From Reinhard Onward (1600

Dortmund and the Springorums in the 17th Century

With Reinhard Springorum’s appearance in Dortmund, the family history enters a new and much clearer phase. From the early seventeenth century onward, the Springorum line can be followed generation by generation, supported by an increasingly dense body of parish, civic, and judicial records. This marks the shift from the fragmentary early Bochum mentions to a securely traceable family lineage rooted in Dortmund.

Brief historical overview: Dortmund 1600–1750

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Dortmund was an imperial free city (Freie Reichsstadt) whose political autonomy contrasted with its declining economic importance. Once a major Hanseatic center, the city had lost much of its long-distance trade by 1600, yet it retained strong administrative, legal, and ecclesiastical institutions. These provided precisely the kind of documentary environment in which families like the Springorums become visible and traceable.

War and Hardship

The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) cast a long shadow over Dortmund. Although the city avoided complete destruction, it endured occupation, troop billeting, rising taxation, famine, and repeated outbreaks of disease. Population numbers fell sharply, and economic life stagnated. Despite these pressures, municipal administration and parish life continued to function—leaving behind records that document the presence and continuity of the Springorum family during these difficult decades.

Stability and Transition

From the later seventeenth century into the early eighteenth century, Dortmund experienced a slow and uneven recovery. Civic structures stabilized, parish registers became more consistent, and legal documentation grew more systematic. Through these sources, successive generations of the Springorum family can be followed with confidence, from Reinhard onward to the generation of Barend and Willem Springorum. Their lives mark both the culmination of the Dortmund period and the transition toward the family’s later history beyond Westphalia.

Expanding from Dortmund: A Consolidated Pedigree

Generation 0

With the arrival of Reinhard Springorum in the early seventeenth century, the picture sharpens considerably: from this point onward, the line of descent becomes continuous, well documented, and traceable without significant gaps.

Reinhard Springorum (1593 – 1666)

Reinhard Springorum, born in Dortmund in 1593, stands at the earliest securely documented point of my Springorum lineage. Identified in multiple church records as Stallmeister, he appears repeatedly in baptismal and burial entries connected to his family, anchoring him firmly in the ecclesiastical sources of the early seventeenth century. While other individuals bearing the Springorum name are mentioned in earlier sixteenth-century records and local pedigrees, none can be conclusively linked to Reinhard due to the absence of verifiable baptismal evidence. As such, he represents both the point where earlier traces fade and the foundation from which the documented family history reliably begins.

Generation 1

Pastor Johannes Springorum settled in Kirchende, from where many of his children later moved on to nearby towns.

Johannes Springorum (1625 – 1694)

Johannes Springorum, born on 15 July 1625 as the son of Reinhard Springorum, Stallmeister, and Catharina Vasolt, pursued a clerical career within the Lutheran church of Westphalia. After early work as a scribe and schoolmaster, he was ordained in 1658 and eventually appointed pastor of the Dorfkirche in Kirchende, where he served from 1663 until his death in 1694. His long tenure, documented in church records and regional archival sources, places him firmly within the ecclesiastical and administrative networks of the region. Through his marriage to Clara Reinermann and their numerous children—several of whom continued clerical or notable local roles—Johannes Springorum represents a key generational link between the early Dortmund Springorums and later branches of the family.

Generation 2

The greatest challenge was establishing the connection between Johann Heinrich and Reinhard. The DNA match demonstrated that such a connection must exist. A family tree (Stammbaum) had already suggested Johann Heinrich as a son of Pastor Johannes, but it was the work of Dr. Höfke that ultimately provided the convincing documentary evidence.

Johannes Heinrich Springorum (c. 1665 – ?)

Johannes Heinrich Springorum, born around 1665 as the son of the Kirchende pastor Johannes Springorum, is only sparsely documented in surviving sources and is known to have lived in Henrichenburg in the Vest Recklinghausen. He was married twice—first to Sibylla Vasolt and, after her death in 1704, to Helena Herdinck—and fathered children in both marriages.

A single baptismal record from St. Lambertus Church in Henrichenburg, in which Johannes Heinrich and his wife appear as grandparents and godparents, provides the only firm evidence linking him to his son Johann Joseph and to later generations, including the Amsterdam branch of the family. This isolated yet decisive record makes Johannes Heinrich a crucial connecting figure between the Reinhard Springorum lineage and its later descendants.

Generation 3

Very little is known about Johann Joseph.

Johannes Josephus (Joseph) Springorum (1711 – 1795)

Joseph Springorum (1711–1795) worked as sexton and sacristan of the church of St. Lambertus in Henrichenburg, a position that made him responsible for the daily running of the church and its services. His work required care, reliability, and the trust of both the priest and the local community, but it was carried out in a time of frequent wars and economic hardship, when life was often insecure and parish offices offered stability rather than prosperity. Compared with the wealth and influence of earlier Springorum generations, his circumstances were more modest, yet his long service shows how the family remained rooted in local society through practical responsibility and continuity rather than status or riches.

Generation 4

The baptism record of Barend Springorum is unambiguous. Johann Heinrich and Helena Herdinck are identified as the grandparents of Barend and his brother Willem, who both moved to Amsterdam at a young age—and with that step, a new branch of the family took shape in a new world: Amsterdam.

Josephus Bernhardus Hendricus (Barend) Springorum (1742 – 1787)

Barend Springorum was a German-born sailor who left Henrichenburg at a young age and settled in Amsterdam, where he built a life shaped by migration and maritime service. In 1764 he entered the Dutch East India Company, likely joining the crew of De Nijenburg after its mutiny and later serving in the East Indies. By the early 1780s he had turned to privateering, acting as kaapbaas for the ship de Spion during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. His private life was marked by repeated loss, with his children dying young or disappearing from the records. Gravely ill, Barend drew up a joint will with his wife Willemina in December 1786 and died shortly afterward, in January 1787.

From Reinhard Onward (1600–1750)