v. Wolffersdorff

www.wolffersdorff.net / www.wolffersdorff.uk
sächsischer Uradel aus dem Vogtland seit 933 n. Chr.
Saxon Ancient Nobility of Vogtland District since 933 AD
The Family's History
The Wolffersdorff's Family History

The family of Wolffersdorff, one of Germany`s oldest aristocrats at all comes from Saxon ancient nobility of the so-called Vogland Destrict. The earliest document attesting to this dates from 1240 (The Bailiff of Greiz, Main State Archives of Thuringia, Weimar, Doc No 1356, 23/24). Beginning here there is no break to the family’s genealogical tree.

However, origin place of the family is a Slavik spot called WOLFERSDORF, located in the County of Sprottau, Lower Silesia, today “Wilcosin”, Poland (source: Georg Steller “2 Dorfstudien aus dem Kreis Sprottau in Westschlesien”, Detmold, 1961, page 61, mark 33, to the Sorbs Nikolaus und Schiban v. Wolffersdorff).

As a result of the collapse of the Thuringian Empire in 531 a small Slavik People of Lower Silesia called “Sorben” colonised Lusatia and Vogtland there. Both destricts became part of the Dukedom of Saxony when Henry I., strugelled against Hungaria in 933 (see Henry_the_Fowler). Also, in 933 Ernest and Philipp of Wolffersdorff for the first time were attested by an official document as Knights of Henry I, Duke of Saxony struggling against the Hungarians. Duke Henry I (* 876, † 936) had become King of the 1st German Empire in 919 as well. Ernst and Philip were killed in 933 when they attended prisoners of the so-called Obo- tritischen Wenden, another small Slavik People placed in Mecklenburg and Pomerania (source: Thurnier Buch, Feyerabents/anno 1616).

WOLFERSDORF has been found to the so-called Vogtland (a destrict of Saxony) by the Slavik family emigrating from Lower Silesia settling in Saxony. It became the new ancestral seat over more than 600 years(source: The Village’s Chronical, 1990).

On 16 August 1741, Prince-Elector Frederick Augustus III, Duke of Saxony and King of Poland, as Curate of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, conferred the rank of hereditary Count upon the family (Main State Archives of Saxony, Dresden, Loc 5196 and Loc 10430 to Carl Ludwig von Wolffersdorff).

Prince-Elector Frederick Augustus III bestowed a coat of arms upon the family in January 1742 - enlarge the transscription of the archives’ documents namend above (written out by Martha Wallishauser, Vienna).

Nevertheless, there are about 240 bearers of the name “von Wolf(f)ersdorf(f)” still living all over the world, most of them in Germany (about 90%). Even today you will find more than 75% of them settled to the former Saxon Dukedoms (Saxony, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt), particularly to Vogtland and to Lusatia.
©  Vereinigung der Familien derer v. Wolf(f)ersdorf(f) e.V.
Altes Rathaus Harthau  •  Annaberger Str. 336  •  D-09125 Chemnitz
www.wolffersdorff.net  •  praesidium(at)wolffersdorff(dot)net
Amtsgericht Dresden (Sachsen) VR 5333