Mayfly

Mayfly


On January 15, 1787, in Fulleren, Haut Rhin, Alsace (near Mertzen), just before the French Revolution started, when bread cost a bazillion dollars, when everyone in France who wasn't clergy or Royal was suffering immeasurably, Joseph Hoff* and Anne Marie Koegler had a baby girl. It was eighteenth century France; having babies in the face of doom was what people did. Joseph and Anne Marie had married about 1782 and promptly proceeded to reproduce. Marie Eve was their second child and second daughter; as far as I can tell, they had no sons, which for a farming family in rural France was a shame.

Two years later France blew up, and ugly, ugly stuff happened. It's likely that the area around Fulleren didn't feel the full effects of the war, but the Reign of Terror was real; people gathered at markets to shop and gossip, and they would not have been immune to the stories of blood, greed, tragedy. They would have heard about the community of Hirsingue, where protesters cut down the Tree of Liberty and, in punishment, EVERY SINGLE PRIEST AND RABBI in the community was executed, the temple and church looted and destroyed. Sons would have been conscripted to serve in Napolean's disastrous effort to conquer the world, priests would have been watching over their shoulders, waiting to be betrayed, and everyone would have been hoarding food. During this frightening time, Marie Eve was growing up.

The family survived the war. But on May 26, 1805, Marie Eve, who was living with her uncle's family, had her own baby girl. Delivered by a midwife, Anne Marie Wallier,  Anne Marie Hoff arrived without benefit of a named, legal father. Four days later, she died. Since she was illegitimate, she was probably not given a Catholic funeral or burial.

Hers was not the only death in Fulleren that year; she was one of 25 deaths, in a town that generally lost 10-15 people a year. And tiny, doomed Anne Marie was one of nine small children to die that year. A scant nine years later, 3 days before her 27th birthday, still single and quite possibly marked for life, Marie Eve died.


You may be asking, why do I know this? Well, I was doing due diligence, trying to trace yet another woman who bore a child and vanished. I had decided I'd see if, by some chance, the woman was from the Bourgeois part of France. Examining the Fulleren records for Mary Moritz's name, I came upon Anne Marie Hoff in the 1805 index and got curious. The rest is what you see here.

Marie Eve has no descendants seeking her out, no one for whom her brief existence has any meaning. But she was a daughter, someone's lover, briefly, a mom, perhaps a pariah. So tonight I'm having a glass of wine in her honor. Yet another leaf on my family tree I hope to meet wherever we go after this.

* Joseph Hoff was the brother of my great-great-great grandfather, Jean Hoff 1755.

Dirty old man

You don't really want to think about Trump, or Brexit, or the stock market, do you? Instead, wrap your brain around this.

There's this guy, born about 1620, almost 400 years ago!!!, named Jean Hoff. Okay, currently we have 9 Jean Hoffs in our tree, if we count Joannis (and I do). But THIS Jean. He's something worth talking about.

With his first wife, Jacqueline Kempf, Jean sired Christophe Hoff who graciously contributed his genes to me and my sisters. Jacqueline #1 died in January of 1668, and Jean wasted no time finding a replacement. With his second wife, Jacqueline Soldermann, 27, whom he married in June of 1668, Jean doubled up on my genetic material via his son Jean Hoff (1673). And then, after Jacqueline #2 died in 1675, the man married AGAIN! This time it was his new wife, Agnes Raeber, whose genes were added to the pot pourri that is my genetic footprint, courtesy of her first husband Claude Gaetschene.

Before I chat more about this stud, let me emphasize that incest isn't an issue. There are 4 generations that intervene before Jean's descendants combine to produce Jean Adam Hoff, 1725, my great-great-great-great grandfather. It was the first thing I checked. Whew!

However, there are two things here that fascinate me, besides the implication that Jean was extremely desirable in some way, shape, or form. First, I keep returning to the notion that I am here and typing on my keyboard because every single one of my ancestors lived long enough to reproduce. That idea blows me away. And Jean clearly was on a mission to ensure the reproduction of his genes through time. Jean died when he was about 84, in 1704; I haven't counted all his children, but clearly the guy was a tough old randy bird, and I'm rather pleased someone this enduring is part of my heritage.

Second, nothing quite speaks to the intimacy of life in 17th century Alsace as the discovery that the same guy shows up in your family tree three times. Mortality rates were high, and connecting with desirable partners, for either sex, was a competitive industry. In small communities, men of means, as the Hoffs were, would choose women who could reproduce. And women who had attributes suggesting fecundity would be hot tickets. I realize there are folks out there who find it cool that they have links to Cleopatra. I find it really cool that there's this guy in my history who was pretty much a rock star, reproduction-wise. Sorry, I'm shallow that way.

And I know I said two things, but I have to get a little crazy here. Can you imagine the complexity of negotiating life in the 17th century? Think about it; it's a tiny town and a significant number of the kids roaming the streets are your step-sibs. And your father is step-dad to another batch of kids. Figuring out who you can marry without commiting incest would be a complex process. And who's doing what with whom has got to be a hot topic at the market. It had to better than reality TV. Really.