Thomas Bruch’s Second Wife – Katharina Lentz of Züsch

The second wife of Thomas Bruch of Ellweiler was traditionally identified as Katharina Jung, daughter of Philip Jung of Züsch, a small village to the west of Birkenfeld. I suspect that this identification originated with the transcription of historian Rudi Jung in his Familienbuch Achtelsbach, which is clearly a source for most of the genealogies of families of the Birkenfeld region that you find online. When I first examined the original record, I thought the surname was actually “Lang”. However, I allowed myself to be convinced by the weight of expert opinion that it was really “Jung.”

When looking at the record again much later, I began to seriously doubt that Katharina’s surname was Jung. For one thing, there was no U-Bogen over where the letter U should be. The U-Bogen is a diacritical mark that was traditionally used to distinguish a lower-case U from a lower-case N. The U-Bogen was not always used, but the record keeper in Achtelsbach in 1613 always used it. Therefore, the letter in question was more likely to be an E or an A rather than a U.

Moreover, while the first letter of the name could be a J, it could also be an L. I therefore did a handwriting comparison of the letters L and J written by the same record keeper within a year or two of 1613. The first letter most closely resembled an L. The last letter, assumed to be a sloppy “g”, most closely resembled a “tz”

Thomas and Katharina Bruch had connections to a Claus Lentz of Feckweiler. Claus was originally from Züsch, and I had assumed that he must have known Katharina. Now, it seemed to me that Katharina’s surname was actually Lentz. In fact, there is a record of a Martin Lentz marrying in Dienstweiler in 1617. In his marriage record, he was described as the son of Philip Lentz of Züsch. While it is certainly possible that there was a Philip Jung and a Philip Lentz both living in Züsch, it seems much more likely based on the handwriting analysis that Katharina was the daughter of Philip Lentz, and Martin of Dientsweiler was her brother.

My mistaken identification of Thomas Bruch’s second wife is an important reminder that one cannot completely rely on transcriptions and indexes, no matter how well-respected the transcriber.

For those interested in handwriting comparison, here is the original reference to “Lentz Philipps” from the Achtelsbach Church Book. Compare the first word to known examples of “Lentz” and “Jungeren.”