Project All Weißenborns and Wittenborns
Auf Deutsch In het Nederlands

Hello to you who is interested in my project.

On this page I share the status of my project. When I was 11 years old, I asked my grandpa where we, the Weisenborns, originated from. He replied that it was obvious that we originated from Germany. But he couldn't say when or how. It took me a few years to find the evidence that my ancestor Johannes had emigrated from Kassel in Hessen to Alkmaar in the Netherlands in 1805, another few years and a visit to Marburg to find out that his father Johann Martin Weisenborn alias Johann (or Hans) Martin Wittenborn had come from Veckerhagen, a village a few kilometers north of Kassel, and yet another few years to find clues that his father Zacharias Wittenborn was born in 1667 in an as yet unknown place to the south, but within traveling distance from Veckerhagen.

At 16 I made an attempt to gather all information I could about all Weißenborns in Germany. I had the objective to combine all lines into the past, hoping that they would converge to the area where my ancestor Johann Martin had also come from. However, the sheer volume of information overwhelmed me. I threw away all the material I had gathered, to wipe out the memories of this failed attempt.

One and a half years ago, at 53, I felt ready for another attempt to gather all information I could find about all Weißenborns, and now about all Wittenborns as well, using the internet and an idea I have developed over time about how to keep the information organised and tractable. This web page is the result of my one-and-a half-years of dedication to my goal.

The reason for investigating the Wittenborns as well as the Weißenborns is not only that my own ancestors changed their family name when they crossed the border of the "Lautverschiebung" or soundshift. In the book "Alte Kerstlingerödische Denkwürdigkeiten", published in 1724, it is mentioned that the village Weissenborn near the spring of the stream Garte was also called Witteborn in the papers in the archive of Rittmarshausen.

I have joyfully put in the effort it took to collect and combine all the data shown in the family trees you find on this web site. As I have been either given these data, found them in open sources on the internet or collected them directly in the archives - all for free - I ask nothing in return for the access I give to my data collection to every-one who is interested in browsing through the data.

I do however explicitly forbid everyone to exploit these data commercially.
I have developed the system to organise the data together with my brother-in-law Wouter Boer and my son Hildebrand. The system may be copied for free, but as with the data, not exploited commercially. If commercial exploitation does take place and I find out, I will strive for the return of all money to whoever it was taken from illegally and compensation for my effort required to achieve this.

I wish you joy in wandering through the available trees. If you are my namesake, I hope you find yourself in one of the trees. If you have complementary information that you want to make available to me and thereby to all people who are interested, please give me the data, and I will insert them in the existing family trees or add a new tree when necessary.

Toon Weisenborn

(do scroll on)

It is probably intuitively clear how to use the system I have chosen to organise the data. The symbols and abbreviations are explained in the header of the data base. With a little help from an online dictionary you will be able to translate the Dutch words you may come across.

  1. Identify the person you are interested in in the following data base: You can search using Crtl-F: press down the "Crtl" key, hold it down and press "F". Key in the name you want to search for in the space at the upper right hand side of the screen. With "Enter" you may browse through the hits.
  2. If the first name of the person is underlined, clicking on the link will open up the family tree to which this person belongs, from the earliest known ancestor to the particular person.
  3. By clicking on the underlined names in the family tree, the families of these - almost exclusively male - persons open up when closed, and close when opened.
  4. Clicking on the year(s) behind the person's name brings you to the place in the database where you find all details of that person known to me. You find these data on the first line(s) at the top on the screen.


To send me an email (leave out the blancs): toon @ weisenborn-boer.nl

The facebook page Toon Weisenborn Weissenborn (Weißenborn) is dedicated exclusively to Weis(s)enborns and Wittenborns

The following posts have appeared on this page.
  1. About Johannes Zacharias Wittenborn
  2. Meaning of the name Weis(s)enborn alias Wittenborn
  3. On the spreading of the name Weis(s)enborn
  4. About finding Weis(s)enborn roots
  5. A beam across time
  6. The house of Peter Wittenborn (1738-1800), the shoemaker of Veckerhagen
  7. Weißenborn near Ottrau
  8. Weißenborn near Sontra
  9. Weißenborn near Eschwege
  10. The ruin of the village Wetenborn
  11. The villages Weißenborn near Heiligenstadt and Weißenborn-Lüderode
  12. Two villages Weißenborn in east-Thüringen and two in Saxony
  13. Around the thin line Weis(s)enborn
  14. Weißenborn near Bröckau
  15. 6000th_Weissenborn
  16. Map with 11 villages Weißenborn
  17. Planning our visit to Kallstadt
  18. The outcome of history
  19. The Weisenborns in Kallstadt (1)
  20. The Weisenborns in Kallstadt (2)
  21. The Weisenborns in Kallstadt (3)
  22. The Weisenborns in Kallstadt (4)
  23. The Weisenborns in Kallstadt (5)
  24. Weissenborns 16th century
  25. Sorrow
  26. The Weisenborns in Kallstadt (6)
  27. All Weisenborns & Wittenborns on one webpage
  28. Weissenborns east of the current German-Polish border
  29. Letting go of the name Weissenborn
  30. Linking family trees this summer. In diesem Sommer Stammbäume verbinden.
  31. A free 11-day trial of Ancestry: Berlin and Dresden sorted for 1874-1920.
  32. Castle Ludwigsburg and the Weissenborns in the north-east of Germany.
  33. Weißenborns and Wittenborns in 1618.
  34. Standing on the shoulders of many, many other genealogists.
  35. Reporting on my June 2017 search for Weis(s)enborns: the first morning.
  36. Monday afternoon and evening.
  37. Tuesday 20 June.
  38. Wednesday 21 June.
  39. Thursday 22 June.
  40. Friday 23 June.
  41. Saturday 24 June.
  42. Sunday 25 June until Wednesday 28 June.
  43. Why and what can we know about our German ancestors?
  44. Süß, a village that moved from Thüringen to Hessen, with Weißenborns and all.
  45. A proposal to visit, record and share our common past.
  46. A glimpse of my genealogical work.
  47. "Congratulations with your title, dr. Weisenborn." "Thank you, dr. Weisenborn."
  48. A week with Weis(s)enborns in west-Thüringen in real life and in the archives.
  49. Search for the birthplace of Johann Lorentz (1721-1763), first Weisenborn in Marbach.
  50. The last Weisenborn who lived in Marbach.

Interesting links

  1. The Hessische Mannschafts Register of 1639.
  2. Chapter 19 in the book "Kerstlingeroda's antiquities" of 1724 about the Village Weißenborn near Heiligenstadt that was destroyed during the Thirty Years War.
  3. Chronicle of the family Weißenborn originating from Kelbra, a village on the border of Thüringen and Saxony-Anhalt, by Dr. Hermann Schaper.
  4. John Theibault's doctoral thesis, a thorough study of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and its prelude and aftermath, for an area where many Weißenborns have lived.