Jihlava - Iglau Czech republic - Tuchmacher Zunft - Drapers Guild

Jihlava (Iglau) is a town at the border between Bohemia and Moravia, Czech republic.

It was a German language speaking island and a cloth manufacturing town.

My link with this town is my second great grandmother, Anna Agnes Neumann (Neyman),

born in Jihlava in 1840. She moved to Kronstadt (Brasso, Brasov), Siebenbuergen, Romania

when she married in 1861 with Leopold Ludwig, born in 1824 in New Arad, Banat, Romania.

Her family was manufacturing cloth and all her ancestors were members of the Drapers Guild.

This photo of Anna Agnes was taken in Kronstadt - Brasov, Romania - by Samuel Herter,
about 1861.

Anna & Leopold Ludwig

She died in 1874.

I found Neumanns on the drapers list from 1794 but not on before 1680.
These are some people from my family tree. The right side numbers are the cloth packs
manufactured in 1 year by these Tuchmachermeisters.

I know that the Habsburg emperors invited drapers to work in Iglau (Jihlava).

I studied the Saint Jakob catholic church records from the site Czech site Actapublica.

I had the address books of Iglau from 1799, 1813, 1826, 1847, 1864 and 1892 and a map from 1876.

In December 2014 I visited the town, looking for the houses where my ancestors lived.

I was inside the house were Anna Agnes was born, thanks to Dana, a very kind Czech lady.

The old town has 200 years old houses. Only the walls were demolished in the mid 19th century.

The old catholic cemetery was closed about 1869.

There are some tomb stones with names of the rich people living in Iglau in the St. Jakob church.

There were a lot of breweries in Iglau. Beer was cleaning the lint after a day of a draper's work.

Houses had several numbers, one before 1813, another after 1813, street names and numbers

around year 1900 and now street names and numbers (from 1 to more than one towsend).

In the old town there are about 600 houses.

My second great grandmother's birth place is at the NE corner of Jostova street (Elkergasse),

house number 125, very close to the Saint Jakob church and the Brno gate (former Bruenngasse).

At this former Brno gate is a guest house where I was for one night.

A view from Anna's birth house along Jostova street to the Saint Jakob church:

On the left side is the house where lived the ancestor Neusser.

In the 18th century the drapers were manufacturing cloth as shown in this French dictionary: