1827−1859: Karl Baedeker (1801-1859) descended from a long line of printers, booksellers and publishers from Essen. He was the eldest of ten children of Gottschalk Diederich Bädeker (1778–1841), who had inherited the publishing house founded by his own father, Zacharias Gerhard Bädeker (1750–1800). The company also published the local newspaper, the "Essendische Zeitung", and the family expected that Karl, too, would eventually join the firm. Karl worked with his father until 1827 when he left for Coblence (now Koblenz) to start his own bookselling and publishing business. Karl changed the spelling of the family name from Bädeker with the umlaut to Baedeker around 1850.