48.62608, 9.26395# Grötzingen, Esslingen, Baden-Württemberg For well over a century, the Rudolph and Stübler families lived their lives in Grötzingen, a village in the Württemberg district of Esslingen. The record of their presence here runs from 1783 to 1918 — births, marriages, and burials repeating across generations in a single Swabian community. ## The Rudolph Family Christian Rudolph, born here on 9 February 1784, spent his whole life in Grötzingen and died in the village on 7 July 1848, buried two days later on the 9th. His wife, Anna Maria Mueller, born 1 November 1783, outlived him by eight years; she died on 22 July 1856 and was buried on the 25th. Their marriage and their household were rooted in this place, and their children carried the family forward within it. Among their children was Carl Christian Heinrich Rudolph, born in Grötzingen on 8 April 1812 and living there until his death on 9 February 1872, just short of his sixtieth birthday. Gottlieb Rudolph was born in the village on 12 February 1821. The middle decades of the nineteenth century pressed hard on the family. Elisabethe Rudolph was buried on 4 October 1850, Johannes Rudolph on 17 March 1852, Johann Jakob Rudolph on 1 August 1852, and Anna Maria Rudolph on 21 November 1855 — four burials within five years, all in the same village churchyard. The Rudolph presence in Grötzingen continued into the twentieth century with Christian Ludwig Rudolph, buried here on 1 August 1918. Karl Heinrich Rudolph also made his home in the village. By the next generation, the pull that would empty so many Württemberg villages had reached the family. Jacob Rudolph, born in 1853, lost his wife Mary Raisch and left his two children with his in-laws before emigrating to the United States in 1881, where he married Anna Hofbauer. His departure marks the point where the family's long continuity in Grötzingen gave way to a new life across the ocean — though he kept some tie to home, corresponding with the family he had left behind. ## The Stübler Family The Stübler (also written Stiebler) family was joined to the Rudolphs and to Grötzingen through a marriage recorded on 22 October 1812, uniting the households of Johannes Thomas Stiebler and Maria Elisabetha Schmohl with the wider circle of Jakob Stübler, Hedwig Stiebler, Barbara Stübler, Anna Maria Stübler, and Christiana Friederike Stübler. Maria Elisabetha Schmohl died in Grötzingen on 28 January 1833 and was buried on the 30th. Johannes Thomas Stiebler followed on 5 January 1840, buried two days later. Hedwig Stiebler, who also lived in the village, was buried on 11 August 1874. ## A Village Life These families were not travelers passing through. For generations they were born, married, and buried in Grötzingen, their names entering the same registers decade after decade. The village churchyard held Rudolphs and Stüblers side by side across nearly a century and a half. When emigration finally broke the pattern in the 1880s, it broke a chain that had held firm since at least the 1780s.