Fwd: early Finnic ancestor

[Sjostrom]

* the 'de Hungaria' male lineage
http://genealogics.org/descend.php?personID=I00390103&tree=LEO&displayoption=male&generations=6

* some branching of the 'de Hungaria lineage'
http://genealogics.org/descend.php?personID=I00390093&tree=LEO

* descents from Otto de Hungaria, lord of Pirkele ('Pürkeln'):
http://genealogics.org/descend.php?personID=I00390086&tree=LEO

[Kelsey]

On May 22, 6:57 am, Sjostrom <mqs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> * the 'de Hungaria' male lineagehttp://genealogics.org/descend.php?personID=I00390103&tree=LEO&displa...

>
> * some branching of the 'de Hungaria lineage'http://genealogics.org/descend.php?personID=I00390093&tree=LEO
>
> * descents from Otto de Hungaria, lord of Pirkele ('Pürkeln'):http://genealogics.org/descend.php?personID=I00390086&tree=LEO

I may be misunderstanding the intent of your post (if so, my
apologies), but are you suggesting that the Ungern-Sternbergs are
patrineally Finnic? To my mind, this seems more than a little
doubtful. All we really know about Johannes de Ungaria (slightly
anachronistically rendered as Hans von Ungern by some modern sources)
is that he was enfeoffed with lands in Semigallia by Bishop Nicolaus
of Riga in 1252 and is subsequently attested in 1262 and 1269 [1].
Most genealogists have conjectured -- plausibly, to my mind -- that he
was the father of the next attested member of the family, Rudolfus de
Ungaria, lord of Sissegal. From there the pedigree, though
speculative in places, seems to lead straightforwardly to the well-
attested late medieval / early modern dynasties of Pürkel and Fistehl.

The problem I assume you are alluding to is the question of Johannes
de Ungaria's origin. Baron Wrangell and Nikolai von Essen, in their
1926 MS genealogy of the family (online, along with many other
valuable Baltic genealogical materials, through the Hereditas Baltica
project and the Estonian state archives, and accessible at www.ra.ee/dgs)
state the following:

"Dieser-Stammvater des ganzen Geschlechts war nach der
Familientradition ein Sohn des Sdzislaw von Sternberg und der Sidonia
von Waldstein, ein Bruder des Besiegers der Mongolen (1241), Jaroslaw
von Sternberg, und kam 1211 mit 500 ungarischen Reitern nach Livland,
wo er um 1232 die tochter Laupo's, Hedwig von Lieven, geheirathet
haben soll." [2]

This is, however, a late tradition and I'd be interested to see any
material you've found that places it on a more solid footing. Given
the late date at which the family began calling themselves 'Ungern
genannt Sternberg', I'd be inclined to dismiss the Sternberg origin as
largely or entirely legendary. At the moment, it seems that all we
can really say is that they /might/ be of Hungarian origin, depending
on how seriously we take the 'de Ungaria' cognomen.

All the best,
Kelsey Jackson Williams


[1] GHBR Estland, i. 442 (note to Stammtafel I.I).
[2] EAA.1674.2.207, image 4. "The ancestor of this entire family was,
after the family tradition, a son of Sdzislaw von Sternberg and
Sidonia von Waldstein, and a brother of Jaroslaw von Sternberg, the
conqueror of the Mongols (1241), and came into Livland in 1211 with
five hundred Hungarian cavalry, where about 1232 he is said to have
married Hedwig von Lieven, Laupo's daughter."

[Sjostrom]

apparently you have not read the post with which I started this thread:
http://news.rootsweb.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2012-05/1337174046

The Finnic ancestor indicated in the thread title is of course the
chieftain Kauppo,
whom your materials have mistakenly rendered as "Laupo".
The descent from him is dependent on the accuracy of the myth.

Moreover, this thread has items in common with another:
http://news.rootsweb.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2012-05/1335867564

[kelsey.jack...@googlemail.com]

Dear Sjostrom,

Thank you for these, which I had, indeed, missed. Would you mind giving a bit more detail concerning the sources of the 'mythic' marriage between Kauppo's daughter and Johannes de Ungaria? Is there good reason for thinking it has a basis in reality?

All the best,
Kelsey

P.S. This is a minor quibble, but I note that in your initial posts concerning possible descents from Kauppo, you give the names of estates in their Estonian forms. Wouldn't it make more sense (and be more straightforward from a genealogical/historiographical point of view) to give the German place names -- i.e., those which their owners would have used -- instead?

[Sjostrom]

Many, seemingly most, of my then-living ancestors (and ancestresses) in
this genealogical root,
were through the 1550s-c1580 deeply involved in the project of making the
Danish duke Magnus the King of Livonia. Magnus carried the title 'King of
Livonia' between 1570 and 1577. He arrived in Livonia in c1560 and deceased
there in 1583.
In the 1550s, the Germanic religion-state of Livonia (ayatollahs of the
violence-based crusader federation) crumbled, ultimately to pieces, when
their particular brand of religion got to an untenable position in the
region. The secular nobility and population of the region got to fend for
themselves, and their factions allied with a variety of vultures and
predators of neighboring countries. The Danish duke was one of those, and
apparently my ancestors had decided that he represented one of best
alternatives to organize their society after the religious nutcases.

Barbara Rozen was married with Kaspers Tizenhauze, lord of Tirza and
Aduliena (d bef 1579); whose (younger) brother Fabian Tisenhusen, lord of
Lagedi and Järvakandi, was envoy to Denmark (and deceased there, in
Denmark, in 1558).
Maya Tisenhusen was first married with Kristaps Tizenhauze (who was slain
in 1577 in these internecine wars) and secondly married (obviously after
1577) with Klaus Paykull, from Tyrvasalu; himself son of Dordi Düker and
Johannes Paykull (dc 1572 Pärnu) [they were duke Magnus' supporters too].

----




> 11 Anna Ungern (fl 1528; b bef est 1500)
>
> 12 Barbara Rozen (b bef c1530)
>
> 13 Maya Tisenhusen (b bef c1560)
>
> 14 lieutenant Hannes Paykull (est 1590 - bef 1634)
>
>

[kelsey.jack...@googlemail.com]

Very interesting, to be sure. This seems a long way away from the question of Johannes de Ungaria's wife, though . . . .

[kelsey.jack...@googlemail.com]

On a side topic, however, your own pedigree put me in mind of some more general thoughts about Baltic-German genealogy which, to my mind, have always made it especially interesting from a theoretical point of view. The Baltic-German nobility (and the urban, mercantile classes even more so) were more endogamous than most of the nobilities of western Europe, certainly more so than England, the usual benchmark for s.g.m. discussions. Nonetheless, there were periods of greater exogamy, especially the seventeenth century (with noble families in Sweden and Finland) and the nineteenth century (with noble families in Russia). It's occurred to me before now that it would be an interesting project to try to map some of the more notable gateway ancestors who married into the Baltic-German gene pool during these periods -- particularly during the early modern period of Swedish dominance, as this would be relevant to a far greater number of people -- especially those who might provide links back into the common pool of high medieval ruling families which are so often discussed here on s.g.m. Some examples would be

Brita Stuart (+ 1668), daughter of Chamberlain David Stuart till Rockelstad and almost certainly descended from the lords Ochiltree in Scotland (though the precise link is questionable), married Gustav Adolf Clodt von Jurgensburg, and left numerous Baltic descendants, including the composer Sibelius's wife.

Amalia Magalena, Countess of Nassau-Siegen (1613-1669), married Field-Marshall Count Herman Wrangell till Larjeholm and had issue, some in the Baltic.

Countess Christina of Wasaborg (1644-1706), granddaughter of Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden, married Lieutenant-General Wolmar von Wrangell, Baron Wrangell af Lindeberg (1641-1675) and left issue, some of whom were still resident in Livland in the 19th century.

Count Friedrich Magnus von Stenbock (1696-1745), who possessed a scintillating Swedish high noble ancestry including recent descents from the families of Oxenstjerna, De la Gardie, Brahe, and Sture. He was the ancestor of a numerous family of Stenbocks in Estland.

It would, I suspect take minimal effort to expand this list considerably. Even more interesting, though, would be to attempt something similar for medieval (as opposed to early modern) Livonia, though I suspect the number of exogamous marriages there is far fewer.

Anyway, just some rambling thoughts. I'd be curious as to your perspective on this and the more general contours of Baltic-German genealogy.

All the best,
Kelsey

[Sjostrom]

several of the posed questions have received at least some answer in the
work of Taube, upon the origins and the start of the family of
'Ungern-Sternberg' in Livonia:
Prof Dr Michael Freiherr von Taube (1940) Ungern-Sternberg, Ursprung und
Anfänge des Geschlechts in Livland. Tartu 1940, 155 pages.

* Taube refers to a folklore giving indications about the matter on the
page 9, at the same again mentioning the identicality of the Arms patterns
between the Lieven and the Ungaria: Latvian and Livonian folklore claims
that these two families had indigeneous origin ("Auf der Wappen der beiden
Familien Ungern und Lieven zurück. Nach einer lettischen, bezw. livischen
Volkssage sollen diese Geschlechter autochthoner Abkunft sein.")

* Taube refers on page 13 to the paper 'Genealogia' by one Otte Ungern
(from Linden) who died in 1646, containing i.a an old story about the
origin and first marriage of 'de Hungaria' lineage written down: the old
story narrates about a Livonian king 'Kobb' having four daughters, who were
prisoners of crusaders, and got baptized. The second daughter got name
Hedvigis, the fourth daughter got name Madleena. In this old story, in the
year 1232, the Hungarian colonel took Hedvigis as his wife. ("dass der
damaliger Lieffländischer König Kobb geheiszet hat..."; "vier Töchtern....
gefänglich gebracht... getaufft.... der Andern Tochter Hedwiga.... der
vierten Tochter Name Magdalena gegeben"; "hat obgemeilter ungerischer
Oberster, welcher von Ungern genandt worden, die Hedwigam Anno 1232 auch
zur Ehe genommen"), ("dieser fast wörtlich wiederholten Erzählung fügt die
'Genealogia' des Otto von Ungern auf Linden (d 1646)..."

This piece appears to mangle the name of the Livonian chieftain, on account
of a motivation to get it to resemble an element in the judeo-christian
name Jakob: there historically existed the chieftain Kauppo, this family
myth has king Kobb. However, this is not a rare likening: in Finnish
genealogy (about persons living in 1600s or in 1500s), there are many cases
where the attested first name 'Kauppi' (which is known to have been an old
Finnish male name, quite likely from pre-christian Finnish onomastical
fund) has been written down as 'Jaakoppi', 'Jaakko' occasionally either
already by a scribe in the man's own lifetime, or by a later editor.

The fourth sister Madleena (who remained unmarried) is implied in the Taube
book to have been the origin of the otherwise-attested name of the church
building (something along the lines 'Madleena's church') in the most
important ancestral manor of the de Hungaria line and its parish.

* Taube expresses his own opinion about the plausibility and likelihood on
page 34: Taube's view is explicit in his conclusion that the de Hungaria
forefather's marriage with a daughter of chieftain Kauppo was not only
possible, but also very likely ("Dass er aber mit einer Tochter des Caupo
'Livo' vermählt war, ist nicht nur möglich, sondern auch sehr
wahrscheinlich").