October 17, 2015
For the sake of simplicity, I've used Marie and Anne throughout, even though the names are occasionally spelled as Anna and Maria.
This came together so fast I'm still reeling. Frustrated by my inability to confirm that MariaAna Müller was Mary Ann Miller, I started looking for Anne Marie Meyer Hoff whose daughter Anne Marie Hoff married Anton Burkey.* Googling random names the evening of Oct 4, I discovered the existence of The Berkey Book, which the Urbana library had, and I tootled off to the library the next morning to take a look at it. I didn't see any mention of our Burkeys, but Fr. Burkey* has said they are there; I probably skimmed too fast (as usual). But it made me curious.
When I got home, I logged on to one of my favorite international sites, CDHF.net, plugged in Hoff and Anne Marie Meyer (actually, I plugged in "Me*er" which netted me all versions of Meyer plus a few other names) and got a hit for an 1810 marriage in Fulleren, Alsace, France.* Obviously, this was just a random couple in a random community; but the Huff graves indicate they were from Alsace, this was Alsace, so I decided to pursue the name a bit.
So I went to the Haut Rhin archives (archives.haut-rhin.fr) and started looking for this couple's children in the digitized records of the Fulleren naissance. And hit gold: the names and birth years (that Fr. Burkey had) of eight children matched those in the US. There was no doubt in my mind (nor in Father's when I told him about my find) that I had located the elusive Hoff family. I chased on and was eventually able to piece together the following.
Jean Hoff married Anne Marie Meijer (or Meÿer) 10 Sept 1810 in Fulleren. (Fulleren was Villeren on the old maps, which brings the name closer to the one Fr. Burkey saw in an old German document.) The page numbers in parentheses indicate the page the document is on.
Anna Maria 27 Feb 1812 (143)
Catherine 23 Aug 1813 (152)
Jean (Baptiste) 1 May 1815 (165)
Marie Anne 22 Sept 1816 (172)
d. 19 Jan, 1817 (I think it's the 19th; hard to read. (p.104 of deces))
Marie Anne 6 Jan 1818 (182)
Antoine 13 Oct 1820 (197-198)
Madeleine 29 Apr 1823 (215)
Anne 13 July 1824 (221)
Francis Joseph 27 Sept 1826 (234)
(No babies in 1827-1830 and by mid 1830, the family is in Ohio. So I accessed the Columbus Diocese's historical society newsletter.)
Baptism transcriptions published in The Barquilla de la Santa Maria
July 4 [1830] Clara Hoof, daughter of John and Mary Hoof; spons. Elizabeth [Hierholzer] Roody. (Feb 1999, p 213)
Oct. 25 [1831] Teresa, daughter of John Hough and Mary Myers; spons. Morris Rodecker and Mary Perkey. [Burkey?](May 1999, p 238)
I have looked, several times , through all the French and Ohio records and cannot find Margaret, listed in Fr. Burkey's analysis of the family. I have a hunch that she was born around 1828, in Ohio, and I just haven't found her birth/baptism. Judging from these dates, I agree with Fr. Burkey that they came to the USA in 1826-1830. However, using multiple spellings, I can't find them in immigration or passenger records on FamilySearch or Ancestry.
Next, I began doing some background searches. I cleaned up and printed out Jean and Anne Marie's marriage record, identified their parents, and began my search.
According to the marriage record, Anne Marie Meÿer was married at 23 in 1810, so she was born about 1787; the marriage record named her parents as Joseph Meijer and Anne Marie Philipp. So I tracked down their marriage: Joseph and Anne Marie were married in Mertzen, 2 Feb 1785. Their daughter, Anne Marie, was born in Mertzen 18 Nov 1787.
Jean Hoff was 22 when he married, so he was born about 1788. The marriage document says his parents were Jean Hoff and Elisabethe Soldermann. Jean Hoff married Elisabethe Soldermann April 4, 1780. On 15 April, 1789, Jean Hooff was born to Jean Hof and Elisabethe Soldermann in Mertzen.
I ordered and received copies of the original birth and marriage documents which confirm the CDHF index.
I began looking for more information about Anna Marie Meyer and John Hoff. Neither FamilySearch nor Ancestry had anything of use. I also checked, again, with the Barq, to be sure I hadn't missed anything. And then I logged into geneanet.net, an international repository of old documents and lots of member-submitted family trees, and hit platinum. I found two family trees, with decent sources, that trace the ancestry of Jean Hoff, Elisabethe Solderman, Joseph Meÿer and Anne Marie Philipp. (I have very good reason, too convoluted to explain, to trust one of these trees. And because the second tree uses both independent sources and the first tree, I'm inclined to trust it as well.)
At this point, I was no longer able to get documents from the Haut Rhin archives, so I ended up using the CDHF index to its document holdings to confirm as much of the member-submitted trees as possible. I was able to confirm about 75%.
But every silver lining has a dark cloud, so here's the bad news. The Central Department for Family History (the English translation of CDHF, Centre Departmental L'Histoire des Familles) has closed, hopefully temporarily, so I am unable to get copies of the originals. However, the CDHF's index has never been wrong, so in those instances where I am confident I have the right people, I have data confirming the dates and places provided in the Geneanet trees. If the CDHF does reorganize and reopen, I'll order what documents I can afford. The information contained in those old records is invaluable: We get names and dates of all involved people and clues about occupations and literacy. If this was a second marriage, we learn who the first spouse was. Often they mention if parents were still alive and where they were from, and sometimes we learn that a godmother or witness was related and how. The mail I get from the CDHF informing me of their plans suggests they won't be permanently closed, but when I last requested documents, I was told my request could not be fulfilled. So we're in limbo.
