1. HEINRICH¹ PIEROTH¹.

Notes for HEINRICH PIEROTH:

From a letter written to John Philip Pieroth, Jr., July 10, 1983 by Dieter Pieroth [of the Pieroth wine company in Germany], Welngut-Weinkellerei GmbH 6531 Burg Layen:

The real meaning of the name "Pieroth" has not yet been found out. The French kind of writing is "Pierrot". Perhaps this is the minimize of the christian name Pierre, Peter. May be there is some connexion between the greece word Petra - the rock. From this expression the name of the first apostel "Petrus" has been derived. Possibly the name Pieroth came out of the Italian Commedia del'Artes, a mediaeval form of theater with an always remaining statuettes pattern. The Pierrot was an unfortunate tragic lover in an harlequin costume.

The family's origin, as far as we found out, lay in Wallonia, the southern part of today's Belgium, where french language is spoken. Our family in particular comes from the region around Luttich (Liege).

Child of HEINRICH PIEROTH is:

2. HEINRICH² PIEROTH (HEINRICH¹)¹ died 1758.

Child of HEINRICH PIEROTH is:

3. ANDREAS³  PIEROTH (HEINRICH², HEINRICH¹) was born 1733¹, and died 1780.

Child of ANDREAS PIEROTH is:

4. JOH. HEINRICH⁴ PIEROTH (ANDREAS³, HEINRICH², HEINRICH¹) was born 1757^1.

Children of JOH. HEINRICH PIEROTH are:

5. JOH. PHILIPP⁵ PIEROTH (JOH. HEINRICH⁴, ANDREAS³, HEINRICH², HEINRICH¹)²was born 1781³. He married ELISABETHA BLASIUS⁴.

Notes for ELISABETHA BLASIUS:

Records were not very legible. The last name could be either Blasius or Plasius.

Child of JOH. PIEROTH and ELISABETHA BLASIUS is:

Child of JOH. HEINRICH PIEROTH is:

7. HEINRICH⁶ PIEROTH (JOH. PHILIPP⁵, JOH. HEINRICH⁴, ANDREAS³, HEINRICH², HEINRICH¹)⁶ was born Abt. 1804⁷, and died 1869. He married ANNA MARIA HAMMEL⁸ February 09, 1825 in Appenheim, Germany, daughter of MARTIN HAMMEL and ANNA HERBRANDT.

Notes for HEINRICH PIEROTH:

Heinrich Pieroth, a hoof smith, living in Appenheim [German], was 64 years old, when his son Philipp was married. Therefore he was born about 1804. His birthplace is not noted.

Children of HEINRICH PIEROTH and ANNA HAMMEL are:

Child of NIKOLAUS PIEROTH is:

9. PHILIPP⁷PIEROTH II (HEINRICH⁶, JOH. PHILIPP⁵, JOH. HEINRICH⁴, ANDREAS³, HEINRICH², HEINRICH¹)¹⁰ was born April 05, 1841 in Appenheim, Germany¹¹, and died April 01, 1880 in Gensingen, Germany. He married KATH. WAHLE¹²December 31, 1868 in Gensingen, Germany, daughter of ANTON WAHLE and KATH. JOESTER.

Notes for PHILIPP PIEROTH II:

... the signatures at the marriage record: The signature of Heinrich Pieroth is correct, his son Philipp wrote "Pfilipp Piroht." He was not yet Philipp Pieroth II at his marriage. Only later on he was named Philipp Pieroth II in contrast to Philipp Pieroth I, born 22.8.1839 in Gensingen as son of Joh. Pieroth II in Gensingen.

Herbert Pieroth, 35 old, living Gensingen, told me that Philipp Pieroth I was his great grandfather. He was 1871 married in Gensingen three years later than Philipp Pieroth II. How close or far Philipp I and II were related, at present I can not yet say.

Letter dated 12. Aug. 84

...died 1.Apr.1880 in Gensingen, 38 years and 11 months old, at four and a half o clock in the morning, in the house of his father-in-law Anton Wahle. When he died, his profession was horsedriver.

Letter of September 12, 1984

1) Philipp Pieroth II lost his mother when he was eleven years old. Surely he had not a good teacher, because he could not write correct his own name. He wrote as in slang is spoken "Piroht", not only on his marriage record, also on the birth records of his sons. In contrast to him, his father Heinrich had a very good handwriting.

2) Because in the 19th century the population increased, sometimes in the same village or community were living adult men, who had the same family name and the same Christian name. Therefore one was obliged to distinguish. This was done with Roman ciphers I, II, III etc., only used for men (not ladies) and only, when signature must be made on a document, record, certification, bill of sale, etc. When he was married, your Philip II was not yet Philipp II, only Philipp. Later on, when an other Philipp Pieroth, born 22.8.1839 and living in Gensingen, was married 19.4.1871, both got addendum. I think that the "Burgenmeister", who were registry officers simultaneous in their own person, have given these Roman ciphers. No more usual today.

Letter dated October 21, 1984

Next time I will meet again with Mr. Bahn, who is searching for Mr. Dieter Pieroth. On my last visit in Mainz we could perceive, that "his" Pieroth and "my" Pieroth 'til today have no connection. This is very understandable, because at present I am not yet longer back than 1825. He has a Joh. Philipp Pieroth, born 1781, in his papers, who could be perhaps your [John Philip Pieroth, Jr.] great great great grandfather Philipp! Perhaps? I must proof!

