Kittendorf, Stavenhagen, Germany

In 1819, Friedrich Franz I, ordered the taking of a census of every inhabitant in the Duchy. Lists made by the mayor of cities and the Amtsmanner of villages were given to the Pastors to check against their records for accuracy. The census identified 393,000 inhabitants.

Among them in the Ritteramt Stavenhagen District we find entries nos. 235 thru 245:

• Jochen Friedrich Jonas , born in Kittendorf, Stavenhagen, Mecklenberg on 29 February 1785.
• Mar. (Marie or Margarete?) Friederike Jonas, born in Kittendorf, 13 April 1787 (Jochen’s wife).
• Gust Christian Theodor Jonas (August), born 02 January 1817 in Kittendorf (their son)
• Johann Christian Friedrich Jonas, born 4 December 1813, (another son)
• Andreas Friedrich Paarmann, born 29 November 1802 (servant)
• Theodor Christoph Andreas Voss, born 15 November 1802 in Flotow (servant)
• Catharine Sophie Diederich, born 19 October 1786, from Gievitz, a servant’s wife
• Fried. Stine (Friederike Christine) Diederich, b. 10 March 1809 (servant’s daughter)
• Louise Magd. (Magdalena) Diederich, b. 11 Jul 1811 (servant’s daughter)

The husband and father of this Diederich family is the servant Ber. (Bernd) Christian Diederich, b. 11 Jul 1776, who was living in the manor house.

Jochen Friedrich is listed as a tageloehner. A tagleohner is a day laborer who worked on a large estate. Often times, tageloehners had to share their dwelling with other employees of the estate. They had a small cottage to live in and perhaps a small plot of land to use to grow vegetables as their food source. They lived in poverty, moving from estate to estate when a landowner required assistance with plowing, planting or harvesting crops. The man worked wherever the estate owner told him to work doing whatever the task the estate owner wanted. When the estate was sold, the workers were considered property and sold as part of the inventory.

During this era, only the son, usually the oldest, would retain tenancy of the family cottage. The residents were not allowed to leave the village where they were born. If the family was quite large, as it often was, the other sons continued to live in the small little cottage with their families or the lucky ones were moved to another estate owned by the landowner.