Excerpt from "The DORNSEIF Family History" web page.
...Johann Daniel Dornseiff (born March 8, 1674 in Frankenberg) worked as a craftsman at the ironworks in Rosenthal. When Johann’s father, Jacob, and his first wife, Anna Catharina (born Wiesemann) died in 1706, he had two epitaphs produced. They are presently outside on the south wall of the Liebfrauenkirche in Frankenberg. The tablets are basically the same. However, they bear different texts and coats of arms.
The coat of arms on Jacob’s tablet features a
scaffolding in the form of a large “A”; the
crossbar is significantly fainter than the
supporting arms. Hanging from the top of
the “A” almost to the crossbar is a
pendulum-shaped weight, bobbin, or plumb line.
The tablet belonging to Anna Catherina features
a pair of coats of arms. The one on the left
repeats the “A” with a pendulum, but it is more
slender and has a higher crossbar. In addition,
going from the top left corner to the middle is a
stout rod covered by a mallet-like tool. Presumably,
it represents tools used in ironwork. Her tablet is
more worn away than Jacob’s, and the right side
is especially difficult to read. It could include a
swimming swan, representing the family of Johan
Daniel’s second wife, Christina Schwan (swan).
Another interpretation one gets from photographs
is that of a bathing woman or cherub. Between the
two sections is a tree with two trunks. The left trunk
reaches the border of the shield, the right one only
to the water line. Whether this trunk is a part of the
coats of arms or merely a decorative division of the
single coat of arms is hard to say.
