It has been quite some time since I have posted family history on this blog. I am now going to switch (for now) to my paternal family. My dad ended up living most of his adult life in Kalamazoo, but he originally came from Chicago. This history goes back even farther, though, and is his father's ancestry in the Alsace region of France.
My 4x great-grandparents, Johannes/Jean Scholler and his wife, Anna Maria Gröll, lived in Alsace in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The French Revolution occurred during this period: May 5, 1789 – November 9, 1799. The Republican Calendar years were 1793 (adopted by France)-1806 (abolished by Napoleon).
Johannes was born in 1761 in Muespach-le-Haut, Haut-Rhin, France to parents Johannes Scholler and Anna Maria Stubenhoffen. Muespach-le-Haut is also known as Obermuespach. Haut-Rhin means upper Rhine, and is one of two departments that made up Alsace. The other was Bas-Rhin, meaning lower Rhine.
Johannes died 7 March 1814 in the same town. He was 53 years old and was mayor of Muespach-le-Haut and had been for several years. Before that, he was a farmer, and I assume he continued to farm throughout his life. Most of the people living in the region were farmers. Some were sheepherders.
Anna Maria was born 13 January 1759 in Moyen-Muespach, Haut-Rhin, France, to parents Heinrich Groll and Margaretha Hemerlin. She passed away in Muespach-le-Haut in 1806, eight years before her husband. She was 47 years old.
Notice that Johannes and Anna Maria were born in two different villages. However, they are two of the three villages that were adjacent to each other. They shared a church. The villages are Johannes' Muespach-le-Haut, Anna Maria's, Moyen Muespach, and Muespach-le-Bas. My genealogist told me: "All three Muespach villages lie in the Haut Rhin (Upper Rhine) half of Alsace and are very close to the Swiss border. In fact, Muespach-le-Haut is just over 11 miles from Basel, Switzerland. The Haut and Bas terms refer to the upper and lower limits of the Muespach creek in the French language and do not have any correlation to the names of Haut Rhin (Upper Rhine) or Bas Rhin (Lower Rhine) of the two halves of Alsace. Here is a Google map that may help: Muespach - Google Maps."
The reason the town and the first name of my 4x great-grandfather vary is because Alsatians spoke Alsatian more than they did French. According to Babbel, "Alsatian is not a linguistic dialect group in and of itself, but rather a collective geographical term for the Upper German vernaculars that are spoken in the Alsace region." I asked my genealogist about the language. He said, they probably did speak an Alsatian German dialect. It is still spoken in parts of Alsace today and called Alemmanic German.
I am using the German first names because it's possible they used those themselves, but the French place names because Alsace was (and is again) part of France. In the official records, sometimes names of people and places are in French, and sometimes they are in German, and Catholic parish records were written in Latin until 1793. At that point, they switched over to civil records, which were in much less detail.
Johannes and Anna Maria were married in Moyen Muespach Catholic parish on 22 January 1781. They probably had at least eleven children. These are the known children:
Johannes 22 October 1781; died 7 November 1781. INFANT DEATH
Blasius or Blaise 8 February 1783; He did live to be an adult, marry, and have children. He also was conscripted into Napoleon's army with the 61st Line Infantry Regiment. (see document below)
Maria Anna 23 April 1785; She died on 7 January 1787. INFANT DEATH
Catharina 21 October 1786; Probably lived into adulthood.
Antonius 13 June 1789; He died 19 January 1791. INFANT DEATH. Father farmer.
Frantz Xavier 25 October 1791; Lived to adulthood. Father farmer.
Mariana ca. May 1793; She died 6 November 1793. INFANT DEATH
Johannes 5 September 1794, my 3rd great-grandfather; Married Anna Maria Watter on 3 April 1816, after both his parents were gone. After Anna Maria died, he married her sister Maria Anna Agnes Watter. He died on 6 March 1875 in Muespach-le-Haut, having survived two wives.
Gap time was difficult to read in civil records, so it is unknown if children were born in the gap period.
Anna Maria 8 June 1798; she may not have survived—unknown.
Maria Anna 17 January 1800; no information on her past this birth.
Francica 17 July 1804; no other information.
Since Anna Maria passed away in 1806, it is possible that she gave birth that year, as well, but there are no records found at this point to indicate a birth that year.
At the time that Johannes passed away in 1814, he was the mayor of Muespach-le-Haut and had been for several years.
Here is the conscription record for Blaise Scholler:
Records indicate that the parish priest was in exile in Switzerland in 1797. Johannes Scholler and another village resident visited the priest who was trying to keep tabs on his parishioners. Many priests during this period did leave France so that they would not have to swear allegiance to the new French Civil Constitution of the Clergy. I can only imagine that this was a very difficult time to be mayor of the village.
This photo is of beautiful Muespach-le-Haut where Johannes farmed and was mayor.
I think my father would have loved reading this post, and I wish I had had this information for him before he passed.
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