Rottenacker • The Feile Family

Rottenacker was already an important place in the Duchy of Swabia around 1100.

Its princes, counts and dukes quickly recognized the appeal and charm of the most beautiful landscape and several times state parliaments met here. Unlike the whole of the surrounding region of Austria, Rottenacker became Protestant from 1447. Visible from afar, the Protestant parish church towers over the Danube on the site of the former castle complex.

A local and cultural focal point is the multiple award-winning new town center on the village square with the town hall, the "Wirtles Haus" museum and "Dorfwirtschaft". The characteristic red-brick hydroelectric power station supplies the entire community with regenerative energy. The most photographed pair of storks nests above it.

An old local chronicle describes the residents as "generally cheerful, outspoken, full of life and also helpful out of a certain good nature."

Enjoy six peaceful minutes of an early morning journey up the Danube (click here) to Rottenacker. The church shown (St. Wolfgang) is a plausible location for many christenings (taufen), marriages (heiraten), and funerals (beerdigungen) of the Feile family starting around 1630.

For over 140 years, generations of Feiles lived in Rottenacker before Jacob Feile would set out for the New World around 1775. I imagine there might still family connections in the Rottenacker area.

A small town of 2217 citizens, Rottenacker is on the Danube in the Baden-Württemberg state of Germany, west of its more well-known sister, Bavaria. The famous Black Forest is located in BW.

Funny tidbit about BW--its motto:

"We can [do] anything. Except [speak] Standard German."

I discovered recently that there are many dialects of German. The motto is an allusion to Baden-Württemberg being one of the principal centers for innovation in Germany and having its own distinctive dialects.

Rottenacker coordinates: 48.235503 9.689848

UPDATE 23 FEB 2024

I was contacted by a distant cousin who prompted me to do more research on the location of origin for Henry Oliver File (1776-1836) and his family. It is NOT Rottenacker. My initial posting of this page was incorrect. I will leave this page up, but I have revised it to reflect the new information. Our File ancestors lived in the Frankfurt area. I will create a new post for their Family Tale in the near future.

My goal in all of the Dead Family Tales is to present stories that would have been told around a kitchen table or campfire during family gatherings.

A new Dead Family Tale is posted every Monday.

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