tableau, VIII-e and does not only combine much of the content of the other tableaux, but adds some more Merckelbachs as well. Reproduced below is a part of that tableau.    4

Lower left of Tableau VIII-e.    5

Instead of Carcyllys, it shows Emont as the father of Leonard as does Dechamps' Tableau VIII-f. However, the text accompanying VIII-f does not really state that Emont is Leonard's father; it tell us hat Emont is vermütlich--presumably--Leonard's father, a presumption the tables morphed into fact. Furthermore, the Patriciaat speaks of two sons of Leonard (here named Leonhard): Steven and C[arcillis], and that Steven has a nephew named Leonardus, a notary in Heerlen. Tableau VIII-e shows a notary named Leonard, but not as Steven's nephew. However, that problem is resolutely "solved" by simply drawing a line as shown in the next diagram:    6

Voilà, Steven has a brother named Carcilius and a nephew named Leonard, a notary.    7

The added line accords with the family relationship described in the Patriciaat and is reflected in Kreutzwald's database and in our Trunk. Problem is, it does not really solve the issue for we find on page 9 of Dechamps: "A son of Carsilius, also named Carcillius, succeeeds him as secretary of the kurkölnische Mannkamer, and in the year 1673 already is his grandson Leonard notary and secretary of the Mannkamer in Heerlen." Reading this, we now face two dilemmas: Who do we choose as Steven's grandfather, Emont or Carcyllys? And do we accept as Steven's brother the Patriciaat's C[arcillis] as being the same person as the Carsilius of the diagram?    8

As for the second dilemma, suspecting a stiff dose of nepotism and influence peddling in the Mannkammers, I find it hard to accept this to be true. I am inclined to go with the two persons named Carsilius indeed being father and son and that, hence, it is the Patriciaat's C[arcillis] who is the father of Leonard the notary, not Carsilius jr. We can't be certain, of course, but this would be my choice if only these two options were available. However, one can think of yet another one. Might it be that the Patriciaat's Leonardus, the notary, is not the same as Dechamps' Leonard who was in 1665 secretary of the kurkönische Mannkammer? Might it even be that the latter was not a notary at all; that Dechamps melded the careers of two Leonards into one? That way the Patriciaat would be entirely correct and Dechamps almost correct. With the information on hand and applying the venerable Occam's Razor,* it is on this bet that I place my money.    9

Moving on now to that other conundrum: Steven's grandfather. Sticking with the Patriciaat, Carcyllys he darn well is; but where does he fit into the above diagrams? Might he be a son of Emont and thereby belongs to a generation that had been lost sight of? Or might he be a brother of Emont? Or does the truth lie somewhere else altogether? Pondering this question, I made a tabulation of dates relevant to the offspring of Emont's father: Johann von Merckelbach who in 1488 was a Rentmeister of Emont von Palant as shown in Tableau VIII-e. The purpose of this exercise was to see of we can get decent horizontal line-ups of birthdates in order to bring distinct generations into clear view. Although available birthdates are few and far between, by adding some additional dates from our Trunk's database (identified by ampersands) we hoped to make further half-decent guestimates of birthdates from dates of marriage and high points in careers. Here goes:    10

And wow! What pops up?    12

Look at the date Heynrich's son Reinhard got married: 1535. That is three years before the norm (i.e. some sort of average) for what is supposed to be his generation. Clearly, Heynrich and his immediate offspring belonged to an earlier generation. From what little information we have about Emont's career period (governor of the Herrschaft Heyden and so forth), it appears to fall in line with that of Thomas, Heinrich, Peter, and Gottfried. Page 9 of the Dechamps' manuscript strongly suggests that Emont and Reinhard are indeed siblings. What it all boils down to, for now, is that we have plenty of wiggle room for the patrician Carcyllys to fit in. Carcyllys may well be a son of Emont and the father of Leonard. This postulate demands, however, that there must exist also a generation between Reinhard and the elder Dietrich. Additionally, looking for simplest explanations, it then also becomes reasonable to posit that Carcyllys is the father of the elder Carcilius as well.    13

