The following information was written by Mrs. Mildred Hamburg who researched and collected information regarding the origins of the Weidknecht/Whitenack name.

Mrs. Mildred Hamburg ... has collected the following family history. Most of this history was sent to her by Mrs. Inez Garinger ... and Mrs. William A. Geer.... More information about the family's descendants was furnished by members of the name Whitenack (Weidknecht, etc.) living in Southern California.

Since no on had traced the family to its origin in Europe, the services of a professional genealogist, Karl Friedrich von Frank whose address is Schloss Senftenegg, Post Perschnitz, Niederosterreich, Austria, were required. He is a well-known authority on the Palatine emigrants to America.

His first report on the family was that it was a very rare family name and his files had few references to persons of that name but he would place an ad in a genealogy magazine requesting information.

The meaning of the name: It is a German professional name, an old-fashioned word, meaning: huntsman or forester. In Germany the name was usually spelled "Waidknecht or Weidknecht," the former being most common. In America, many variations in spelling were used in the 18th century, such as: Whitenaught, Whitenight, Wytknecht, Witenac, Weidknechtin, and many others. In the late 1700's the spelling "Whitenack" was noted in many lines.

Mr. von Frank's references and his ad furnished the information that WAidknecht's had lived in the Platinated in Lambsheim and Sotern (the latter is now called Birkenfelder Land, Rhineland). Also that a Weydknecht family resided in Hussnacht (Santon Zurich, Switzerland) but in the list of emigrants from Switzerland to America in the 18th century there was no bearer of this name mentioned.

Some of the Weidknecht's living in Germany about the time our ancestors came to America were:

Johann Michael Weidknecht, 1733-36 pastor in Sand (Baden) and in Offweiler, 1741-68, in Rothau, Alsace + 1768.

Johann Rudolph Waydtknecht, Julic., Advokat (attorney) * 14.IV.1663 Regensburg, + 21.I.1697 Regensburg. There is a printed funeral oration about him. He contributed poems to funeral orations in Regensburg 2.XII.1677, 11.III.1692.

Joachim Gabriel Waydtknecht contributed a Latin poem to a printed funeral oration in Regensburg 13.XII.1688. As a student at the University of Altdorf, he made his entry in an album, Altdorf 20.XII.1668 as Joachim Gabriel Waydknecht, of Regensburg. A printed nuptial address on the wedding of Moritz Albert Reich "Solms-Laubachischer Regierungs-Secretair und Archivarius" (Governmental Secretary and archivist to the Princes von Solms-Laubach) 27.III.1742 Laubach, Catherine Elisabetha daughter of the late Councillor to the Princes von Solms-Laubach, Johann Ulrich Weidknecht.

In some town in the Palatinate the parochial registers began in 1691 but the Lutheran registers did not begin until 1727 or later. A history of Alsace, Baden, Speyer, Heidelberg and Mannheim shows that in 1689 the French Army sacked and burned hundreds of villages, thus records of the inhabitants would have been destroyed. In 1659 Spain signed the Peace of the Pyrenees and abandoned all claim to Alsace, ceding it to France. France became the most powerful country in Europe. Louis XIV was the ruler in France. The French generals obeyed Louis XIV and announced to the inhabitants of the above flourishing German towns to evacuate their castles and towns as they were to be destroyed by fire and sword.

In the 16th century, Bavaria included: Munich, Regensburg and Salzburg. Swabia included: Baden, Stuttgart, Augsburg and Wurttemberg. Upper Rhine included: Frankfurt am Main, Cassel, Darmstadt, Wiesbaden, Hesse and part of Alsace.

Records of the Weidknecht's were found in Regensburg, Baden and Alsace. Baden was a margraviate in 1689. A margrave is a military keeper of the marches or borders in Germany. The English equivalent of margrave - a marquis.

Much of the Palatinate was church land. In 1446 Germany was a federation ruled by ecclesiastical princes acknowledging fealty to the Holy Roman Empire. Destruction of the Hohenstaufen dynasty by the popes of the 13th century had weakened the Holy Roman Empire and in 1400 it was a loose association of Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Holland ans Switzerland. Carinthia was mining gold as early as 1300, in 1519 it was west of Hungary and east of Switzerland and the Tyrol. Styria was just above Carinthia. Styria and lower Austira was ravaged by the Turks in 1532. In 1517 a league of 90,000 peasants in Styria and Carinthia undertook to end feudalism there and they attacked castles and slew their lords. In the Revolt in Alsace of 1562, 20,000 peasants were killed. Peasants had destroyed hundreds of castles, monasteries, villages were depopulated and ruined. Peasants roamed the highways and hid in the woods.