Johann Wilhelm Gmelin is the 10th great-grandfather of Richard, James, Gary, Mark and Mike.

Johann Wilhelm Gmelin (1541-1612)

1541, November 6 – Johann Wilhelm Gmelin, known as Wilhelm Gmelin, is born in Weilheim an der Teck, Württemberg, now in southwestern Germany. His parents are Michael Gmelin (c1510-1576), Weilheim’s schoolmaster and instructor in medicine, chemistry, and apothecary science, and Margaretha Nägelin (1514-1568).

Kloster Maulbronn

1557 – Wilhelm enters the Lutheran monastery school at the Kloster Maulbronn.

1559 – Wilhelm is awarded a scholarship to study theology at the university in Tübingen,

1560 – Wilhelm receives a Baccalaureate degree.

1563 – Wilhelm graduates with a Master’s degree.

Evangelical Stadtkirche, Bad Cannstatt

1564 – Wilhelm becomes a Deacon in the Evangelical Stadtkirche in Bad Cannstatt [now a part of Stuttgart], Württemberg, where he meets Magdalena Rieger (1540-1580), the daughter of the city’s Bürgermeister, Simon Rieger (c1505-1568), and his wife Magdalena Mayer (c1512-c1570).

St. Veit Kirche rises above Gärtringen

1565 – Wilhelm is appointed the Priest of St. Veit (St. Vitus) Kirche in Gärtringen, Württemberg, near Stuttgart, and master of the city’s school.

—-, February 13 – Wilhelm and Magdalena Rieger (1540-1580) are married in Gärtringen.

Wilhelm and Magdalena will have 10 children: twin sons, names unknown (1565), Margaretha (1567), Simon (1569), Magdalena (1570), an unnamed daughter who dies at birth (1572), Johann Wilhelm (our ancestor; 1573), Johann Michael (1575), Johann Georg (1577), two unnamed children who die at birth (1578, 1579), and Barbara (1580).

1580, December 11 – Magdalena, 40, dies 21 days after giving birth to her last child, Barbara.

1581, November 30 – Wilhelm marries Agnes Waiblinger (c1537-1617) in Gärtringen. Wilhelm and Agnes will have one child, Maria, born in 1583.

Wilhelm Schickard

1606 – Wilhelm enrolls his sister Margarethe’s son, Wilhelm Schickard (1592-1635), in the school at the monastery in Bebenhausen. In 1623 Schickard will invent the calculating clock, the first mechanical calculating device, considered the direct ancestor of the modern computer.

1612, January 9 – Wilhelm Gmelin dies at the age of 71 in Gärtringen, and is buried in St. Veit Kirche.

Epitaph for Wilhelm Gmelin, considered the patriarch of Gärtringen, in St. Veit Kirche