Hello and thanks for visiting my Samson Family Genealogy page!

My name is John Samson and I live in Sainte Genevieve, a small town in Missouri. Here I would like to share my story of discovering my family history. The short story is, my ancestors immigrated to the Sainte Genevieve area from a small village in Germany named, Oberschopfheim in the year 1853. Many of the people living in Sainte Genevieve have ancestors who came to America from the area called Baden, which is the larger "county like" community where Oberschopfheim is located. I am always more than willing to share the information I have found, please contact me if you have a question. So please enjoy the site and here is the story...

On May 10th, 2001, Janice and I were riding in town, and as we passed the house of a cousin she had not met, she told me that she wanted to meet them sometime.  They seemed to be home, so we stopped in for a visit.

As we talked to Tony and Margaret, I asked Tony if he had any idea from where the Samson's had originally immigrated.  I had always had this question in the back of my mind, but failed to come up with any answers.  Tony only knew that we had come from some place in Germany, with a name starting with Ober.... something.  As you can imagine, this can cover the names of hundreds if not thousands of towns in Germany.  He remembered that some distant relative had stopped by the house years ago to discuss the Samson family, and left a booklet showing the family tree with other information.  Tony was unable to remember much about the booklet except he had given it to his daughter, Mary.  

Tony was in failing health, knowing he always had a great interest in genealogy, but never found the time to actively research.  He asked me if I would pursue the search and keep him advised of my discoveries.  At that moment, I knew there was a personal challenge for me to come up with something for him.  Now I felt committed to discover answers to some of the unanswered questions.

The next day I contacted Mary, to find her not remembering the booklet, but said she would check to see if her dad had given it to her.  The next day she called me to let me know a copy of the booklet was being mailed to me.  As I waited, my interests were getting the best of me.  What could the name Ober......... something, be?

When I received the booklet, I found the name of the village to be Oberschopfheim, located in southwest Germany, near Offenburg.  I did a little research with not a great amount of success.  I was searching for a way to come in contact with someone that lived in that area, and would be willing to answer a few questions.  Since I had purchase items on Ebay, I thought it would be interesting looking for old vintage postcards from someone living in the southwestern portion of Germany.   After making a few purchases, I found someone living in Offenburg, which is, located about 10 miles from Oberschopfheim. His name was Ottmar Mueller, who was selling antique books and other printed items, on Ebay.  As time went by, we developed into friends with common interests in the area.  Ottmar, would play a very important part in my research, which I will never be able to thank him enough.

May 10, 2001 Margaret and Tony Samson and Warren (Sam) Samson

In the next few months, I purchased various old antique postcards, from various vendors, that had old pictures of the area. As I purchased these items, I would always ask the vendor to keep me in mind if they ever found anything that had to with Oberschopfheim.  What the heck, maybe I would luck out sometime. Who knows?

In the mean time, I had placed numerous listings in various genealogy sites in the United States and Europe, asking for any information regarding the small village of Oberschopfheim.  I did receive emails from tourist information sites in Germany offering a few brochures with information from the area.  Well, I was getting information about the geographical area, but now I wanted to find out something about the family.  Patience has never been one of my strong virtues, but I was making some slow progress.

Late in October of 2001, I received an email from a Ebay vendor, that I had purchased some postcards a couple months earlier.  His name was Berthold Weiner, who was a physician living in Konstance, and assured me that he had something I would find very interesting and valuable.  All I had to do was provide him with my mailing address.  No problem.  Now was the hard part, of waiting.

As I waited, Tony's health got worse, and he died on Dec. 16, 2001.  My genealogy mentor had passed away, leaving me with a stronger desire to learn more.  On Dec. 21st, I received a small package from Konstance, Germany.  When I opened the package with a small book the size of a Reader's Digest, obviously written in German.  The only thing I could recognize was the name Oberschopfheim within the title.  Wow, I finally had something about the village, without a way of translating it into English.  Hmmmmmmmm.  I contacted Berthold Weiner, and thanked him for this wonderful contribution, asking him how much I owed him for the copy of the book. His response was, it was a pleasure to be of help.  Such generous and helpful people were the norm, all during my research.  I was shocked how people in another country could take time from their busy lives to help a crazy American, in search of his family roots.

By thumbing through the book, I could see it was a small history book showing various dates from 600 up to 1895.  Great!  Now I have to find a way of finding a way to figure out what I actually had.  My first step was to go to one of the free translation sites on the internet, to discover the title located on the cover would mean, 'The history of Oberschopfheim'.  This made me feel so proud to have come this far.

As I spent the next few days picking small notations in the book to translate, I realized the best way was to see if I found the name Samson, somewhere within the book.  To my astonishment, I found two references in the book to Samson's.  I then contacted my friend, Ottmar Mueller, and asked if he could help me, by translating the two pages.  He said to scan the pages and email them to him.   I couldn't get the files scanned and emailed files fast enough!

After a couple weeks, I received an email from him, explaining the Samson family had owned and operated a rock quarry in Oberschopfheim from 1790 through the late 1850's.  The second reference listed a Karl Samson as the first Buergermeister (mayor) of the village, from 1837-1849.  I felt like I had just won the million-dollar lottery!!   The name of Karl Samson was in the book, and my great, great, great grandfather was of the same name.  I immediately thought of Tony, and how proud he would be of my findings. 

During the course of the next months, Ottmar , had mentioned that the old rock quarry should be fairly easy to find, asking me if I would be interested in a few pictures.  What a silly question. Of course!   He and his family went to Oberschopfheim and took the two-hour hike into the Black Forest, finding what remains of the quarry.  Maybe a picture of a big pile of rocks to some people, but to me, it was fascinating.  Also, there was a picture taken from the quarry, showing the village of Oberschopfheim and Diersberg.  The picture was absolutely breath taking!

I forgot to mention, during this time my dad had become interested in the Samson genealogy, which is something he had never taken time to find out anything.  My dad and I were not that close while I was growing up, since I was such a heard headed personality.  Probably the best way to describe our relationship, was tolerating each other.  While I was doing my research, I kept him informed of what was going on, and found him asking me many questions about the family history.  This really made me feel better since our relationship had never been that good.  All of the time and effort taken to do the family research is dedicated to my cousin, Tony and my dad.  I only wish they could have witnessed and heard more of the "Samson's of Oberschopfheim".