Children of FERDINAND PIEROTH are:

11. ANTON PAUL⁸PIEROTH (PHILIPP⁷, HEINRICH⁶, JOH. PHILIPP⁵, JOH. HEINRICH⁴, ANDREAS³, HEINRICH², HEINRICH¹) was born 18701³, and died 1943.

Children of ANTON PAUL PIEROTH are:

Children of PHILIPP FERNINAND PIEROTH are:

Child of KUNO JAKOB PIEROTH is:

14. JOHN PHILIP⁹ PIEROTH (ANTON PAUL⁸, PHILIPP⁷, HEINRICH⁶, JOH. PHILIPP⁵, JOH. HEINRICH⁴, ANDREAS³, HEINRICH², HEINRICH¹) was born 1894¹³, and died 1952.

Child of JOHN PHILIP PIEROTH is:

Two daughters.

1984/5: John Philip Pieroth, Jr., Seattle, Washington. Vice President of Signal Communications, Inc., 851 Poplar Place S., Seattle, Washington.

Sent letters to all the Pieroth listings in the USA in 1984, as well as hired a genealogist in Germany to do research. He was able to provide documentation of the family back to Heinrich Jacob Pieroth (d. 1758), but without finding a common link to the ancestors of Charles Gabriel Pieroth of Setauket, NY.

In his letter of November 26, 1984 he wrote, in part:

In addition to going back even further in Europe, perhaps to the origins of the family in Belgium, I wan to try to determine more about the movements of my grandfather, e.g. where he liven in Europe when he decided to emigrate to this country, why he made the move, whether there were others who had come before him who he joined - perhaps a cousin or an uncle, etc.

From what I can tell from the responses to my last letter, there appear to have been two or perhaps three different groups of Pieroths who came to this country in the latter part of the nineteenth century. One group settled in and around New York and the others in the Chicago area. There has been, of course, considerable migration of descendants since then - to California, Washington, Colorado, Oklahoma, etc.

One interesting trait that I have discovered, both from the findings of the genealogists and from the responses from this country, is the repeated use of the same given names generation after generation. In my case, the names Philip and John appear again and again both in the direct line and in its side branches. It is also of great interest (and also a great puzzle) that so many Pieroths in the United States report, as I myself had always assumed, that their line goes back to "somewhere in Alsace-Lorraine;" I have found no "Alsace connection" for any of us.

From 1618-1648 the Thirty Years' War raged. The main scene of action was the German Reich. Specially here in our region between the two rivers of Rhine and Nahe more than half of the population died in this war. In the year 1650, about 2 years after the "Westfaalische conclusion of peace" a belgium salesman named Jean Mariot buyed or inherited metallurgical plants in this region near Stromber, a little town in the "Hunsruck" mountains near Bingen on the Rhine. As per the drastic reduction of population it was impossible to him to start working, therefore he engaged colonists from his homeland Belgium.

The then sovereign however imposed, that those belgium families, all of them metallurgical specialists had to sattle down in the abondoned farms and vineries. Among these belgium settlers there was the Pieroth family, too, whose great-grandfather, Heinrich, (probably the ancestor of all German Pieroths) was documentary recorded for the first time in 1675. Copies of this document are kept in our family's archives in Burg Layen. For this time, that means since about 1650 the Pieroths dealt, although only avocationally with wine and agricultural products. This fact however has documentary been certified not before the year 1704, when a certain Heinrich Jakob Pieroth was recorded as an owner of some vineyeards.

In 1756 one of his sons was mentioned as courtier of the Baron of Weyern in Burg Layen. In 1762 this estate was rent by Andreas Pieroth, the youngest son of the above-mentioned and as security for the tenancy fields and vinyeards of his homland were placed to disposal.

After Napoleon had conquered large parts of the German Reich and in 1810 premisis of the Church and noblemen were expropriated, this domain, too came to auction. Heinrich Pieroth then bought parts of the estate. My great-grandfather Nikolaus Pieroth then, realized, according to his records, that the wine growing section of his property was the most lucrative one. For this reason more and more vineyards were systematically acquired in the late 19th century.

Ferdinand Pieroth, my grandfather, after whom our toady's enterprise is named, sold the wine in casks to the wine-merchants. My father's generation the, in 1920 began to fill up their wines in bottles and t sell them to private clients. Our clients received commercials and then ordered by letter. Our main clientele of that time was situated in the east part of the German Reich, which now belongs to Poland and the German Democratic Republic.

In the 50th, the eldest of my generation, Elmar Pieroth, began with the direct selling. He and his younger brother, Kuno, visited our clients at home, where he offered our wines to them. The private wine-tastings represented the corner-stone of the economic success of our house during the last 25 years. In 1958 we started exporting to Great Britain and since 1972 we are also represented in the USA.

In 1960 our annual turnover was 5 Mio DM, in 1970 - 84 Mio DM, and this year probably we shall reach 600 Mio DM, 40% of which are in exports. Further details about our vinery and property of our family are gathered in the enclosed prospectus.

I am sorry that I cannot complete your genealogy tree and don't see any connection between our two family branches. However we are actually seaking for a hobby-ancestor researcher, who should complete the knowledges we have already found out about the history of our family.

Child of KUNO FERDINAND PIEROTH is:

Child of DIETER PIEROTH is: