Imagine my surprise when I checked the blog's email box today and there, in black and white (with some photos thrown in), is a response to an email I wrote to Schloss Dagstuhl over a month ago!
From Angelika Mueller in Germany:
"We are a conference center for computer science and our house Schloss Dagstuhl has a more than 1000 year old history. One of the main families who reigned over Dagstuhl was the family von Sötern (or Soetern). One of their daughters Anna Katharina von Sötern (1592-1629) married Adolf von Nesselrode zu Erishofen (or Nesselrode-Ehrishoven and more other spellings). Later their son Bertram became guardian for the young Phillip Franz von Sötern, who’s father died before he had the age to reign by himself.
Therefore the Nesselrode family had the regency over the Dagstuhl dominion from 1652 to 1660.
In one of our historical rooms are the coat of arms of Nesselrode-Erichshofen (see attached photo). A photo of the door you mention is also attached. The coats of arms of all Dagstuhl-related families are on that door.
Some information about the Dagstuhl history is here:
http://www.dagstuhl.de/en/about-dagstuhl/history/
We have also a brochure about the Dagstuhl history with many photos including this famous door. You can download this brochure (Note from me: 3.03 MB, 24 pages, about 30 min to an hour on dial up) from our history page or I can send you one specimen by air mail. In that case I need your surface mail address.
Some information about your ancestors:
Nesselrath is the village with a nearby medieval castle where the Nesselrode family once lived. This village is indeed at the boards of the river Wupper. (Search maps.google.com with "Haus Nesselrath")
Many other spellings are common for the family. But Nesselröden and Nesselrodt are other families. The word means "to stub the nettle". I found it funny, that when transforming this name to an english version in the 18th century, the word for stub (roden) was transformed to road! The sound is much the same!
Some pages about this family (in German):
http://www.tetti.de/SOLINGEN/NESSELRATH/
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesselrode_(Adelsgeschlecht)
In this page they explain the coats of arms:
A beam of pinnacles (merlons) as symbol of the castle or principality. The head of the hound symbolizes the hunting rights of the family. The hound also shows the beam of pinnacles around his neck.
The colors are read and silver.
Relation to the Sötern family and genealogy (I converted the link to make the family name "clickable", the link didn't copy nicely on its own)
Hope this information helps you. If you once have the occasion to travel to Germany, please visit our house. You need to be announced, since it is usually closed for visitors."
And! And! here are the photos that corroborate with Talwin's research:
If you look closely, you can see the familiar shield with a dog's head on it (not quite what was pictured in the Coat of Arms post) on the wall in the dining room and also on the lower right hand side of the door (as you face it).
Needless to say,I sent a HUGE thank you to Angelika for her information and the photos.
So...how many of you are now applying for passports and buying tickets to Dagstuhl? :oD
Personally, I will be scrounging through the links sent by Angelika, much the same way I suppose as an anteater looking for ants in an anthill. Unfortunately, my gratification will be somewhat delayed as I have 2 tests this Thursday...
Cheers!
P.S. If you copy each link and paste it into the Google search engine, you can click the "Translate this" link to get it in English.
This is very exciting info, Jen, thanks for posting it. I wonder if we can get Angelika to join Facebook so that we can all share photos?
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Angelika is a contact for the Schloss Dagstuhl itself. I swear, all I had asked was why, when I was google searching information on our family (trying key words and phrases from Talwin's research), that Schloss Dagstuhl and a "famous door" kept popping up.
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