House of Poligny

Through the marriage in 1902 of Wilhelm Friedrich Burkert to Milda Burkert, there is a double Burkert ancestry. These families share the same surname and come from the same town, Schlettau located near Annaberg, in Saxony (Germany). 

The probably ancient link has not been established, but seems highly probable.

While Willehm Friedrich Burkert's ancestry can definitely be traced back to the end of the 18th century, Milda Burkert's can be traced back to the beginning of the 15th century, with the spelling of her name evolving:

Originally Burckhardt, then Burckert and finally Burkert.

Burgher status in the Saxon Protestant town of Annaberg was certified in the 17th century. The elements of the family coat of arms seem to confirm this bourgeois status.

 

It should be noted that Adam Gottlieb Burckert's marriage in 1744 to Johanna Mann provided a direct line of descent:

 - on one hand, with Adam Riese (1492 - 1559), a famous German mathematician, known in particular for his publications on calculus and algebra.

He is regarded as the ‘father of modern calcification’, and through his research and work he made a decisive contribution to the fact that Roman numerals, which were generally impractical, were largely replaced by Arabic numerals.

The presentation of mathematical methods to the working classes led to the colloquial expression ‘Nach Adam Riese’ meaning ‘according to Adam Riese’, which is used to support a simple expression.

- On the other hand, through his wife Anna, to various families mainly of the Saxon and Prussian aristocracy, such as the Walzig von Barenstein, the Blankenburg, the Eberstein or first and foremost the Princes of Anhalt, descended in particular from the Dukes of Saxony and the Kings of Denmark from the XIVth century. Members of these last families were also among the ancestors of the Reumont of Poligny, whose descendant Hervé married in 2021 Anne Cathrin Burkert, graduate of a Master's degree in Business Administration (MBA) in General Management and specialised in health crisis management, emergencies and European laws.

 

An other interesting fact is that the marriage in 1974 of Matthias Burkert (Engineer) and Rosengart Stumpp (School Director) brings a different German ancestry. The Stumpp family is indeed originally from Baden-Wurttemberg.

Following the policy of welcoming people initiated by Tsarina Catherine II in 1763, the Stumpps set out at the beginning of the 19th century to colonize the lands of Great Russia, first in Ukraine and then in Bessarabia (present-day Moldova). Like their fellow German settlers, the family enjoyed privileges such as tax exemption for thirty years, the abolition of military service, freedom of worship, and the ability to live in complete self-government; they were therefore relatively independent of the Russian government.

 

Karl Stumpp, a descendant of one of the branches of this family also established in Kherson in the Ukraine and then in Bessarabia, was a Doctor of Philosophy who made ethnography his vocation. 

During the Second World War, he was known as the SS leader of the ‘Sonderkommando Dr Karl Stumpp’ for the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. 

However, his later teaching and cultural remembrance activities earned him the Federal Cross of Merit (1966) and the Medal of Merit from the Institute of Foreign Cultural Relations (1975).