Our Thomæ / Thoma Family

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My last name is Thoma, which is the way it has always been written in Cooper County, Missouri. But when my great-great-grandfather emigrated to Missouri the ship’s clerk spelled his last name Tomie. I eventually traced the family back to Hofstädten, Bayern, Germany where his last name was written as Thomä. But as I traced the family back in time I discovered they were from Hildburghausen, Thüringia, Germany where the name was written Thomæ. This began a long search on my surname which begins with a Tk sound; a sound that in German sound just like D. And that is when I started to find some of my ancestors listed alphabetically with the Ds. The sound search led me to put the various spelling of the Thoma surname into a language pronunciation app; only to discover they sounded different. Then I discovered the clerks, the people who listened to those names and wrote the names down in English; so I have cousins who became Tomie and Thomey. To shorten this story some variations on the surname are: Thoma, Thomä, Thomæ, Thome, Dhoma, Doma, Thoma, Tomie, Thomey, Tkoma, Tkomæ, and others which escape me.

Still this story begins with Christoph Thomæ who became a cantor and pastor of the Lutheran church in Hildburghausen. Although we have leads on his parents, they are still unknown; but financially well enough off to provide Christoph an education. He was born 1590-1600 and died in 1635, twice married, his life was defined by the Thirty Years War. All five of his children who were born by his first wife, Anna Kob, died as infants When Anna passed, Christoph, married Catherina Hartman (whose lineage is very long and distinguished line of Lutheran pastors), and sired another four children. Three of these lived to adulthood and carried on the family lineage. The fourth, Michael, was preceded by the death of two other Michaels. By 1635, Christoph had experienced disease, famine, and death in his church congregation and his family. When he finally died in 1635 of the plague and since the church cemetery had been filled with the plague deaths; he was buried in the newly opened Hildburghausen Plague Cemetery. The location of that cemetery has been long forgotten and paved over.

But life goes on and in 1637 Catherina married Johann Möring in Hildburghausen. Johann cared for Catherina's three children as his own and had five more with Catherina. Catherina's children with Christoph: Stephan and Margaretha retained the surname Thomæ, while Johann Anton changed his name to Möring. Johann Möring, who was a baker and a city church worker, was able to provide a collegiate education to all his male children and step-children, where they all became Lutheran cantors and priests. The daughter, of course, married Lutheran Pastors. So it was that more connections were sintered with the Lutheran Church.

Lutheran church workers were not known for retiring rich from their service to church. So Johann Möring insisted that all the male children in his household learn his trade of baking. Stephan Thomæ remembered his days of working in his father's bakery and infinitely preferred it to going to school. He was a poor student and I suspect it was his mother who forced him to graduate from the Gymnasium of Hildburghausen and in 1652 from Leipzig University. From then on he served the parishes of Wiedhausen, Neuhaus bei Schierschnitz, and Sonnefeld / Hofstädten as their pastor.

There is a lot more on Stephan and all his descendants and our ancestors. Just peek inside and see what you will find among the Kings and Queens, Dukes and Duchesses, Counts and Countesses, farmers and housewives. Travel from today to hundreds of years before Christ. Surely there is something here to tickle your interest.

Caution I did the best I could on this history. But I make mistakes and the people before me made mistakes. So take it with a grain of salt that you may be reading a Big Giant Grain of Salt! I have a big ego but I do not mind if you cut, copy, and paste this into your history. I often find my information in other genealogies along with the mistakes. So have fun.

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