This part of my ancestral investigation has brought me to the early French-Reformed communities of Mittelfranken in Bavaria. The cities of Erlangen and Schwabach were at that time located in the historical states of Brandenburg-Bayreuth and Brandenburg-Ansbach respectively, and also the village of Wilhelmsdorf, which has a more involved early political history. The town was purchased from the Margrave Christian Ernst of Bayreuth by Sir Isaac Buirette von Oehlefeld, an interesting person of Walloon origins, and in one source the village was listed as part of Bayreuth-Culmbach.

These are the persons representing the five lines of Huguenot ancestry which I am investigating.

1.] Jean SALE
He is first documented in the Wilhelmsdorf French-Reformed Kirchenbuch (FRKB) at his marriage in 1719. Later he is listed as Jean LaSale and Jean Sales at the births of his children. He was a stocking-maker in Wilhelmsdorf and he was buried there very early in 1744. His parents and his origins have not been established. Several years after his death, members of his family moved to Erlangen.

2.] Marie Antoinette AVIÉNY
She was the wife of Jean SALE and is listed in the Wilhelmsdorf FRKB as the mother of their children. She was born in Wilhelmsdorf in 1701 according to the research of Eugen Bellon published in his book, "Scattered to all the Winds (1685-1720):…" Her father, Daniel Aviény, was for over 20 years the first secretary for the second foundation (1694) of a French community in Wilhelmsdorf. His origins were in the village of Abriès in the Queyras valley, up in the mountains of eastern Dauphiné southeast of Grenoble, now in Hautes-Alpes (05) There is some further information on this man and his family from Bellon and other sources.

3.] Sigismond Daniel Eberhard HORNIG
He was married in Erlangen-Neustadt in 1764. He was a church musician in the town of Bruck and is presumed to have then become the organist for the French-Reformed Church of Erlangen. His parents are listed as Jean Daniel HORNIG and Sophie Christine Sänger. His wife was Catalene Vielzeuf. At the time of the wedding, his father was a French-Reformed music director in Heilbron and his mother was deceased.
If this family name really has a French origin, it appears at this time to have been completely Germanized. Huguenot listings show surnames such as HORNUS or HORNISSE, but nothing has been established.

4.] Antoine VIELZEUF
He was married in Schwabach in 1719 according to Wilhelm Beuleke’s listings in "Kolonielisten" (from data provided by the German Huguenot Society) and he was the father of Catalene Vielzeuf (1743). His place and date of birth are not known, but he died in Erlangen in 1754 at age 60. His parents were Pierre Vielzeuf and Marguerite Chantelonne from the village of Saint-Maurice-de-Ventalon. The village was located in Gévaudan, according to the German sources, or located in the parish of Saint-Germain-de-Calberte in the Cévennes in other listings. Today it is in Lozère (48). Additional listings are found in Beuleke’s "Die Hugenotten-Kolonien in Franken."

5.] Marie Madeleine FONTANÈS | FONTANEZ
She was the wife of Antoine Vielzeuf and mother of Catalene. She was born in Schwabach in 1701 and her parents were Fleury Fontanès and Madeleine Couton. It is believed that he was from the town of Sommières north of Nîmes in the Languedoc, now Gard (30). She died in Erlangen in 1772. Her data is from the same two Beuleke references. The actual sources remain intangible and somewhat evasive from my perspective.

Much of the early refugee settlement in Erlangen and particularly in Wilhelmsdorf was transitory rather that longer lasting. There was sickness in Erlangen and Georg Schanz has published a list of those departing in 1687/88. The French community founded at Wilhelmsdorf in 1686 failed several years later on and it was the second foundation of 1694 that soon became a major player in the stocking manufacturing industry. The French community in the city of Schwabach was also founded early on, but both of my Schwabach families, though found the city census of 1716, do not appear to be among the founders. Of course there was a situation building up in the south of France that led to the Camisard Revolt c. 1700 indicating a continuing state of unrest.

Much of the data relating to the Huguenot refuges in Mittelfranken thus far has naturally focused on Erlangen and is mostly prior to 1700, with the other part found in the later census listings from Schwabach. My investigations, meanwhile, are outside Erlangen early on and only converge there in the Erlangen FRKB beginning several decades later. (c. 1735 from Schwabach, c. 1750 from Wilhelmsdorf & 1764 in Erlangen-Neustadt) For whatever reasons, the accessibility of data in the second decade (1695-1705) after the revocation is far more limited than it is for the first. And it is during this time closer to 1700 that several groups of refugees who had been in various Swiss cities are said to arrive in the Mittelfranken area, such as the troupe of Anthoine Tholozan in 1699 listed by August Ebrard.

Always interested to compare notes with others involved in similar investigations.




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