Time to turn our attention to Reinhard Merckelbach (t.1.3.1.3a.). And how fascinating! The database entry for Reinhard (Trunk entry t.1.3.1.3a.), presents us with a number of salient facts:    14

   • Reinhard must have died after 1584
   • Reynert [= Reinhard] has a son named Reynert, and daughters named Willemkenne, married to Winand Hannot, and Marguerite, married to Servais Jacob (entry dated 24.05.1576)
   • A Reynert died before 1578, obviously the younger Reynert because the older one died after 1584. This younger Reynert was married to a Jehenne and had a son Thiry (= Dietrich) who was held prisoner by the army of Lord Dom Johann of Austria ("Sr Dom Johann daustriche") (entry dated 06.05.1578)
   • "Dederich merkelabach" a resident of Aix (entry dated 03.08.1595)
   • "Dederich merkelbach" a resident of Aix (entry dated 19.11.1611).    15

We discovered our missing generation!    16

Having established that after the sons of Heynrich von Merckelbach (t.1.3.1.) we ought to insert a generation, i.e. the younger Reynert in Straßburg and the Patriciaat's Carcyllys, we should also suspect that this Heinrich belongs to a generation older than that of the Reinhard who is married to Maria von Wirtzen (or Wierth), especially with their birthdates said to be 20 years apart--see above table. A 20-year gap in birthdates among siblings is, of course, not at all impossible, but it is cause for some suspicion. In our case we may be heartened by a comment on page 11 of the Dechamps manuscript, I'll translate: "In the year 1561, is 'Lord Thomas' assigned the position of priest of Bedbur by Countess Elisabeth, who, following the death of her husband, exercises regency over their four underage children. He keeps his old father Reinhard and his brothers Peter, Heinrich and Eymond with him in his manse. It's just what is meant by old.    17

One way of highlighting those places in our family tree where serious discrepancies occur is, as done in Trunk, by presenting distinct versions, and then section each version in such manner that sequences of names that are similar in both versions are identified as blocks: Block A, Block B, and so forth. It is then between those blocks that versions differ. I know, I know: I am ignoring that Block A is NOT the same in both versions, something I did not realize before writing this chapter. Moving on, though, we have taken things a step further in our workshop, which is the rubric named Lab Work. There, so as to even more clearly display where versions differ, I have shortened them by setting those identical blocks aside for separate viewing; see Versions 3 and 4 in the lab. Hyperlinks in those versions allow access to the blocks.    18

Having done this that bones of outragious contention jump out. To demonstrate, below are the relevant part of Versions 3 and 4:    199

Version 3 (from Leenart von Merckelbach and Grete Pallant up):

1. Leenart von Merckelbach   ×   Grete Palant.    rA.0.2.2a.1.
    1. NN. von Merckelbach   ×   NN. von Höngen.    rA.0.2.2a.1.1.
    2. Eymond von Merckelbach   ×   Adelheid von Mecheln.    rA.0.2.2a.1.2.
        1. Johann von Merckelbach.    rA.0.2.2a.1.2.1.
            1. Block A: Heinrich v.M. × NN. & descendants.
            2. Block B: Reinhard v.M. × Maria von Wirtzen (Von Wierth) & descendants.
        2. Reinhard von Merckelbach ~1450/60   ×   Anna von Lövenich.    tA.0.2.2a.1.2.2.
            1. Block C: Reinhard M. × Anna Farin von Lamersdorf & descendants.
    3. Johann von Merckelbach.    rA.0.2.2a.1.3.
    4. Werner von Merckelbach.    rA.0.2.2a.1.4.
    5. Thönys von Merckelbach.    rA.0.2.2a.1.5.
        1. Leonard von Merckelbach.    rA.0.2.2a.1.5.1.
            1. Reinhard Merckelbach.    rA.0.2.2a.1.5.1.1.
                1. Block E: Heinrich M. × NN. & descendants.
                2. Cornelius Merckelbach.    rA.0.2.2a.1.5.1.1.2.    20