I'll admit to a bit of a letdown; this was awfully easy. Other than the invisibility of Margaret, this has been a very straightforward process. I rather like the quests that have some crunch. At this point, I have John Hoff and Anne Marie Meyer Hoff's ancestry (and some collateral lines) back to the early 1600s. I'll post the full Meyer-Hoff tree on Geneanet.net in the next few days.
On the other hand, this freed me up to pursue some other questions. One, I am sure that the Hoffs and the Bourgeois knew one another. I have no idea if they traveled together, planned the emigration together, or if they were simply both impelled west by the same reasons. I'm not sure what sort of information would clarify their relationship. I haven't seen Bourgeois-Hoff baptisms but there are those Hierholzer links. And of course, Michael Bourgeois' grandson married John Hoff's granddaughter. That says something. So I'm curious about the emigration.
Second, we know that one of John's brothers, Jacques (Andrew Jacob in Fr. Burkey's materials) emigrated to the US with his wife, Marie Anne Etschman in 1833. I wonder if anyone else from the family came to the USA. I'm beginning to think that the Haut Rhin must have just emptied in the early 1800s. I would try to confirm the dates of Jacques' birth, but 1796 is a period when the French records are gibberish to me. First, they are using the Republican calendar, and second, the script is indecipherable. So I went for the marriage record and found it. Marie Anne Etschman is the 23-year-old daughter of Joseph Etschman and Anne Marie Geiger.
Third, what were the occupations? I shall have to look more closely, but at this point it appears the men for whom I have records were farmers and carpenters.
Finally, what was happening in Alsace that made leaving more attractive than staying? France has just gone through 25 years or so of war, first the revolution and then the Napoleanic Wars. But most histories that I've read rarely mention Alsace, an area closer to Germany/Prussia than to the central areas of France. Alsace got special treatment in at least one treaty so in some ways its population had it easier than the rest of France. On the other hand, there was famine in 1827; did the Hoffs and the Bourgeois foresee it and leave while they could? Did the communities in their tiny piece of France pay them to leave the way the burgers of Magden paid the Burkeys?
So although I'm now able to fill in boxes with names and dates, there are still questions that need answering. My work here is not done.
Fun Fact 1: When I was in Mertzen in April 2015, I saw Hoffs in the cemetery there. I found it interesting but had NO idea they were MY Hoffs. The birth records I perused last night include two other Hoffs in Mertzen having children at the same time as our Hoffs: Xavier and Jacques. These are Jean's siblings. Jacques emigrated as well to Ohio and became Andrew Jacob. I can't get his birth record so I don't know where the Andrew came from; it isn't included in the CDHF index.
Fun Fact 2: In October of 1829, Sebastien Hoff, son of Francois Joseph Hoff, and Marie Ursule Bourgeois, daughter of Xavier Bourgeois, have a baby boy they name Morand. They were married November 21, 1825. These folks are closely related to our Bourgeois family.
*Fr. Blaine Burkey, O.F.M. Cap., did the original research on the Burkey ancestry and descendants. His carefully documented work meant that I didn't have to start my search with Agatha Burkey and work backwards. We maintain contact; his guidance has been invaluable.
*This was a logical step for me because one of the things that has led me to believe that MariaAna Müller and Mary Ann Miller were the same person was the Hierholzer connection to John Hoff. I suspected that John, who was godfather to several of Elizabeth Hierholzer Rudy's children, was related to Anne Marie Hoff Burkey, mother of Agatha Burkey who married Francis Joseph Bushu, son of Morand Bourgeois and Mary Ann Miller. Because Frank grew up SW of Somerset and attended Holy Trinity and St. Joseph churches, while Agatha grew up in Zanesville attending St. Nicholas church, I wondered how in the world they met, Got all that? So I wanted to confirm a relationship, if there was one, thinking they could have met through the Rudys. And there is one; Elizabeth Hierholzer Rudy was godmother to Anna Marie's last child, Teresa. Anne Marie did have a younger brother John; I don't know that he was the godfather John Hoff, but it seems probable.
*Almost all the events that I found indexed at CDHF place those events in Mertzen. The documents I have say the Hoffs and their relatives came from Fulleren, Mertzen, Altkirch, Friesen, and Largitzen. However, tiny Mertzen, population today about 350, was the location for the officials of the area. My guess is that the documents referred to were filed there.
BONUS: Just because I don't think we should ever lose sight of what our ancestors did, I suggest you ruminate upon the following. Jean and Anna Marie traveled from their tiny community where they knew everyone WITH THEIR 8 CHILDREN (the oldest was at most 17) AND ALL THEIR WORLDLY POSSESSIONS, down the Rhine River to Amsterdam or Rotterdam, boarded a ship, sailed for two weeks across the Atlantic, then found passage from wherever they landed to Zanesville, Ohio, where they planted new roots. Dancing backwards in heels suddenly doesn't sound very impressive, does it?
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