The research on my family name started at an early age and has always been fun to do. But I soon ran out of Sholder ancestors and descendants as there were not too many of us bearing the surname Sholder. In fact it could be considered rare occurring only 0.065 per 100,000 people according to the 2000 and 2010 census.
As any good researcher does, I attacked from another angle. I worked on some of my other ancestors and their descendants all being very close in and around Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Then one day while researching the Updegraff family, I came across and entry for Clinton Miller Calkins who married Caroline M. Sholder, they had three children and of course some of their descendants were still living in Williampsort, Pennsylvania. After making contact with Lois Grace (Calkins) Huggins and her sister Shirley Ruth (Calkins) Kriner in September 1992, I discovered that they had a treasure trove of original documents that belonged to Christian August Sholder and his wife Anna Margareta Lutscher, well only five, but they were all original documents used by Christian and Anna to travel from Degerloch, Württemberg in 1831 and Anna's mother, Katharina B. (Reiser) Lutscher who traveled in 1849 to the United States. As well as the marriage certificate for Clinton Miller Calkins and Caroline M. Sholder. What a find this was!! We discovered that their surname had been changed from Scholderer to Sholder at some point after they arrived in March 1831 first settling in Centre County, then moving to the Bottle Run area of Lycoming County in 1838.
I had no way to research further in Germany in 1992, before the WWW was a "thing," and exploded in the late 90's. Using a dial up modem I trolled various genealogy boards and eventually the WWW with not much luck for several years. Then on 2 January 2002 I received a reply from a mailing list about Baden-Württemberg. My question was simple, "Does anyone know about the town of Degerloch?" The reply from an unknown woman actually living in the town of Degerloch, and once again this sparked the fire for further research around my ancestor Christian August Scholderer or Sholder. This wonderful person who lived in Degerloch was Erika Viktoria Lanz, which we would find out latter as our research continued, that we were also actually related through the Scholderer family. Erika and I corresponded for close to 13 years regularly and then that slowly dropped off until I was contacted by her daughter about her death in 2018. She was born 11 February 1938 and died on 28 March 2018 at the age of 80 years, 1 month and 17 days. The fruits of Erika's research using original church documents and records has helped to provide a solid foundation for the research shown on this website about the Scholderer families and their descendants.
Martin Scholderer born circa 1600 is the oldest known documented ancestor for the Scholderer / Sholder family that settled in Pennsylvania. He married Dorothee [-?-] between 1620 and 1625. Martin Scholderer died on 23 September 1635 at Remmingsheim, Oberamt Rottenburg, Schwarzwaldkreis, Württemberg.
The present day state of Baden-Württemberg was formed after World War II in 1952. Before this Baden and Württemberg were considered separate states, and actually separate kingdoms ruled by the feudal system of Europe. Württemberg itself dates as far back as the 13th century when ruled by the Counts of Württemberg. Then around 1495 AD it was given rights by the Holy Roman Empire as a Duchy. Even though the area around it was mostly Catholic, Württemberg remained mostly Protestant.
During the next 100 years the name Scholderer and many variations would emerge in the mid 1500's during the height of the religious wars, in the small village of Rosenfeld, which was founded around 1255 by the Counts of Teck, and became a possession of Württemberg in 1317. Between 1546-1547, Emperor Charles V defeated the Protestant princes and towns that allied against him. Then in 1555 the Peace of Augsburg gave the Lutheran states equal rights with the Catholic ones, by granting the princes the ability to determine the religion of their territories. By 1556, Charles V retired into the monastery of Yuste. Within Rosenfeld we find two main Scholderer families during that time, Jacob Scholderer (born circa 1537) and Georg Scholderer (born circa 1549). The working theory is that Georg Scholderer's grandson Martinus Scholderer (born 10 November 1600) and Martin Scholderer (born circa 1600 - died 23 September 1635) of Remmingsheim are one in the same person. This has yet to be proven.
Remmingsheim is where my ancestor Martin Scholderer lived and raised his family. It is not known where he came from other than the theory above, but he died there in 1635 about two weeks before his last child was born, leaving a wife and five or six children. Based on the research done by Erika, she states: "Looks like they had an epidemic in the fall of 1635, in Remmingsheim, as over half the village had died."
From there his son Martin (18 March 1629 - 17 March 1704/05) moved to the nearby village of Wolfenhausen, where he married and raised his family of eight children, seven boys and one daughter. The towns of Remmingsheim, Wolfenhausen and Nellingsheim were united in 1971 to collectively form the municipality of Neustetten. Today they have a population of about 3,500 people. The towns of Remmingsheim and Wolfenhausen are both seen in history as early as 1111 AD, but can be traced back as early as the 7th century. The Haus (House) Scholderer in Wolfenhausen, still exists today, it was most likely built and owned by the Scholderer family around 1750. Some of the homes in Wolfenhausen today still carry the names of the people who were their inhabitants hundreds of years ago, ours is one of them.
During this time the 30 Years' War raged over Europe and undoubtedly the Scholderer family lost many family members due to diseases and hunger brought on by the war. By the end of this war in 1648, the entire population of Württemberg went from about 450,000 to less than 90,000 people. The Scholderer family survived and our line remained in Wolfenhausen until around 1712, when Stephan Scholderer (born 24 December 1688) married on 26 April 1712, Anna Maria Ulmer (born 4 April 1690 - died 2 February 1761) from Degerloch.
Degerloch is now a suburb of and a part of Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Degerloch has an early history and celebrated its 900th birthday at the turn of this century in the year 2000. Degerloch is first mentioned in 1100 AD in the Codex Hirsaugiensis (the manuscripts from the monastery in Hirsau); "The high-noble Hesso von Wolfsölden and his son Sigehard donated to the Monastery Hirsau, twelve farms to Degerloch." From 1712 through 1832, the Scholderer family would prosper, live and raise their families in the town of Degerloch.
There are three of Martin's descendants that have been documented that have traveled to America.
Jacob Friedrich Scholderer (1794-1863) Degerloch to Chillicothe, Ohio
Christian August Scholderer (1807-1874) Degerloch to Williamsport, Pennsylvania
The children of Regina Dorothea (Scholderer) Sauter (1793-1850), from Weilheim, to Greenfield, Massachusetts