Version 4:

1. Leonard von Merckelbach ~1425.   ×   Grete Palant.    t.1.
    1. Thomas Merckelbach.    t.1.1.
    2a. Reinhard Merckelbach ~1450/60.   ×   Anna von Lövenich.    t.1.2a.
        1. Block E: Heinrich M. × NN. & descendants.
    2b. Reinhard Merckelbach ~1450/60.   ×   ?    t.1.2b.
        1. Block C: Reinhard M. × Anna Farin von Lamersdorf & descendants.
        3. Block D: Reinhard M. & descendants.
    3. Johann von Merckelbach ~1465.   ×   Ursula von Plettenburg.    t.1.3.
        1. Block A: Heinrich v.M. × NN. & descendants.
        2. Block B: Reinhard v.M. × Maria von Wirtzen (Von Wierth) & descendants.    21

The first big, fat difference to hit us are the names of Leenart and Grete's sons. Adding further to the confusion are Versions 1 and 2 found in the lab. What to think? Next, consulting Dechamps, we find conflicting statements. The material pertaining to Tableau VIII-f tells us that the Johann, the 1486 Rentmeister of Neubach, was a son of Eymond, Rentmeister of Wittem. The next Tableau has us believe that the two were brothers.    22

Tableau VIII-e strikes a compromise of sorts: It shows Eymond as the father of one Johann and the brother of another, one who in 1471 appears on the financial records of Eyß. Tableau VIII-e mentions that around 1470 Eymond married an Adelheid von Mecheln. It streches credulity a bit that Adelheid is the mother of a son who under the age of 16 has a postion as Rentmeister. But that is not to say thet Eymond could have fathered Johann before he married, ca 1470, Adelheid von Mecheln. Certainly she was not the mother of the Jonann involved in financial transactions in 1451.    23

That contradiction between Tableaux VIII-f and VIII-g does open up an intriguing possibility, though; one worth keeping in mind. Could it be that Johann the brother of Emont is the father of Heynrich von Merckelbach (t.1.3.1.) and that Johann the son is the father of Reinhard von Merckelbach (t.1.3.2.), the one married to Maria von Wirtzen? That Heynrich and Reinhard are not brothers, that there indeed is a generational gap as their birthdates and the birthdates of their succeeding generations suggest? Could Max Dechamps' mistake of assigning to both Johanns an identical slice of careers have caused genealogists to believe that Heynrich and Reinhard were brothers instead of uncle and nephew? How beautifully would that sew up our case! Best, however, let's wait till if and when we can consult what others' reasonings and final judgements are.    24

