This Branch of the Padberg family began with Johann von Padberg, son of Gottschalk IV von Padberg of the New House Padberg. Johann was born about 1409 in the New House, but his life greatly changed when he married a non-noble, middle-class girl. The existing law regarding Non-Noble Motherhood was applied and, consequently, the children of Johann and his wife were declared illegitimate. When their son, Johann Padberg Jr., (born 1440) reached an adult age, the law regarding Non-Noble Motherhood was applied and Johann was classified a “bastard”. There exists a “Bastard Document” dated 1465 that is preserved in the state archives in Marsburg, Germany, which references Johann status as a bastard. According to the laws of nobility, he was required to move from the noble family’s location. Johann moved to the village of Niederschledern in Waldeck, Hessia.
This Johann Padberg and his wife lived in Niederschledern and had at least one son, whose name is not officially known, born about 1470. This son married and had a son, Hans, born in 1501. During this time, the family in Niederschledern sought help from the noble family in Padberg. The noble family Padberg owned some territory in the vicinity of Kustelberg, Westphalia. Kustelberg and adjacent farmland was used to support a convent in Kustelberg and a monastery in Glinfield, which the Padberg family had supported since the early 1330’s. Roads in this area were potential toll income but needed a Padberg to manage and control them all. The noble Padberg family of the New House offered this territory to young Hans Padberg. Hans moved to Kustelberg and the village was then allowed to display the 1420 coat-of-arms of the noble Padberg family.
In about 1531, Hans married the daughter of Thomas Hannenhansen, she was born in 1507and was six years younger than Hans. Their children began a line of Middle Class (non-noble) Padbergs that became known as the Kustelberg Branch. It became the largest Middle-Class Branch of the Padberg family, ancestors to many of the families in Europe and America.
