My Ggrandfather, Samuel WITTMANN, left Sandhausen/Baden in1875 as a young man of 27 years. I would like to know the same things about this area and time. Thank you, Margaret Wittman Langdon >My GR. (5) GF. Johannes Syffer/Seifen was born about 1700 in Mehren, >Westerwald, Germany. I am interested in learning what life was like for a >person living in the area of Mehren, Westerwald of Germany in 1700 -1726! > >Would like to learn about: >(a) houses >(b) crops they grew & animals raised >(c) schooling >(d) clothing >(e) church life >(f) Military obligations >(g) modes of transportation >(h) difficulty in leaving area to go to America > >I appreciate all those who responded! Thanks! John [email protected] > >

I had to do a google search to find out where Westerwald is - western Hesse and eastern Rheinland. In 1815, it looks like Nassau. I still don't know if my Burbach was in Nassau or Westphalia, although it is in Westphalia now. My people there were in a protestant church, although there were Catholic records for the same village. I was thinking of 1700 as a peaceful time, but now I read that all of Europe was fighting with France until the peace of Ryswick in 1698. This was followed by the war of Spanish succession in 1701 which was again Austria and the German empire against France. Holborn writes that the French had propagated Catholicism in the German territories they occupied and that they insisted on a clause to solidify those religious 'gains'. Thus former protestant territories became mixed territiories. "The 'Ryswick clause' produced endless controversies in the Empire. Moreover, it turned the Palatinate, under Karl Ludwig recently a model of toleration, into a center of acrimonius denominational conflict and oppression." So my Huguenot ancestors had fled Louis XIV's oppression to settle in the Palatinate, and the religious controversies follow them into Germany. I wonder how many of the Huguenots went with my ancestor to Pennsylvania in 1732. I read on the Westphalia site that William Penn had visited Wesphalia in the late 1600s encouraging people to move to Pennsylvania where there was religious toleration. Baden and 1870 Baden-Durlach was protestant, Baden-Baden was catholic. Sandhausen appears to have been in Baden-Durlach. Carl Frederick came to the throne there in 1738 and inherited Baden-Baden in 1771. He "conducted his government in a paternal, though mild and enlightened, fashion." Serfdom was abolished in 1783. Carl died in 1811. In 1870 Germany was unified under Prussian hegemony, and the Prussians quickly won the Franco-Prussian war and marched into Paris. Thus your ancestor went from a resident of the Kingdom of Baden to a resident in the German Reich. Probably this change also brought a change in military obligations. Also with the addition of Alsace to Germany, Sandhausen moved further away from the French border. Thomas Koch ----- Original Message ----- From: M Langdon <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 9:29 PM Subject: Re: [GERMAN-LIFE] Life in Sandhausen/Baden 1850-1875 > My Ggrandfather, Samuel WITTMANN, left Sandhausen/Baden in1875 as a young > man of 27 years. I would like to know the same things about this area and > time. > > Thank you, > Margaret Wittman Langdon > > > >My GR. (5) GF. Johannes Syffer/Seifen was born about 1700 in Mehren, > >Westerwald, Germany. I am interested in learning what life was like for a > >person living in the area of Mehren, Westerwald of Germany in 1700 -1726! > > > >Would like to learn about: > >(a) houses > >(b) crops they grew & animals raised > >(c) schooling > >(d) clothing > >(e) church life > >(f) Military obligations > >(g) modes of transportation > >(h) difficulty in leaving area to go to America > > > >I appreciate all those who responded! Thanks! John [email protected] > > > > >