Temper of modern times: Publishing  25 1963. The first computer mouse was part of an experiment to find better ways to point-and-click on a display screen. Made in a shop at SRI, the casing was carved out of wood. It had only one button, which was all there was room for. Subsequent models seen featured three buttons. Engelbart would have gone for even more buttons, but there was only room for three of the needed micro-switches available in those days.    25A 1968. On December 9, a conference took place in San Francisco that brought much change to this world. The speaker of note was Douglas Engelbart who demonstrated, for the first time in public, his invention, the computer mouse as a tool for people to put their heads together by jointly scribbling on a computer screen. In fact, in his presentation there were two pointers dancing around on the screen, one steerd by his own mouse in the conference hall, the other by a mouse handled by a co-worker in his Augmentation Research Laboratory connected by telephone. The work was financed by a grant from the U.S. Air Force on the strength of a proposal titled Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework.    25B Engelbart looked for single-character inputs, such as d for delete. He came up with this keyset for chording the command keys with the left hand while a three-button mouse was worked with the right hand. Its five keys permit 31 combination of pressed keys. That covers more than the alphabet. Uppercase characters are obtained by simultaneously pressing the middle mouse button. The left mouse button is pressed for digits and punctuation marks. Tests done in the early '60s showed that temporary secretarial help (known as the "Kelly Girls") mastered the keyset in less than two hours no-matter what method of training was used. They showed that the regular keyboard is more efficient for straightforward typing, but that for editing and maneuvering text, the mouse-keyset combination is the more efficient.    25C To make such co-operation efficient, one must be able to instantaneously move through text. One way of doing so is with hyperlinks, but hyperlinks as we got to know them are not good enough for people to just about simultaneously move through text and insert their individual contributions to co-operative thinking. Such work calls for an exceedingly efficient combination of keyset and editor by which a large number of different actions can be performed by the single press of a key or button. Engelbart developed an editor as well; he named it Augment. Augment can equally well make a single author vastly more efficient. Unfortunately, there is no editor on the market today that even comes close to the capability of Augment. Engelbart ran into two big obstacles to seeing his insights come to fruition: Augment comes with a learning curve rebuffed as tedious, and he was unable to clearly put his vision across for business to go for it. That is where things stand right now, decades later!(Doug Engelbart Institute.*)    25D What has all this to do with our Merckelbach family tree? Quite a bit actually. Let me explain.    25E Present. In this chapter I told what I was doing while doing it. I did not collect a lot of information and then sat down to organize it, the writing it all up--that time-honored way of writing. If I also had continually put the story on the Internet while writing it then potential readers would not have had to wait till I am good and well ready. Then, no matter how half-baked my ideas, they would have been available to those who can and may wish to critique them and/or cooperate in developing them. Of course, there are problems with such method as well: whatever one reads is not the final word by a long shot. Readers could get easily confused. That problem can be overcome by using a closed network of peers. That, actually, is what Doug Engelbart had in mind--Tim Berners-Lee's public world-wide web came much later, around 1990. Having avoided experience with Augment now leaves us stuck with todays's editors. Fine editors they are, no question about that. They speed things up by replacing manual work by automation. But they do not accellerate ideas coming to fruition by augmenting human intellect.    25F Putting our subject matter aside, this is fundamentally a demonstration of publishing thoughts that need continual upgrading of content and, henceforth, continually revising the presentation of that content. While writing this chapter I felt in continual need for more or better background material. I'd like to have seen the reasoning and conclusions of others. I like any existing background material in my hands the very moment I am looking for it, something old-fashioned ways of publishing and communication do not permit. I am also in need of well-meant comments to improve my sluggishly developing and erroneous insights. This as well as the other chapters in our Merckelbach history are chapters in various stages of progress--from entirely unwritten to what seems finished. It should be obvious that this Chapter 4 is far from finished and even may contain misleading notions. Frequently I have also found myself reshuffling whole chapters, an exceedingly inefficient process which with Augment could have been done lickety-split. This kind of thing is, I feel sure, not just my experience. Many a book published today is already way out of date; even magazine articles tend to be behind the time. Worse, critique of what has been put in print comes too late to be of any immediate use. Fortunately, Internet publishing has already shown itself to beat publishing on paper hands down. Do I need to say more?    25G Model of a workstation which was custom-built around 1964-1966 at a cost. To the keyboard's right a mouse, to its left buttons for the rapid input of command codes for manipulating blocks of text. Those buttons have since been replaced by a device that is more efficient still than the common keyboard.    25H

Footnotes

In August 2010, from Prof. Dr. H.L.G.J. Merckelbach who sent me also a copy of Max Dechamps' manuscript, Der Ursprung des Geschlechtes Merckelbach as well other useful background material.  return  fn1

William of Occam is a 14th-century English logician, theologian, and Franciscan friar. Occam's Razor is a rule of thumb that considers the simplest of competing explanations most likely the one that is correct. This rule is the backbone of scientific progress. return  fn2

This writer was for a number of years volunteer webmaster for what was then called the Bootstrap Institute. return  fn3