Huh...

Remember when I said I thought that there might be a connection to Wallachia? encyclopedia.kids.net has an article on the Lechfeld battle of 955. It's a bit earlier than I was thinking. Basically the Thuringian Knights, part of the Lauenstein regency from 1222 and so on, apparently went galavanting into Transylvania to route a Magyar incursion on orders from Otto I the Great. There was a decisive battle at Marienburg. And Andrew II of Hungary brought the Tuetonic Knights, of which there would have been some Thuringian knights, back in 1211. The knights occupied Burzenland in Transylvania. Andrew's daughter was supposed to marry the Landgrave of Thuringia to solidify some borders.

I keep finding names that dance around Lauenstein but no real solid links. Grrr..... I am getting tired of sitting in the library with the screen floating in and out of focus!!!!!

A new lead

So Kevin tells me that the only other thing he knows for certain is that Gramma was originally from Leipzig.

Leipzig is just a few minutes from Merseburg. Merseburg at one time was the Rieger-Bezerk of Sachsen. That is to say, a regional seat of the district of Saxony, Prussia. This is the information contained in the Wappenbuch under the heading of Gerbstaedt. A town of Gerbstadt lies just north and west of Leipzig in a region of Mansfeld. Schloss Lauenstein lies about 200 miles south of these cities.

This connection, though tenuous, leads me to believe that I have been on the right track as far as locating the origins of Gramma's family name. I had not suspected to find a historic connection between the two families. I had thought due to the creation of a Gerbstadt crest, that the Gerbstadts were ennobled before the Lauensteins. Now I see that is not the case due to extensive quartering of the Lauenstein crest which pertains to this region of Lauenstein. The Gerbstadt crest is not quartered though two shields appear next to each other on the field. Either the crest began with a blended family or the family blended with another after its initial creation. In either case, the crest indicates that the landed status of the Gerbstadt family did not continue into another generation.

So what is the likelihood either set of grandparents belonged to a noble family? Excellent, though not in a way that you might imagine. I doubt, given Gramma's Jewish heritage, that she herself is descended from nobility. It is most likely that they belonged to a German noble through acquisition, the surname indicating possession rather than birthright.