Well, hats off to ancestry.com today because they made me look at my tree in a different light and pointed out an ancestor that I might have taken little notice of for some time to come.
How did they do that?
By sending me a report that highlighted what my last name would have been if it had been passed down through my maternal line rather than my paternal line. In other words, they traced back my mother, her mother, her mother, her mother, etc. until they found the oldest matrilineal line in my tree.
This was an interesting perspective, and not one that I had taken a look at yet.
What last name did they come up with?
Largerin, the last name of my 7 g grandmother, and the subject of this week’s 52 Ancestor Challenge, Anna Maria Largerin.
The only problem with this logic is that my 7 g grandmother was a widow when she married my 7 g grandfather. So, I suspect that this last name was actually her late husband’s last name rather than her own maiden name. And, even if it were her maiden name, it would have been her father’s last name, not her mother’s…so this can get quite confusing.
Still, I was glad that ancestry pointed out this remote ancestor to me, so I decided to see what I could piece together about her life in honor of Mother’s Day.
Anna Maria Largerin was born in 1685 in Oderen, Haut-Rhin, France in the Alsace region. This geographic location makes sense because this line of my
Although Oderen is not marked on this map it is on the east side, near Switzerland, about under the V in Voges. About 100 miles from Bern, Switzerland.
ancestors were Anabaptists from Berne, Switzerland. At that time Anabaptists had endured over 100 years of persecution for their beliefs, by both the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. Even the monarchy of England had condoned their persecution, torture, and death. During the late 1600’s and early 1700’s Anabaptist refugees, largely from Berne, poured into Alsace. This region had lost a large portion of its population due to recent wars, so the government tolerated the Swiss immigration. It’s likely that Anna Maria’s parents were religious refugees.
Anabaptists were the precursors to several more recognizable religions, including the Amish, or as in my family’s case, the Mennonites. They believed in voluntary adult baptism and the ability to make an informed voluntary commitment to religion, rather than a lifelong commitment beginning at birth and recognized with infant baptism. They based their theology very closely on the Sermon on the Mount, meaning among other things, that they were pacifists who refused to take oaths or to serve in the military. These radical views were considered disruptive to the security of the government and established churches and led to violent persecution. Because of their pacifist beliefs, they refused to fight back against their persecutors. Whenever possible they immigrated to more tolerant locations, first in Europe and then in the United States.
They must have felt fairly comfortable in Alsace as they continued to live in the same town for several more generations. It wasn’t until Anna Maria’s great-granddaughter, Barbara Schneider, married a man from Basel, Switzerland that the family moved out of Alsace. Subsequently, Barbara’s daughter, Catherine Wenger, my third great-grandmother, immigrated to the United States as a teenager, in the early 1800’s.
Despite living her life in France, it’s likely that Anna Maria spoke Swiss German. This region had traditionally belonged to Germany and even though France had forcefully taken over the area, they did not require the inhabitants to change their language. Anna Maria’s family probably came from a German speaking area of Switzerland and continued speaking this language for generations. As I’ve written about previously, her descendants who immigrated to Indiana 150 years later still spoke this distinct dialect.
Anna Maria was a widow when she married my 7 great grandfather, Joannis Baubenriedt, in 1714. She was only 29 years old. It’s not known whether she already had children at the time of her marriage. She and Joannis did have nine children over the first 16 years of their marriage, including their 6th child, Barbara, my 6 great grandmother.
Unfortunately, nothing more is known about Anna Maria after the birth of her last child in 1730, when she was 45. But, now that she’s on my mind, I’ll start digging to see what information I can find out from French records.
The following (all female!) list shows how I am related to Anna Maria. If you are related to any members of this family, I’d be interested in hearing from you.
Also, let me know, what great grandmother do you find in your family tree when you search back through your mother’s line? Perhaps there is someone just waiting for her story to be told.
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